To celebrate the Lunar New Year, the Arts Centre will be joining Asian Americans For Equality at the New York Lunar New Year Flower Festival which will be held for 2 days at the at Sara D. Roosevelt Park at Chinatown, New York on Friday to Saturday, February 12 – 13, 2010.

AAAC’s booth will be presenting artists include: Rose Sigal-Ibsen, calligrapher, Kavita Vyas - an Indian Mehandi hand painting artist, Karen K. Ahn, Korean Macreme, Shao Hua Yu, Grass Master Animal Figurine Artist, Ming Liang Lu, Mater Papercutter. and Jampa Youden, a Tibetan Folk Singer will be performing a selection of folk songs on stage.

Audiences will have the opportunity to interact with skilled folk artists who demonstrate their crafts and will have the opportunity to ask questions, make requests and the chance to learn and delight in the magic of a traditional craft and to enjoy traditional folk singing. This is an ideal event for families. The music, art and performances will delight both old and young alike. Festival admission is FREE!

Kavita Vyas practices the Art of Mehandi, the art of painting designs on hands and feet. Mehandi designs use animals and floral patterns, sometimes even musical instruments, taking hours to finish. It began over 100 years ago in India by the Muslims, mostly in Pakistan. It is also widely done by the Arab people. She learned this art form from the master Mrs. Saroj Oza, who created the cone method. Kavita loves Mehandi art because she can create new designs each time she paints. Kavita and her Mehandi art was covered on the 10 o'clock news, Channel 11.

Kwok Kay Choey was born in Singapore and learned to play the Er Hu as a teenager with Wu Gong-xi. Since 1964, he has been a resident member of the New York Chinese Music Ensemble and has performed in its bi-annual season each year in New York City as well as performing in the tri-state area. He is also a painter, calligrapher and Tai Chi master.

Jampa Youden grew up in one of the many nomadic communities in Tibet, where the land is vast (larger than Texas and California together), streams are crystal clear, where there are herds of sheep, birds, meadows of fragrant flowers and medicinal plants, surrounded by snow capped mountains. He learned to sing from his grandfather. The songs are of nomadic life since 70% of the Tibetan population is nomadic. From a family of singers, he and his brothers were often invited to sing at special occasions, weddings and parties. At age thirty he escaped with family members to Nepal before coming to the United States. Separated from his family here, singing makes him happy, and it also makes others happy. He thinks singing is like medicine. He says, "It is free to be happy." He tells of the Tibetan proverb, "When you are happy, you enjoy wine. When you are sad, you must tame your mind."

Ming Liang Lu began studying calligraphy with his father at the age of five. He also studied carving, sculpture and engraving under the tutelage of renowned Shanghai artists such as Zheng Chi Lai, Shu Xun Long and Wu Su Wei. In 1981 he was commissioned to replicate a miniature scale model of Qing Pu Dai Guan Garden with 796 stone sculptures, some as small as a grain of rice. His sculptures were exhibited in the US from 1980 to 1985 and received wide acclaim. A creation from this period, "Dawn", was enlarged into a public art piece over five meters tall and is now permanently installed in the Shanghai Hua Xin Garden. He been in the US for nineteen years and continues to receive awards at various art shows here.

Rose Ibsen-Sigal has practiced calligraphy for many years and won critical acclaim for her work. Born in Romania and migrating from Israel to the US, she worked as an enamelist after studying at FIT. In 1979 she began her study of Sumi ink at the KoHo School of Sumi-e in NY and later Chinese brushwork at the Zhejiang Academy in China. She has won Awards of Excellence from the Kampo Cultural Center and from the Manhattan Arts International magazine. She has exhibited widely, for example, in China at the Fourth World Conferenc on Women in Beijing, in Bucharest at the Romanian Cultural Foundation, and in the US at the Steinhardt Conservatory and the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC.

Karen K. Ahn learned Korean Knotting or Macrame as a young adult from a master Knotting folk artist name Kim Hae Soon in 1981. When Karen was attending college, she met her as a part of the Institute for Traditional Art and had many private lessons with her. Korean Knottig is different from Chinese Macreme as well as different from Celtic Knotting, being a highly complex form of the art.

Kung Shi first began studying painting with Sun Man Bein, a master painter in Guangzhou, at the age of fifteen towards the end of the Cultural Revolution. Shi’s older brother was an art student and a friend of Sun Man Bein when he introduced him. Shi brought his paintings to Sun’s home where Sun would critique his work and demonstrate brush strokes for Shi to go home and emulate. Sun Man Bein was able to show his young student works of other painters and calligraphers from his collection of books and encouraged him to study more such art albums. Kung Shi continued as his student for more than eight years, before he emigrated to New York City in 1979. His style of painting is based on a style from Shanghai, emphasizing brushwork, quite distinct from the Lingnan style prevalent in Guangzhou at the time that was concerned with subject matter and the question of light coming from the West through Japan. He continues to study calligraphy and teach his students with the same kind of individual attention he received from his master.

Shao Hua Yu learned to make animals by weaving palm leaves together from his father who learned it from his mother. He taught him how to make snakes and frogs which he found very simple and easy. By traveling around China and seeing other master's work he gathered many skills and expanded his repertoire. It takes energy to make these works and is very time consuming. The pride and joy he takes in his craft is conveyed to all people and especially children who marvel and are fascinated by his mastery of this charming folk art. Because of his diligence and love for this simple craft - for one cannot do this without love - and the novelty of his street performance, this may be one Chinese folk art that can survive within the complex economy and gadgetry of New York City.

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