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			San Jose Mercury News (CA) June 7, 2004 Section: Arts & Entertainment Edition: Morning Final - Page: 1C MASTERPIECE STREET THEATER S.J. CHALK ARTIST WILL RE-CREATE LEONARDO'S MONA LISA ON STREET AT SAN RAFAEL FESTIVAL THIS WEEK MARK WHITTINGTON, Mercury News Cuong Nguyen spends most days designing tiny Web site icons at Yahoo's Sunnyvale campus. But this week, he's putting down his electronic pencil and picking up brightly colored chalk. He'll spend five days on his hands and knees, conjuring a huge Mona Lisa on the San Rafael blacktop. ''From the beginning, you can see everything come up out of the ground. An eye. A face,'' says the 34-year-old Vietnamese immigrant. ''The whole street turns into a painting.'' Nguyen, who lives in San Jose, is the featured artist at the Italian Street Painting Festival on Saturday and Sunday in San Rafael. His 16-by-20-foot ''canvas'' will be a tribute to Leonardo da Vinci that includes Mona Lisa sitting in a studio surrounded by other works and inventions by the artist. ''Extreme art,'' Nguyen calls the grueling process. He'll start this drawing at 7 a.m. Wednesday and work 12 hours a day to finish by 3 p.m. Sunday. ''You have to be able to handle the heat, handle the sun, handle the chalk, handle the dust,'' he says. ''You use your fingers to blend the colors. After a summer of five or six festivals, I have no fingerprints.'' Some artists use gloves. Nguyen can't -- sweaty palms. He does use kneepads, and he has learned to sit correctly, to stretch, to relax. He's even taking yoga. ''At first, I painted for 10 hours. The next day, I can't move.'' But it's worth it to watch his creation emerge from the freshly resurfaced street. ''Black is a perfect surface for chalk. You can control the color,'' he says, explaining that he'll use at least three boxes of dry pastel chalk to complete his work. ''You can build layers of color -- colors in colors, layers upon layers. When you look, you see that yellow is not just yellow; it has blue in it, and green in it.'' And then . . . ''Days and days, hours and hours. Then they take the water to it, and it's gone. I can't handle it,'' he says of the cleanup. He has watched only once. Nguyen says the street painting helps feed an artistic drive deep inside him. ''I figure I was born with it,'' he says. Nguyen grew up in Saigon, the youngest in a family of six daughters and three sons. His family was poor, he says, and his 6B pencil was his prize possession. ''I would draw day and night.'' At 10, he began training as a traditional portrait artist in watercolors, pastels and oil on silk. By 14, he was making money painting commissioned portraits. At 18, he began studying at the Academy of Art in Ho Chi Minh City. At 21, he came to the United States to join a sister who was studying here. He spoke no English. His only skill was art. ''I think, 'This might be a tough life, artist.' I don't think I'm able to make a living,'' he says. So he went back to school at West Valley College and then studied illustration at San Jose State University. He worked at Viet Mercury and got a job at Yahoo four years ago. He designs icons and images for the Yahoo Messenger and other company Web applications. ''It's a fun job. It's unique. It's a good company. But digital images are not what I love to do. What I'm painting every day is 50 by 50 pixels, as big as this,'' he says, indicating the tip of his little finger. So, at night he paints in a small studio in his San Jose home. He's had a few shows and a couple of paintings hanging in museums for temporary exhibits. But he's not quitting his day job. ''I paint for myself.'' Except when he paints for the masses, like this weekend. ''You can't be shy. You are working in the street. You are entertaining people. They enjoy it a lot. They want to interview you, talk to you.'' It's hard at times to keep focused, he says. ''After a while you lose your voice, your eyes are tired. But I love it. I love the attention. It's fun.'' A co-worker, Sara Mordecai, persuaded him to try street painting in San Rafael three years ago. At first he was intimidated by the size -- the smallest painting is 4 by 6 feet. ''It's too big. You get nervous,'' he says with a laugh. He has since won competitions at Santana Row and in San Francisco. ''I won two tickets to go to Italy and see Michelangelo's work,'' he says. ''The very first year, I could see that he was going to be a superstar,'' says Sue Carlomagno, who organizes the San Rafael festival, which is a benefit for a youth arts program. She skipped over him last year when the festival celebrated its 10th anniversary by having a team of 30 artists re-create the Sistine Chapel's ceiling. His portrait skills made him a natural choice when she decided on the Leonardo theme for this year's festival. The Leonardo work is different for Nguyen. It's the first time he has copied a masterwork -- something that's common for many street artists. Nguyen usually paints portraits of friends and family, doing thumbnail sketches, transferring them to a grid and then producing the finished art on the street. Artists have tried unsuccessfully for 500 years to re-create Leonardo's masterpiece. ''No one makes another. There is something mysterious,'' says Nguyen, who has never been to the Louvre to see the original. ''It's a big challenge. Everybody knows her. Everybody loves her.'' ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright (c) 2004 San Jose Mercury News


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			San Jose Mercury News (CA) June 7, 2004 Section: Arts & Entertainment Edition: Morning Final - Page: 1C MASTERPIECE STREET THEATER S.J. CHALK ARTIST WILL RE-CREATE LEONARDO'S MONA LISA ON STREET AT SAN RAFAEL FESTIVAL THIS WEEK MARK WHITTINGTON, Mercury News Cuong Nguyen spends most days designing tiny Web site icons at Yahoo's Sunnyvale campus. But this week, he's putting down his electronic pencil and picking up brightly colored chalk. He'll spend five days on his hands and knees, conjuring a huge Mona Lisa on the San Rafael blacktop. ''From the beginning, you can see everything come up out of the ground. An eye. A face,'' says the 34-year-old Vietnamese immigrant. ''The whole street turns into a painting.'' Nguyen, who lives in San Jose, is the featured artist at the Italian Street Painting Festival on Saturday and Sunday in San Rafael. His 16-by-20-foot ''canvas'' will be a tribute to Leonardo da Vinci that includes Mona Lisa sitting in a studio surrounded by other works and inventions by the artist. ''Extreme art,'' Nguyen calls the grueling process. He'll start this drawing at 7 a.m. Wednesday and work 12 hours a day to finish by 3 p.m. Sunday. ''You have to be able to handle the heat, handle the sun, handle the chalk, handle the dust,'' he says. ''You use your fingers to blend the colors. After a summer of five or six festivals, I have no fingerprints.'' Some artists use gloves. Nguyen can't -- sweaty palms. He does use kneepads, and he has learned to sit correctly, to stretch, to relax. He's even taking yoga. ''At first, I painted for 10 hours. The next day, I can't move.'' But it's worth it to watch his creation emerge from the freshly resurfaced street. ''Black is a perfect surface for chalk. You can control the color,'' he says, explaining that he'll use at least three boxes of dry pastel chalk to complete his work. ''You can build layers of color -- colors in colors, layers upon layers. When you look, you see that yellow is not just yellow; it has blue in it, and green in it.'' And then . . . ''Days and days, hours and hours. Then they take the water to it, and it's gone. I can't handle it,'' he says of the cleanup. He has watched only once. Nguyen says the street painting helps feed an artistic drive deep inside him. ''I figure I was born with it,'' he says. Nguyen grew up in Saigon, the youngest in a family of six daughters and three sons. His family was poor, he says, and his 6B pencil was his prize possession. ''I would draw day and night.'' At 10, he began training as a traditional portrait artist in watercolors, pastels and oil on silk. By 14, he was making money painting commissioned portraits. At 18, he began studying at the Academy of Art in Ho Chi Minh City. At 21, he came to the United States to join a sister who was studying here. He spoke no English. His only skill was art. ''I think, 'This might be a tough life, artist.' I don't think I'm able to make a living,'' he says. So he went back to school at West Valley College and then studied illustration at San Jose State University. He worked at Viet Mercury and got a job at Yahoo four years ago. He designs icons and images for the Yahoo Messenger and other company Web applications. ''It's a fun job. It's unique. It's a good company. But digital images are not what I love to do. What I'm painting every day is 50 by 50 pixels, as big as this,'' he says, indicating the tip of his little finger. So, at night he paints in a small studio in his San Jose home. He's had a few shows and a couple of paintings hanging in museums for temporary exhibits. But he's not quitting his day job. ''I paint for myself.'' Except when he paints for the masses, like this weekend. ''You can't be shy. You are working in the street. You are entertaining people. They enjoy it a lot. They want to interview you, talk to you.'' It's hard at times to keep focused, he says. ''After a while you lose your voice, your eyes are tired. But I love it. I love the attention. It's fun.'' A co-worker, Sara Mordecai, persuaded him to try street painting in San Rafael three years ago. At first he was intimidated by the size -- the smallest painting is 4 by 6 feet. ''It's too big. You get nervous,'' he says with a laugh. He has since won competitions at Santana Row and in San Francisco. ''I won two tickets to go to Italy and see Michelangelo's work,'' he says. ''The very first year, I could see that he was going to be a superstar,'' says Sue Carlomagno, who organizes the San Rafael festival, which is a benefit for a youth arts program. She skipped over him last year when the festival celebrated its 10th anniversary by having a team of 30 artists re-create the Sistine Chapel's ceiling. His portrait skills made him a natural choice when she decided on the Leonardo theme for this year's festival. The Leonardo work is different for Nguyen. It's the first time he has copied a masterwork -- something that's common for many street artists. Nguyen usually paints portraits of friends and family, doing thumbnail sketches, transferring them to a grid and then producing the finished art on the street. Artists have tried unsuccessfully for 500 years to re-create Leonardo's masterpiece. ''No one makes another. There is something mysterious,'' says Nguyen, who has never been to the Louvre to see the original. ''It's a big challenge. Everybody knows her. Everybody loves her.'' ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright (c) 2004 San Jose Mercury News