My Artwork is on TV!
Licensing artwork for “American Born Chinese” and “Awkwafina is Nora From Queens”, 2023
I was lucky enough to have my art on both “American Born Chinese” on Disney+ and Season 3 of “Awkwafina is Nora from Queens” on Comedy Central in 2023. I get asked how I was contacted for these opportunities and both times the set design team reached out to me. It’s no surprise both these shows are centered around Asian American characters and stories, and I’ve made enough work that would work well on these sets. I also made most of the pieces in 2019 and 2020, so they have been in my portfolio for awhile. I never would have predicted these would share screen time with the likes of Michelle Yeoh, Awkwafina, and Bowen Yang. We’re also in an era of incredible Asian American shows and movies, particularly around East Asians, so I’m grateful to be a teeny tiny part of the amazing storytelling out there today.
First up is “American Born Chinese” on Disney+. The set designer reached out in February 2022 about using two pieces of mine (only one had screen time), which was more than a year before the show aired. I hadn’t read the graphic novel, but I grew up on stories about Sun Wukong (the Monkey King) and other characters in Chinese mythology, so my partner and I were excited to watch. After a few episodes, I was wondering where my art would show up, and I was so happy to see it in the last 2 episodes in Guanyin’s apartment. Michelle Yeoh’s character, the Goddess of Mercy, furnished her apartment on Earth with my Yellow Flowers! What an honor.
Next is “Awkwafina is Nora from Queens” on Comedy Central. Charlene Wang De Chen was the set decorator and her team reached out in October 2022 to inquire about using some of my works in the show. She wrote a full blog post about curating an Asian American collection as part of Season 3’s set design. While the characters themselves may not have consciously chosen Asian American art themselves, Charlene made that decision for them. And reading that crystallized how awesome it is when multiple creative practices from fine art to writing to set design come together for the purpose of serving a show and its story. Check out her blog to read more about how the set designs came together and about the other artists on the show!
Fun fact - Charlene owns some of my art and I got to illustrate her Popo’s recipe for an intergenerational cookbook I did with Slant’d in 2020. I love how life is sometimes so wonderfully interconnected.
Finally, I wanted to add that I was paid a licensing fee for these pieces. I only spoke with two other creatives who had either experience or fielded inquiries to use their work on TV shows. One had their art bought from their online store and just used on set, and another was asked to PAY $1,000 for their work to be on screen for 4 minutes. Set designers don’t have huge budgets, but the two I worked with honored my licensing fee to use my art on screen, which is the right way to go.
