Ngay Ta

Artist's creations rise like smoke from a flame (OZZIE ROBERTS Making it)

January 7, 2003

Smoke from a candle's flame helps soothe the soul of Ngay Duc Ta. It is the lifeblood of his main love – painting.

And nothing puts him more at ease than working on his art.

But where some artists paint in charcoal or ink, Ngay does it with soot from the smoke that collects in a small tin cup he holds upside down over a burning candle.

He does it, too, with "paintbrushes" he fashions out of cotton balls, pen shafts, thin sticks and plastic straws.

Ngay, a struggling artist with a family to support, came up with the ideas for the unusual materials and the unusual tools three years ago.

He was searching for an inexpensive alternative to the hard-to-find painter's powder he used decades ago as a kid growing up in Vietnam.

He's an inventive man of simple tastes who also writes music and plays classical guitar. Through his 18-year-old daughter, Giang, who acts as interpreter, Ngay says: "I like that I can take something considered waste and use it to make something beautiful that inspires the heart."

And his work certainly does that.

Ngay's portraits – his favorite form of expression – are so lifelike that they appear to be recently snapped photographs.

The sharp contrasts and the fine detailing in such works as his President Bush, his Princess Diana or his rose in full bloom can make you feel almost as if the subject is in the room with you.

It's all the more remarkable when you consider that the 47-year-old Ngay, who has coped with polio and its aftereffects from age 1, is self-taught in music and art. And until three years ago, he had not painted a thing in two decades.

He put painting aside then to do what seemed more effective at keeping his family fed in his native land: He and his wife of 22 years, Hien Kieu, designed and sold printed T-shirts for a living.

Eventually, in 1999, they came to America, seeking to give their three young kids a better run at life.

In their view, opportunities, especially those in education, were extremely limited for their children in war-ravaged Vietnam, and reuniting with relatives in San Diego would be best for the kids.

They knew that it would be hard sledding in a strange new land.

But they wanted their kids to be more than they were: two T-shirt sellers, struggling to make ends meet amid a shaky economy, yet suffering the effects of a decades-old civil conflict.

Giang, Ngay's firstborn child, acknowledges that her father knew best, although times have been hard in high-cost San Diego.

"I love my father. He's very understanding and supportive," she says. "He's super smart; a (stickler) for details. And he always has good advice."

Sometimes the wisdom is hard to see. The five-member family is crammed into a tiny two-bedroom home in a low-rent corner of blue collar Linda Vista.

Ngay, who speaks limited English and gets around with the aid of braces and crutches, finds it hard to get full-time work.

Hien paints nails in a salon to support the clan. The pay isn't much, and relatives have had to kick in on occasions.

But Giang and her two brothers, ages 13 and 8, are exceptional students with lots of promise.

And although it's been hard getting his work noticed, Ngay stays high on the idea of supplementing the family income through the sale of his paintings.

The Linda Vista Library has kept Ngay's Bush portrait on display for six months. They have been extremely helpful, doing everything from fielding inquiries about him and his art to helping him follow up on leads.

All the support helps keep his resolve strong, as do lessons from the past.

Ngay's family, in which he was the sixth of seven kids, could never afford special schools.

So as a teen, after falling in love with drawing in third grade, he taught himself techniques from books. He did the same thing after classical music began to share his fancy some years later.

Today, he can reflect: "When you love something – like I love drawing – you never forget it. And when you do it, you try to do your best at it no matter what."

And that makes it pay off in the deepest places.