Member Gallery: William Lum

Artist's Statement

Born May 29, 1953 in San Francisco. At age ten became part of a after school science group known as Lux Laboratories and helped with professor field biological research. I assisted in the discovery of 60 new species of spiders over a period of a decade. One species was named after me, Microcina lumii. In college I took a few art classes but obtained an A.S. in Design-drafting Engineering Technology. At this time I also played bass in a soul band in nightclubs. I later obtained a Bachelors Degree from St. Marys college in Management.

I was employed as a Deputy Sheriff for the City of San Francisco 1977 for a year, then later went to work for the City of Sunnyvale as a Public Safety Officer in 1978. I'm still with Sunnyvale and I work as a Police Officer, EMT and a Firefighter. I'm also a Hazardous Materials Specialist and a Truckman.

In 1993, I discovered that my birth parents (I was adopted by a Chinese Widow). In searching my family roots I was told that my Great Uncle was Dong Kingman. My Great Aunt gave me a copy of his biographical book, Paint the Yellow Tiger. After reading the book, I ran across a cheap watercolor set in the closet and decided to experiment with painting. Self-taught and two years later I won the Sunnyvale Artist of the Year Award. I finally met Kingman at one of his seminars in 1995 and his closing words of advice were, "You can't learn art from a teacher, you have to figure it out for yourself.".