逝者如斯。古人認為時間如流水，捉不著，留不低，只是永恆地走動著。今日有人卻說時間如行雲，變幻莫測，此刻的感受只留在此刻之中，當下一刻蒞臨，那管是眨眼之間，看過的景會變，碰過的人會走，下一刻隨即變成這一刻，而這一刻，就不再是上一刻了。人在一傾刻與一傾刻之間，既不可留著時間，也不可返回過去，更不可溜到未來，唯一可以做的，就是把握著這一刻，感受著這一秒，好好的活在當下。時間若行雲，每當看著沈君怡的水墨作品時，我都會細味她這種頗有玩味的藝思。

Some say that time is like water, which cannot be caught but just keeps on running. Others say that time is like a cloud, which is ever changing. You may have a feeling at this moment, but you will only be able to hold on to it in this moment. Once the next moment comes, the people you have met may go, and the scene you have glimpsed may disappear. Even though it just takes a fleeting moment, the next moment will become this moment, and this moment will no longer be the same as the last moment. As time goes by, we certainly cannot go back to the past, stay in the present, or intrude into the future. The only thing we can do is to take our time in this very moment and carpe diem (seize the day). These reflections on time are actually an artist statement by the young artist Shum Kwan Yi. Whenever I look at her paintings, I ponder deeply over the playfulness of her philosophical thought.

沈君怡是我過去一位在香港浸會大學視覺藝術院的學生，別名阿蟬，但現在已是一位香港新進的當代水墨藝術家。她在大學唸書時已喜歡舐筆弄墨，能將她在生活中所碰過的人、所看過的景都化成一件件的水墨作品。她的作品既不造作，也不掩飾，所以她的繪畫都蘊含着一份真摯。水墨藝術向來都是一項難以駕馭的類別，技巧難掌控，背後的理論又不易把握，故此阿蟬在大學時對水墨的認真研究，都教我和她身邊同學的感動。今天，阿蟬的展覽以「雲說」作一概念來貫穿她一系列的山水作品，透露出在她對身邊出現的一事一物在當下的一份情感。我喜歡停留在她的作品前細看，原因是她的繪畫既不炫耀那些技巧，又不賣弄那些概念，而是自然而然地讓觀者投入她的世界裡去感受她凝視的那一刻，直接讓心靈觸碰。

Shum Kwan Yi, alias Ar Sim, was one of my students at The Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University, and is now a promising contemporary ink artist based in Hong Kong. When studying at university, Ar Sim was fond of transforming the people and scenery around her into ink paintings. Characterised by no mannerism, Ar Sim’s works could be regarded as a platform to display her sincerity and enthusiasm from the bottom of her heart. For most artists, ink painting is always a challenge because it is not easy to learn, either technically or conceptually. Thus, Ar Sim’s persistence in studying ink art was always rewarded with compliments from her classmates and from me. Today, Ar Sim intends to link up a series of her artworks using an artistic concept she calls ‘Cloud Sayings’ in the hope of grasping some moments in her life and revealing her feelings about the people and the landscapes she has encountered in the past. Frankly, one of the reasons I enjoy looking at her paintings is that there is never any technical or conceptual showing off in them, so I can become directly involved in the moment she was gazing at those people and those scenes, and then I can get in touch with her soul.

我會把她的作品分為兩個類別，一是「行雲如流水」，一是「坐看雲起時」。

In this exhibition, I prefer to separate Ar Sim’s paintings into two categories: one is ‘Clouds Running Like Water’; the other is ‘Ever-Changing Clouds’.

行雲如流水

Clouds Running Like Water

若時間是行雲，它行如流水其實就是「逝者如斯」的意思。藝術家對時間的停留與逝去向來都有不同的表現，譬如北宋巨碑式的山水，主峰支配著萬物而萬物則依循附和，透視出「道」在天地間的運行不斷，進而產生一種永恆的時間性。寫意畫家則陶醉於舐筆弄墨，著重於起筆與收筆那一刻的牽絲帶動，或者那些墨色在宣紙上的潑灑渲染，意圖在一傾間表現出微細的筆墨變化，衍生出一種瞬間的時間性。有的山水畫家喜愛山林之樂，能在一條長長的手卷中以不同的透視與不同的角度來呈現不同的自然景色，表現出郭熙所說「可觀、可行、可遊」的觀念；王希孟的《千里江山》或元代黃公望的《富春山居》長卷就是其中的例子。觀者可以一面打開畫卷的同時，一面穿越時空，遨遊萬里。阿蟬的《時間遊記－從馬鞍到水井》，雖是横幅的處理，但其構圖與佈景則與手卷無異。全畫是個日常旅程，像人晨運一像，由一個景走到另一個景點，而每個景點皆真有其景，就是由她住處旁的馬鞍山郊野公園，一直向西貢沿途所見的小巴站、瀑布、昂平草原、昂平營地、大金鐘，及至終點的大水井。儘管畫面盡是山石草木，有烟雲夾雜其中，但有別於一般的山水畫家，阿蟬畫中的主體並不是雲水木石，也不是這一口水井，或是那一面車站牌，而是她在這個旅程中所停留的一刻；所以你沒有看見什麼名山大川，什麼千年古蹟，只有這一條名不經傳的小瀑布，那一處耳熟能詳小巴站，一切都是平淡，一切都是生活，讓人不禁想到的是，為什麼在這旅程中會有一刻停留下來？我相信，阿蟬所描寫的正正是生命中的一刻鐘，就是這一刻鐘，內裡沒有驚天動地的命題，但從她細膩的描寫中可看到她有一種獨特的感情放進去，令一景一物都細水流長。

Assuming that the cloud is a metaphor for time, if we say that clouds run like water, we mean that time keeps running and nothing can pause it. In the past, artists such as those who created monumental landscape paintings in the Northern Song dynasty were always sensitive to time. In their works, the imposing mountain located in the centre right of the painting dominates the whole world, while other landscape motifs are submissive to it. The relationship between them reveals that the ‘Dao’ incessantly governs the universe, suggesting a sense of eternity. Some artists, in contrast, were technically concerned about how brushstrokes could be connected by fine gossamer lines, or how ink spread out over the surface of highly porous rice paper. Such subtle executions of brush and ink always happened in an instant, which highlighted the fleeting nature of time. In addition, some landscape artists enjoyed travelling in nature and capturing multiple perspectives on scenic sites in long handscrolls with the purpose of allowing viewers ‘To View, To Walk, To Travel’, which is Guo Xi’s theory of landscape painting. A Thousand Li of River by Wang Ximeng and Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains by Huang Gongwang are examples. When rolling out these landscape handscrolls, readers can travel through time and space with the artists. Although Ar Sim’s Time Travel: From Ma On Shan to Tai Shui Tseng is a horizontal painting, she considers it a handscroll in terms of the spatial arrangement and composition. The painting is about the artist’s daily hike to Sai Kung from Ma On Shan, the district in which the artist lives. All the sites in the picture reflect real places, including Ma On Shan Country Park, a van station, a waterfall, Ngong Ping Plateau and Campsite, Pyramid Hill and Tai Shui Tseng. Although the landscape motifs and facilities such as the mountains, forests, clouds, van stop and water-well occupy the whole scroll, they are not the keys to the painting. They are all too ordinary in themselves and not special enough to be drawn in such minute detail. Therefore, I postulate that Ar Sim’s focus is not on any particular object, but rather on the moment itself when she looks at the subject matter, no matter how anonymous or how common it seems. However, the question is why would Ar Sim, for example, stay before a waterfall or gaze at a corner of a street for a certain length of time? I reckon that it is because life may be flat and mundane, but c’est la vie. Ar Sim puts no drama into her work, so that feelings from the bottom of her heart can be deeply implanted into each everyday object, offering another layer to look at her paintings.

居斯塔夫 · 庫爾貝（Gustave Courbet)曾說過：我不會畫天使，因為我從來沒有見過他們。這句話的意義在於藝術家要對現實忠誠。對於阿蟬來說，所謂「真實」並不單單是流於看到不看到，也不是寫一生人只遊過一次的山川名勝，而是對真真實實地落到日常生活中，在一刻間對生活的觀察與體會。一個車站的觀察可能只是當下的一刻，但它在生命當中的重複出現卻帶來一種永恆性，再將它串連到下一刻所看到的小瀑布，又或者一口井，當下的感覺又會換來一種時間的流動性，將時間變得複雜。

Gustave Courbet said, ‘Show me an angel, and I’ll paint one’. It implies that artists must be allied with reality. However, in the eyes of Ar Sim, the ‘true’ reality does not rely on what you see or do not see, nor on drawing picturesque scenes of place that you have just visited once in your life, but on actual daily life. Even though most of time is just plain and simple, true artists are able to experience it deeply. Perhaps we only take a few seconds to look at a daily object like a sign at a van stop, but such things are everywhere, and repeatedly appear and reappear in our lives, resulting in multiple glimpses over time and, in a sense, suggesting eternity. When linked to other daily objects, these glimpses of time will start to flow and yet remain connected to the time when you saw those objects before. Time becomes increasingly intricate as it flows.

在畫中看到時間的流動，有時是因為有感於一段日常行山的旅程，有時則單單是基於一縷縷心中的思緒。阿蟬的《生命旅途》，全畫由左至右，有草木丘壑，有流水白雲，一昧文人的氣息；然而，阿蟬所寫的並不止於文人畫的美學，而是藉著山水的佈局來寫心情的變幻。畫幅首段，數株松樹伸展於山石之間，青綠相間，烟雲縈繞，一派清妍雅淡的景象；唯獨是前景有兩、三幅草坡猛然從水中突起，造型古怪，向右方亦步亦趨。到畫的中央，山石結構忽然變得瑣碎散亂，拳石堆砌得像迷宮一樣，沒有一樹一林，色澤由綠轉青，調子黯然沉著。人若置身其中，像是找不到出路一樣，令人有種透不過氣的感覺。欣慰的是，畫的尾段乍現一艘長船，正漸漸駛離那迷官般山水，讓人感覺到好似事過境遷一樣。進入末段，山石重回聚散有序的格局，展現一股清新的感覺。清代八大山人，借用反白眼的鳥獸來表現他個人孤僻高傲的性格，北宋郭熙擅用冬盡春來的景象來彰顯天地間的變幻莫測，元朝倪瓚則以一河兩岸的意境來寫胸中之逸氣。古人寫景，往往借景抒情，而所謂的「情」，就我看來，就是對自然的一種感情的表達，從而透露出畫家的個性。阿蟬作品的不同，她的山水似乎是一種情緒來帶動。兩者不同的地方，在於前者是由景生情，或以情寫物，那種情感是平緩而深邃，從中揭露出畫者的性格；而且情與景、情與物的關係微妙，令人有種緩慢流逝的永恒性；後者則以情造景，景是服膺於情而寫，目的是刻劃畫者繪畫時那一時的情緒，令畫面激盪，引人感受畫者當下的一刻鐘。《生命旅途》全幅由左至右，三刻的情緒，箇中轉折，表現出情緒的起承轉合，既是一刻鐘，合併起來，又是具時間的流逝，讓人想起生命的起跌。

Regarding the sense of time flowing in a painting, sometimes this is triggered by an experience, sometimes by a string of thoughts. A Life Journey is another long horizontal painting that should be read from left to right. A literati aesthetic pervades the whole scroll through the delicate depiction of the landscape motifs; however, this is not what the artist is looking for. What concerns Ar Sim is the change in her thoughts brought about by the special arrangement of the scenes. At the beginning of the scroll, two flourishing pine trees are surrounded by blue and green rocks as well as white clouds and mists, highlighting the tranquillity of nature. Nevertheless, a few triangular rocks emerge menacingly from the stream, guiding viewers to look at the right-hand side of the painting. At the centre, without a single tree painted, quite a few blue-grey rocks seem to be distributed higgledy-piggledy across the surface of the painting, making the scenery look like a confusing maze inside which people would feel suffocated and unable to find their way out. Fortunately, in the end, a ship appears, sailing out of the trap and entering the final scene, in which all the landscape motifs are once again elegantly arranged in order. Considering a work of art as a vehicle to express feelings would not surprise many ancient artists. Bada Shanren, for example, modelled birds or animals with a clueless look on their faces to reveal the aloofness of the artist’s character, while Guo Xi excelled in visualising the changing moments of the seasons, especially when winter has almost come to an end and springtime has just begun. Ni Zan’s landscape painting in the ‘one stream, two banks’ composition is a pure mindscape, onto which he has projected the inner part of his heart. All these masters expressed their feelings and revealed their personalities through pictorial images because they were able to merge themselves with a scene or an object. Ar Sim, nevertheless, regards emotion as an inspiration to make art. The difference between them is that the former emphasises the subtle interrelationship between the artist’s feelings and the landscape, or the object, in order to amalgamate the artist with the subject matter in pursuit of an expression of eternity. The latter, however, allows the landscape to be compliant with the artist’s emotions, which then dominate the painting and create tension within it. When looking at Ar Sim’s paintings, viewers are easily able to get a sense of the moment at which the artist was charged with that emotion. A Life Journey consists of three parts, each representing an emotion; it shows the changes in the course of these emotions, subtly suggesting a sense of time flowing that the viewers can easily relate to the ups and downs of their own life.

「行雲如流水」，人生每刻都在變化，感情的出現仿佛浮雲般瞬間幻變，一刻刻間，感情的變化亦仿流水般在時空中一瞬即逝。阿蟬似乎深明此理，所以在畫紙上傾盡全力而寫，寫的是感情在每一刻鐘的變化，在「可行、可遊」間記錄自己如何活在當下。

‘Clouds Running Like Water’ represents the idea that life changes every minute and emotions are evanescent. Ar Sim seems to know this deeply and tries her best to release it through brush and ink, allowing viewers ‘To Walk, To Travel’ in her landscape and to carpe diem when reading each moment Ar Sim records in her painting.

坐看雲起時

Ever-Changing Clouds

展覽的第二個部份，是「坐看雲起時」。記得北宋時期有幀扇面小品，名為《坐看雲起時》。畫中所繪的，就是一位雅士坐於巨石之末，觀看密林中白雲乍現的一剎那。阿蟬這系列的作品，就是靜坐於天地一隅，看當中的變化。與「行雲如流水」不同，這類型的作品沒有衍生時間的流動性，而更加著重凝望的一剎那。譬如《青馬繞山跑》，說的是旅程的一個開始，看不到旅程目的地，只是在駕駛至香港機場前所經過的青馬大橋。有趣的是，人在旅程中，往往嚮往的都是旅程的目的地，記錄當中所遇的一事一物，然而阿蟬卻沒有這樣做；相反，她只是看到旅程前的一座座大山。它們看似平淡無味，但阿蟬卻看得津津有味。山巒為長披麻所寫，草木或濃或淡，聚聚散散；建築物則以白描為之，不甚渲染，加上白雲也是淡墨勾勒而成，畫面空靈。如《時間遊記－從馬鞍到水井》一樣，此作匱乏一般作品該有的戲劇性，但正因阿蟬刻意破壞人對這段旅程應有的期盼，讓這旅程之始更加好奇，從而帶出阿蟬凝望那一刻的感受：是這一刻已勝過旅程中的經歷？還是平淡的這一刻在一個人的生命中更為重要？

The second part of the exhibition is ‘Ever-Changing Clouds’. In contrast to the last part, here Ar Sim intends to freeze time by gazing at a scene in search of a way to carpe diem. A Verdant Horse Runs Around the Mountain is about the beginning of a journey, when people cannot see their destination, but have just set out for the airport through the Tsing Ma Bridge. The painting just captures the mountains around the bridge, at which the journey, in a sense, has not yet started. I am genuinely interested in how Ar Sim experienced the trip and the people and scenes she encountered; however, she reveals nothing of how interesting the journey was, but simply guides me to gaze at those ordinary mountains. It seems that she finds something intriguing in them that no one else can see. Ar Sim renders the rocks by long hemp fibre texture strokes, and the dense forests are delicately washed with heavy ink. The clouds and bridge are surprisingly delineated by contour lines only, making the painting a bit ‘empty’. Like Time Travel: From Ma On Shan to Tai Shui Tseng, this painting lacks drama, which is the thing people often expect from an artwork. Ar Sim breaks this rule and leads us to re-live the moment in which the artist was gazing at the scenery and ask the questions: is the moment in fact more important than the entire journey? Is the plainness and the quietness of this very moment perhaps remarkably important in one’s life?

我不會嘗試尋找答案，相信阿蟬也沒有任何既定答案，這就是一條開放的問題，予人聯想。我認為這種處理手法帶有點哲思的味道，讓人思考人生。阿蟬另一件作品《要不要去看未知？》，也有這種意趣。青巒大水，寫的是澳洲海景，一小路隱隱的引人在遊山之餘，亦領人到山崗之端，從此岸遙望彼岸。從畫題得知，察看那「未知」是畫中關鍵；所謂「未知」者，就是隱於一角、未見全貌的彼岸。它是幫阿蟬象徵「逝者」？「分手戀人」？「未來之路」？還是單單指「未知之事」？觀者均不得要領，只能隨着聯想細味。

I have no answers; nor, I suspect, does Ar Sim, because these are essentially open questions that invites a variety of interpretations and responses. These rhetorical questions give Ar Sim’s works a philosophical quality, stimulating viewers to think about life. Shall We Venture into the Uncharted? is another work with this quality. In the painting, the hills and the sea show the artist’s impression of the Australian seascape, in which a small walking path guides viewers to wander around the landscape and stay on the verge of a cliff, viewing an isle opposite. Judging by the title, we could say that the idea of ‘venturing into the uncharted’, or unknown, is the key to the whole work. But what is the real ‘uncharted’ territory in Ar Sim’s mind? The land of the afterlife? The situation of ex-lovers? Tomorrow? Or just the things we don’t know? I have no idea, but it fires up my imagination.

另一幅《被敲碎的遠晨》，山石與枯樹的佈局古怪，眾山巍峨高崇，有的擺左，有的傾右，當中不生一草一木，而一株孤樹卻獨立於山峰之巔，片葉不生，比例亦與山石格格不入。一條長瀑隱藏於萬壑之中，兩壁用墨頗深，使瀑布像鑲嵌於石崖深處一樣。另外，山石過於虛白，令人産生一種又鬼祟、又空靈、又忐忑不安的感覺。這種以情緒為核心的作品，其實與《生命旅途》有異曲同工之妙，只是這裡因著中軸式的構圖，讓焦點都集中在那棵像是百年孤寂的枯樹上，萬籟無聲，頓時叫天地都止於一瞬一樣。

Another painting called The Broken Morning is a landscape with a bizarre composition. The mountains are lofty and towering, yet vacillating laterally. The painting contains no vegetation except a big, leafless tree, which is located at a mountaintop and the size of which is out of proportion to other landscape motifs. A waterfall is unexpectedly ‘inlaid’ in a mountainside, and the rocks on both sides of the waterfall are overly washed. Along with the paleness of the mountains, the painting suggests a sense of ghostliness, emptiness and perturbation. Due to the central composition, the focus lies solely on this single and lonely tree, which, similarly to the work A Life Journey, can hold the breath of the viewer and pause time forever.

對於時間的痕跡，阿蟬有其獨到的藝術表現手法。她曾留學日本交流，學習當地的藝術文化與技巧，金箔、銀箔的處理就是其中之一。銀箔是一種獨特的物料，當它遇上硫黃後，會產生氧化作用，使銀色變黑，名曰「燒箔」（Yaki-haku）。這種燒箔的發黑情況會因應不同的硫磺份量而有不同的深淺變化，但效果不能完全控制，情況有如潑墨一樣。最有趣的是，那些斑駁的效果不是固定的，而是會隨着時間而變化的，色澤會逐漸變深；換而言之，畫家完成作品的一刻，並不是作品已經定局；當日子久了，銀箔會繼續發黑，面貌亦隨之不同。阿蟬喜歡以燒箔來處理煙雲，加強其變幻不定、時刻都在變遷的特性。《聽見了你的呼叫》、《撐住》、《一場不敢回頭的旅程》和《牽著我走》都是這類以物料來物化時間流逝的作品。走到這些畫作面前，看著金光閃閃的燒箔效果之餘，也期盼著燒箔在下一刻鐘所帶來的變化，以想像把時間延伸至未來，感覺耐人尋味。

With respect to the course of time flowing, Ar Sim has achieved her own style. She joined an exchange programme in Japan to study art and culture, including Japanese techniques for gold-foil and silver-foil paintings. Silver foil is a unique material that is oxidised when sulphur is applied to its surface. Burning the silver to turn it black is called ‘yaki-haku’, literally meaning ‘sulphurisation of silver’. Interestingly, these burn marks vary according to the amount of sulphur applied; and no one can thoroughly control it because the process has an aleatory character, much like the technique of ink splashing. Most importantly, the burn marks are not stable; the oxidisation with sulphur will carry on after the artist finishes the artwork. In other words, the old burn marks will become darker and darker, and the new ones will come out as time goes by. To enhance the ever-changing quality of the clouds, Ar Sim sometimes renders them using yaki-haku. I Heard You, Hang in There!, There’s No Turning Back and We Trekked Through Peaks and Valleys are examples in which we can see how the artist materialised the flowing of time by the material itself. Whenever I read these paintings, I enjoy the glittering effect created by the silver burning and imagine how the sulphurisation keeps changing the look of the painting, which, in a sense, transports me to the future.

另一方面，燒箔的作品在內容上都如「坐看雲起時」一樣有種哲思的味道。譬如《聽見了你的呼叫》，畫的下方的山巒左右抒展，密林鬱郁，一艘現代小船停泊於海灣之前，向上空發出求救訊號，而畫上方的燒箔，正正就是那求救訊號所發出的煙燒效果。奇怪的是，小船若有意外，為何不駛向那小港灣避避風頭，卻停留在大海之中呼天搶地？這是為呼叫而呼叫嗎？還是呼叫只是一種宣洩，並不意圖尋求解決方法？另一件作品《撐住》，層層山嶂堆積於畫的下方，一棵大樹則毅然獨立山頭，畫的左上方滿佈燒箔浮雲，色彩斑駁，氣勢浩蕩，像一湧而至的衝向那棵大樹的位置；而大樹的造型則向左傾斜，似在被雲壓倒與未壓倒之間，情態獨特；因為雲是虛物，不會壓倒一草一木，而大樹似乎飽歷滄桑，縱然在大風雨中也應該䇄立不倒。所以，那大樹是自己甘願壓身下去？還是浮雲忽然變質，變得凶狠有力，猶如風雪一樣？抑或大樹只是自然地側身而生，浮雲只是碰巧經過，兩者並無關係，只是看的人有浮雲壓大樹的感覺而已？

Regarding the contents, the paintings that use yaki-haku belong to the category of ‘Ever-Changing Clouds’. For example, I Heard You is a landscape with some flourishing woods and a mountain range, below which there is a sea bay. A small ship is moored at a buoy and sends an SOS signal to the sky to call for help. On the top of the painting, a patch of burn marks representing the smoke signal is yaki-haku. But it sounds strange, because if the ship is in a dangerous situation, why doesn’t it dock at the bay, instead of shooting a signal to the sky? Does Ar Sim only want to shoot at the sky for its own sake? Or does she regard shooting as a way to release her emotions without having any intention of solving any problem? Another painting entitled Hang in There! showcases a huge tree standing on top of a mountain and bending to the left-hand side. A dark bank of clouds tinted with yaki-haku looms on the right-hand side of the sky and looks as though it is attacking the tree. The tree seems caught in a dilemma between falling down from the mountain or standing still at its top; however, it is evident that the cloud is not capable of pressing down on the tree, because it is just weightless steam in the air. Thus, on second thoughts, does the tree willingly fall down on its own? Or do the clouds turn into thunderstorms or snowstorms that are powerful enough to press down on the tree? Or do the clouds just come across the back of the left-bending tree; so that everything happening is just a coincidence?

結語

Conclusion

阿蟬的作品看似平淡，但若耐心細看，就會發現她往往以一個獨特且有趣的角度來觀照萬物。在她的繪畫裡，從不見她尋求天長地久的轟烈，只感覺她在平淡和真實的生活中去體察她生命的每一刻。在我看來，所謂「活在當下」並不是單單的過著每一秒鐘，而且用一個敏銳的心靈去體驗每一秒，感受毫不顯眼、又常被人所忽略的那一刻。儘管日常生活總是淡如止水，看的都不過是平常之物，可能一片雲、一面車站牌、一座山，一艘船⋯⋯但若果心靈開啟，以心去體會事物，再轉移至繪畫之上的時候，那麼這一刻鐘、那一刻鐘的描寫都變得細膩而細水長流，讓人刻骨銘心。時間若浮雲，變化萬千，我認為阿蟬卻能把握著變化中的每一刻，活在當下，真正的去感受生命的律動。

Ar Sim’s paintings look ordinary at first sight, but if you submerge yourself into her landscapes, you will realise that the perspective she brings to bear on the world is always a surprise. She never looks for any dramatic or historical moment to last forever; however, each moment of plainness in her actual daily life can become a way of understanding life. To me, to carpe diem does not simply mean living in every second and in every minute, but, to some extent, to open your mind and experience each moment in life, even though some of them are so mundane or trivial that they could easily be ignored. Gazing at a cloud, or a van stop sign, or a mountain, or a ship may become our daily routine, yet, if one can open one’s senses to sincerely experience them in every single moment and then turn them into an art form, the artwork will eventually preserve a quality that is able to charm those who stand before it. Time is like a cloud, and no two moments are alike. Ar Sim knows this at a deep level and prefers to carpe diem, genuinely experiencing the substance of life.