A Letter to DAVID LYNCH

To DAVID LYNCH

Dear David:

I'm an actress/writer/artist from China.

I MUST work with you. I MUST release the dark side of myself. I have some ideas about a film. It's always struck in my head, and I can't get ride of it. Those images are vivid, clear, lucid, also dark, dangerous, disturbing, but filled with infinite energy...they are beautiful in an eternal way....

I've always wanted to express myself by acting, in the past few years, the DEEP INSIDE of this source stirred me in the most profound way...and I know acting is the ONLY way for me to release that kind of energy, I call it Passion, Living…Construction, destruction, and Creativity.

I am a natural born actress. I act by my instinct. I want to use body language to express my feelings, emotions and vision, including using the darkest to show the brightest. A lot of people say your films are dark. I don’t think so. ONLY someone understands the light can write about the dark. Only passion can discover the mystery of all living. Without darkness, the light does not exist, just like life is favored by death. Only a passionate person can understand the two faces of a coin. And Your darkness is the light, it shines right through my eye…

It’s funny how people think negativity in art is the negativity of the artist. They are two different things. Everything is from LOVE. We express ourselves from the source of LOVE, the love for life, the love for LOVE, the LOVE for something eternal. That’s why we create. All we do is to express by our own emotion, feelings, and vision to show the world we live in. So everything is personal. Everything is subjective. The world ONLY exists in our own dreams. The world lies within.

The art that artists create is the source of happiness. And I must fulfill my destiny, which is to work with you, to create something eternal, to create a world never existed before, to stir, to awake, to influence, and to make them think, feel, and want to discover more about themselves.

Anyhow, this is a journey filled with creativity and adventure. I’m very excited to work with you. The artists who can show the darkness of human conditions actually are the most spiritual people. The spirit resides in every element of life, it’s in everything and everyone. It’s the source of the universe.

I write novles/potery. I also draw. I am a published author in China. I have six books published, including three novels. ( Each film of yours is poetry. Like you said, the intuition makes them a whole. You speak your voice by the art of cinema, I speak from my words, hopefully my face too someday.) Anyhow, when I was a teenager, I started writing those dark beautiful dangerous novels.

I MUST BE TRUE to myself. And I am always being true to myself. I can betray my own country, but I can betray my own heart, it’s there, it’s vivid, it’s beating, it’s bleeding, it’s breathing, it’s singing, it’s expressing, it’s longing, it’s dreaming, like my own SOUL, it never LEAVES me.

I have the GREAT desire to act, to express. It’s there. The emotion is there, it will come out when it’s time to come out. Great sensitivity and intuition makes me a great actress. You don’t learn to Act, and you don’t even need to act…You just BE, whatever it is. You are creating, you are also LIVING. It’s great to live a thousand times in cinema, I mean performing different roles is A WILD dream, now it’s finally coming true.

I have so many emotions, I have 1000 faces, I MUST find the right way to let it go, and I know you are the right filmmaker to work with. I moved to Hollywood from China to pursue my acting career, and I must work with you. I know you will understand where I'm coming from, YOU will understand my pain, and my happiness too.

You said Vincent Van Gogh would be a much better artist if he was not restricted by his suffering. I absolutely agree with you. Painting provided him the way to find his own happiness, which he found himself. You don’t have to suffer to show the suffering.

I write, I draw, I dance, I JUST BE. Sometime I want to try painting, sometime, I want to use colors to express, sometime when I was sitting in a corner of a street, such as a bus station, I had this vision about the diminished blue-yellow, actually greenish yellow sitting right in front of me, in a sunny afternoon, or hanging in a cloudy sky. The buses are passing by, and all the cars, I was sitting in the corner of La Brea and Santa Monica, alone, and this greenish yellow gives me comfort and, yes, strength. I see a shining face looking at me down to my knee, and I realized it is YOU. I realized how profound it is, so I cry, and those Mercedes passing me by…with ironic eye.

I don’t have to show my pain in a stupid way, but I do have the pain. When I see the yellow sun diminished in the water-green color which would fit my whole Canvas, I’m satisfied, satisfied like my own KING.

So when I sit in the corner of Sunset and Santa Monica in a lucid Sunday afternoon, I think about the sun with the subtle yellowish green hanging over the afternoon sky, diminished, and I’m satisfied.

Anyhow, I am just like you, trying to express myself in different ways. By the way, I love your art work too, your paintings and your drawings. I’m
amazed what a fine artist you are. BE true to yourself, that’s what ALL it is.

Now I want to expand my horizon so I can explore how far down the rabbit hole I can go. That’s why I moved to Hollywood from China to act. I must follow my heart, and create whatever my heart desires. And your PURITY about art-making moved me. In this modern world, NOT many TRUE artists left.

That’s the whole reason why I’m here. You are the ONLY one in Hollywood I want to work with, so what the hell, I might as well introduce myself. The connection is there, if you believe in something 100%, it is YOURS.

And I what to express myself in acting: whatever inside of me: The anxiety, the fear, the fragility as a human being to exist in this modern world, yes, the complexity of a human being.....The mystery, the dream, the surreal reality, you name it, I don’t know, all I know is nothing is impossible, in a free world of imagination, there is no limitation.

It's not easy to live as a human, but the creativity gives us the chance to explore, to make something larger and meaningful, and the question is: how far down the rabbit hole do you want to go.

I MUST work with you. I have no choice. To not to waste my wild passion and talent, I MUST work with you. I feel deeply connected with YOU.

If you do not want to take me as a stranger, I'm a friend of Mark Savage. He worked on the distribution of your latest film: INLAND EMPIRE.

I also went to your speech two years ago at USC about consciousness and creativity.

I am a meditator myself. Yes, ideas flow when you are in tuned with this universe, when you're in BLISS. The infinite creativity just resides inside of me, and you are the ONE going to be the bridge, and you will provide the right outlet for me, so I can live my life at its best in the most creative way. So I can fulfill my dreams and my own destiny.

I understand the suffering, but I am NOT suffering myself. The deep peace and love inside of me provides me the infinite sea so I can just dive right in. That’s my source, and it never left me, it’s always INSIDE of me.

I can’t wait to show you some of my drawings. I think you would like it.

I’ve also read your book, “Catching the Big Fish.” And I loved every word of it.

David, You are Not only A PURE Artist, but also a Pure BEING. I look forward to working with you. Let’s sit down and talk.


LOVE, PEACE




Niki Yan
323-464-0418
NikiYan@sbcglobal.net





"There is NO way to happiness. Happiness is the WAY."

"In the perception of the smallest is the secret of clear vision; in the guarding of the weakest is the secret of all strength."

-- Lao Tzu



( I called David's agency, which is CAA ( Creative Artists Agency), they told me to send the letter by MAIL, so I did.)