January 2011 - Montalut

Urban gardening exhibit with native Pinoy plants

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Lots of great lectures and workshops for Pinoy gardeners at the Manila Seedling Bank until Feb. 7:

Greetings!

The Philippine Native Plants Conservation Society Inc. (PNPCSI) invites everyone to be part of HORTICULTURE 2011 with theme \”Urban gardens featuring native plants\”. The event is situated at Manila Seedling Bank, EDSA cor. Quezon Ave on Jan 29-Feb7.

Visit exhibit booths which showcase several landscapes that utilize native plants. The PNPCSI booth in particular (no. 11) demonstrates a landscape containing 100% indigenous species. Lectures and workshop are also provided which might interest you.

Got this from my friend Lorie with the note: \”perfect place for you to find your garden plants!\” 🙂 Lorie is a master botanist and my ever supportive gardening/farming consultant.

Definitely a must visit for those looking to start gardening in the Philippine setting– most resources I\’ve found online have references to \”winter gardens\” and \”planting strawberries\”, which although inspiring, still leave anyone living in a tropical climate frustrated to no end.

Let\’s make time for this! I\’m especially interested in the lectures on Zero Waste Gardening and Vegetable Urban Garden, plus the workshop on Basic Gardening:

PNPCSI Lectures:
Jan 30 10am Philippine Medinilla Fernando Aurigue
Feb 1 2pm Native Trees for Landscaping Arch. Patrick Gozon
Feb 3 2pm Philippine Ferns Anthony Arbias
Feb 4 2pm The Wildlife Act Norby Bautista
Feb 5 10am Philippine Begonias: Megadiversity under threat Dr. Rosario Rubite

Other Lectures:
Jan 29 10am Native Aroids Dr. Melanie Medecilo
2pm Flower Arranging World Flower Council
Jan 30 2pm Morimono/Saikei Fely Gupit
Feb 1 10am Zero Waste Gardening Norma Villanueva
Feb 2 10am Philippine Hoyas May Tolentino
2pm Intro to Phil. Pitcher Plants Wally Suarez
Feb 3 10am FernSpore Propagation/ Arch.Wendy Regalado
Feb 4 10am Vegetable Urban Garden David Balilia
Feb 5 2pm Asplenium Ferns Vangie Go

Workshop
Feb 6 10am Basic Gardening Jorge Sahagun
2pm Indoor Gardening Serapion Metilla

SIMPLY RAW (a raw food workshop) on Feb5

FoodRaw Food

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Looking for a healthier diet? Here\’s a workshop to help you get started, from raw food advocate, Asha Peri:

Join me at SIMPLY RAW – a raw food preparation workshop at Dahon Kusina on February 5 from 3-6:30 p.m. Special participation of Emporium Antipolo, supplier of local organic produce. For inquiries, contact Asha at 09178611212 or Sheila at 9160391.:)

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Together with Daniw of Bahay Kalipay, Asha is truly one of my raw food idols. These two women are tireless in pushing for a healthy, raw food diet that uses local and accessible ingredients. I attended one of their yummy raw food dinner buffets last November, and was just blown away by the different ways they prepared healthy raw food!

It\’s said that everyone who is introduced to the raw food alternative knows it is good for him; the hard part is HOW to start it. Most internet recipes call for ingredients that are not available in the Philippines, so it is especially encouraging that we now have Filipino raw recipes to recreate at home. 🙂

Upcoming RAW FOOD workshops in Dahon Kusina:
February 5 – SIMPLY RAW (Pasig)
February 13 – yIN LOVE LOVE WITH RAW (yin yoga & raw food-Makati)
February 26 – Dance or DESSERT (part 2-Pasig)
Call 09178611212 (Asha) or 9160391 (Sheila) to inquire.

Visit the Dahon Kusina facebook page for details.

Also check out the pics of the first Dance or Dessert workshop–Isn\’t it amazing that these banana-tahini sandwiches dipped in choco-coco-orange fudge are actually good for you? And they\’re so simple to make!

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painting Kuy (step-by-step)

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Kuy, Acrylic on paper, December 2010

I set out to draw better last year, and this was one of the portraits I got to finish in time for my thank you show.

Kuy is the diminutive (i.e. pet name or lambing) for Kuya or big brother, and this painting was a Christmas gift for my one and only big bro, Paolo.

I started off with a pencil sketch, referenced off a picture that wasn’t “boring” or in a normal frontal, smiling position:

I learned from doing mom and dad’s portrait that I need not detail the sketch so much– it’s really adding the colors that demands patience.

I filled in the easiest part first– the black background!–then got to work on the fingers, which I thought would give me a hard time…

It was the pointing index finger and thumb area that took a while, but I was happy with how they came out:

The face is always tricky– even a millimeter off and you’ll have a stranger before you.

I knew if I got the eyes and lips right, I’d get to bring out my brother’s smirk… 😉

Another a lesson from my first acrylic portrait: blend while the paint is still wet.

Voila! I didn’t really want to go for photorealism, and chose a blurry reference picture on purpose.

At this point I knew my work was done: My brother “came out of the painting”, said hello, and smirked his trademark smirk. 🙂

what persists?

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Gouache on paper, May 2010

In three days, I’m moving out of what’s been home for a year. The place is empty now–save for some “basics” that I can’t pack just yet.

Interesting to see what we hold on to last– some out of need, and some out of perceived need.

The obvious “basics” are food and clothing, but are they really? I noticed I’ve stopped refilling my fruit bowl and ref crisper for over a week now. Has food become less pressing a concern?

A curious contender has been my wall art: posters, quotes, cards. Some my own, most by those I admire. I’ve come to call on them as friends, and many times during my one year of living alone, they’ve kept me company on lonely nights. There was a true hesitation in saying goodbye when I took them down, but for some reason I know I won’t be putting them up again.

When goodbye feels right, and we concede to it–or better yet, embrace it–we don’t necessarily “lose” something. We clear the way for that which is free from emotional attachment or agenda. We are not distracted, we hear ourselves, and if we proceed truthfully, we hear others too.

When all goes well in our lives–no hang ups, no loose ends to tie, no big goal or duty to give ourselves to– what happens? What remains? Maybe it’s not a question of what is left behind, but of what pushes forward, what persists?

My Nuvali moodboard

My Nuvali Home

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Got this inspiring collage from a great interior designer and one of my bestest friends, Claudine. She called it a moodboard, which I\’m assuming is design lingo for something that sets the design aesthetics (mood!) of a house.

Great way to brainstorm and refresh one\’s design palette, don\’t you think?

I\’ve started organizing individual moodboards for each of the rooms/areas for my house (listed below). Will share them when ready. 🙂

GROUND FLOOR

garage and front porch
open plan kitchen-living-dining
kitchen details
dining room details
living room details
garden
screened patio
powder room

SECOND FLOOR

master\’s bedroom
master\’s bathroom
walk-in closet
spare bedroom
hallway

OTHERS

roofdeck
rooftop garden
utility area
windows
flooring

Modern and mexican – do they go together?

Green Design and Architecture

Visited my friend Crisi’s house in Ponderosa recently, and really decided that by hook or by crook I will have those vibrant Mexican colors infused into my supposedly modern contemporary home!

Look at these tiled staircases, so warm and homey:

Crisi suggested I just have concrete stairs made with wooden planks on top, then stencil and paint the vertical side with latex paint. Sounds like a plan 🙂

Other tile patterns:

(Image from istockphoto)

Visual updates on Nuvali

Everyday LifeSports, Roads

Random shots taken while driving around Nuvali last week:

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Nuvali Boulevard looks like it\’s being widened with the addition of two new lanes. Once completed, the main thoroughfare in Nuvali will have four lanes, halfway through its eight-lane promise.

The widening already stretches to as far as the gate of Santierra. 🙂

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Already visible from the main Nuvali Boulevard is \”The Fields\”, a temporary site for outdoor sports, with three football fields, two baseball fields, three volleyball courts, a bike park, and an area for remote-controlled games and kite-flying.

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The whole area sits on the designated future commercial district of Nuvali, and has played host to a number of sports events since it was launched last November 2010.

I just learned that the Philippine Ultimate (Frisbee) Association is looking to hold its upcoming New Year League at Nuvali\’s The Fields. I remember making the weekly Sunday drive from Quezon City to Alabang back when I used to play disc, and I always thought it was worth it for the wide open spaces of Alabang Country Club. Nuvali is another 15-20 minutes from Alabang, but wowoweee, the spaces here are much much wider and much more open!

traffic in Nuvali

Life in Nuvali PhilippinesTransportation

No more left turns to Nuvali from the Sta.Rosa-Tagaytay Road– everyone going to Nuvali now turns right on the Mamplasan road…
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…then makes a U-turn back towards the Nuvali main entrance. $\"Nuvali$

This was implemented to address the growing volume of cars entering Nuvali, but has actually caused more traffic on the two-lane \”highway\”, to the great chagrin of motorists, especially those just passing through and with no agenda in Nuvali and its commercial and retail areas. The Skyscrapercity Nuvali thread, for example, has Sta. Rosa stakeholders (current residents, Nuvali would-be residents and investors) holding the Ayalas accountable as developers with poor planning and foresight.

With the construction of more retail areas and attractions within Nuvali itself (Robinson\’s supermarket, True Value and a slew of restaurants in Solenad 2, the Fields, the Republic Wake Park), traffic is only bound to increase, and something else must be done asap to alleviate this bottleneck. Top off head, there\’s road expansion with a dedicated left-turning lane to Nuvali or maybe a rotonda. Great too if Mamplasan could just be made open to the public. Alternative entrances to Nuvali can also be explored via adjacent Greenfield roads or Silangan exit. Shuttle services from Paseo to Nuvali and back.

Wikipedia lists the typical bottleneck solutions, most of which go by the seemingly simple guideline: \”Congestion can be reduced by either increasing road capacity (supply), or by reducing traffic (demand).\” The US Department of Transportation also collated successful efforts to combat traffic bottlenecks throughout the US, but cautions that \”there are very few \’cookie cutter\’ solutions to everyday traffic problems. Differences in volumes, right of way, design, funding, and many other variables help decide what measures are best for which locations.\”

Any solutions for the Nuvali intersection you can think of?

Meet the Azkals in Nuvali on Jan23

Life in Nuvali PhilippinesNuvali Events, Sports

A must if you\’re a football fan!
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I hope I get to go– this is a great way to meet and show support for the boys of the Philippine National Football Team, who made Philippine football history during the AFF Suzuki Cup late last year:

Despite being the oldest national team in Asia, The Philippines has never had any significant success on the international stage and has never qualified for the AFC Asian Cup or the FIFA World Cup. The historical comeback of PHI National Team in the recent AFF Suzuki CUP 2010 Semi-Finals being the most defensive team in the tournament sparked an old flame to the hearts of numerous Filipinos and captured the eyes of the Football World.

(Source: azkalsunited.weebly.com)

The whole day event on January 23, Sunday, is from 10am to 5pm at the Treveia Clubhouse, but the boys will be there only from 11am to 3pm. That\’s a pretty long window to be lounging about and chitchatting, so I\’m hoping we\’ll see a few exhibition games. 🙂

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This is also an open house for Venare, so if you\’d like to check out what Nuvali has to offer, next Sunday would be a good time to do it.

Let me know if you can make it. Will probably be there before lunch til about 1pm– maybe I can give you a quick tour of Nuvali!

relevance take two?

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My friend Ericka with her mini-montalut
Pastel on paper, 1999

I gave paintings away to friends on my birthday as a thank you, but also as a social experiment: I wanted to see which works would most appeal to the people closest to me (and which wouldn’t), and who among my friends would actually do as I asked and send me a pic with their take-home goodie.

To date, I only have four pictures of friends with mini-montaluts, including the one above, which I took myself. Most of the paintings left behind I didn’t expect to be left behind. And it’s slightly disconcerting that some of my friends and family–people I’d expect to care about my art–couldn’t even be bothered to claim their freebie.

Do I hear the relevance question all over again now?

green roof gardens and edible walls

Farming and Gardening Sustainable Living

Two good friends shared links on green gardening today. My immediate question: how to apply in the local (i.e. tropical) setting?

Apartment Therapy\’s How to Start a Green Roof Garden details the step-by-step concerns of any would-be roof gardener: safety, weight, containers, watering, and plants. Of note is the list of veggies that worked for New Yorker Jeff Hens\’ garden, and those that didn\’t:

Worked Worked with Some Caveats Didn\’t Work

Herbs
Lettuces
Bush Beans
Pole Beans
Snow Peas
Bok Choy
Kale
Spinach
Zuchinni
Cherry Tomatoes
Mustard Greens Tomatoes
(some wilt problem)Ornamental Squash
(some wilt problem)

Chard
(stayed small)
Carrots
Peppers
Collards
Melons
Broccoli

Given the year-round sun here in the Philippines, I don\’t see any hitches in planting the same plants that worked for the New York roof setting.

The NY Times on the other hand talks about growing strawberries (!!!) in the middle of a city (I heard Baguio reached 2 degrees C recently– doon pwede!), this time using another urban gardening innovation: the edible wall, which is a vertical garden of yes, edible plants, that uses steel frames. From The Rooftop Garden Climbs Down a Wall:

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Like their cousins green roofs and green walls, edible walls produce fruit, vegetables and herbs. But they do not employ complex technology and computerized control, so they can produce food at much lower cost. $\"\"$

The vertical planters are comprised of 24 smaller cells and are manufactured to allow roots to migrate between the cells, strengthening the soil and plants.

Images and text from the NY Times

These are popular gardening alternatives, even sexy because they\’re so \”green\”, but when one has the option to farm on actual land, why go through all the fuss?

AT about $125 a square foot, or $500 per planted panel, plus more for design, delivery and maintenance, edible walls do not make sense for every home, or even cities where there is open land.

The Apartment Therapy article has a good discussion (scroll down to the comments) on weight/load capacity of your roof and all the structural testings and equipment that go with it as the big caveat in roof gardening.

To be honest, I was really just hoping for lightweights on my roof, a simple add-on for insulation, like green grass for cover and possibly nice, comfy lounge chairs for actual sitting and enjoyment of the green view… 🙂

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Image of a hotel green roof from dwell.com

E-taxicle in Nuvali

Everyday Life

Spotted in Avida Settings two days ago:

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E-SaVe Transport Systems, Inc. is \”a 100% Filipino owned, Partner Company of Manila Autogas\”:

We design, manufacture and market electric vehicles that are eco-friendly, viable, and sustainable. Our Vision is to be a globally competitive manufacturer of electric vehicles.

Looking at the the E-Save transport product line, I\’m guessing this one\’s an E-save tricycle, a.k.a. an e-taxicle:

Benefits of the E-Save Tricycle

* Eco-Friendly
o We say \”ZENN\”!
o Zero Emissions. Will not pollute the air.
o No Noise. Will not add irritating noise pollution either.
* Viable
o Bigger capacity compared to regular tricycles allows for extra passengers. This translates to added income per trip.
o The \”Advertising Fin\” also has potential for marketing income.
o Recharging costs is 33% that of regular tricycle refueling.
* Sustainable
o Allows easy maintenance and quick battery service.

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Glad to see Nuvali\’s not too loyal to all things green and also embraces the spirit of the true blue! ;p

A quick search shows that Ateneo de Manila University, through the Ateneo Environmental Management Coalition, started using E-trikes on campus in December 2009:

Details:
1. Pilot Run: 7 Dec – 18 Dec 2009 and from 6 Jan – 22 Jan 2010, Mondays to Fridays, from 6am – 8pm, maximum of 3 passengers per trip.

2. Fares: 7.50 pesos each with companion and 15.00 pesos for special/single

3. The e-Trikes will only operate within the Ateneo de Manila University campus.

4. Terminals will be the same as the regular tricycles.

5. December 7, Monday, first day, FREE RIDES ALL DAY FOR EVERYBODY!

Pictures of the launch on the Ateneo E-trike facebook page show the same blue taxicle I saw in Nuvali last Wednesday– $\"\"$

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Donated perhaps? Weaving through old wall posts, can assume the Ateneo E-trike campaign didn\’t make it past evaluation stage– wonder why… and wonder what we in Nuvali can learn from their experience.