Johanna

I drew this only a few days ago, so much anger then. I woke up in the middle of the night and just put pen to paper and let it out.  I even dreamt this scene in such vivid color I swore I was going to paint a whole series about burning bridges.

Now it’s making me chuckle, and that’s not a bad thing.

The cloud has passed, or has nearly passed, and wow.   I’m slightly worried it went by so fast.

Pwera balik.

I haven’t paid attention to TV for over six years now, but today I couldn’t cast it aside so easily. What was on? Local news.

Talk of the water hyacinth invasion in Cotabato was worrisome and frustrating– 200,000 hectares of hardy plants on the offense, surely no match for 2 backhoes! It’s a real life attack-of-the-killer-bees/ants/corn and in a man-vs-nature scenario, what chance does man have, really? What more the ill-equipped Pinoy? Then news of shared classrooms came on– shared not between sections but between grade levels: grade 1 kids sitting almost next to grade 2 kids in small circles around their teachers. Who can learn in an environment like this, and especially when simply learning is not enough anymore, when what is needed is for children to learn well?

Switching channels got me to Willie’s show–and I realized I didn’t even know he was back on TV.

I’ve been so out of touch, thinking all this time that I was being responsible. I banished TV from my everyday life because it got too noisy, too cluttered, and I just assumed (or convinced myself) I wasn’t missing out. I still had the internet and twitter for news updates, and I got to stay “in touch” with the world through filters of my choosing.

But have I really been in touch? Six years of no TV (and no newspapers, no radio, no magazines) and how different have my everydays turned out?

When you retreat into a cave, you get to work on your inner circle–all the things within reach. But there comes a point when you realize your world has gotten so small, that keeping the noise out has become just a vain exercise. Maybe because you’ve recharged for so long, you have so much surplus energy, and you actually owe it to those who haven’t had your luxury to put it to good use “out there”.

The same old questions are still there– who will save the Philippines? What can I do?

“We are just passing through,” Acrylic on Paper, 2010

There are friendships we hold sacred– people who are our crutches or default, much like family.  They’re just there, won’t go anywhere, no need for validation. Even when we fight and squabble (if  we do), the thought of breaking ties or “losing” each other is non-existent.

Next to love or romance, friendships are stable, non-volatile.  I once wrote about this in Love is not it,  inspired by this line: “Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love.”

I used to think it’s because friendships, particularly soul friendships, last forever.

But what is forever?

Why do we find comfort in forever?

When something cannot be taken from us, we relax, we lose the “security” worry.   We like the idea of unlimited anything– unlimited food, money, vacations.   Why not unlimited time, or people, right?

Forever friends.  Best friends.  Travel-mates–people we brave our journeys with, whether we are on the same journey or not.

Having even just one person believe in us, understand us, be “just there”… it’s enough to empower us to conquer the world!

But many of those who truly seek, advise the opposite: to dwell on impermanence, that everything passes.

Forever is a distraction, a step away, and we must allow even the most sacred people in our lives breathing space to leave when it’s time to leave.  And when it’s us who are being called to leave, we pray for the courage to do the same.

I grew up loving the word “dreamer”.  For me, it brought forth not just a promise, but an assurance that that promise could and would be made real.

It’s not my favorite word anymore.

Neither is food.  Nor travel.  Nor the Philippines, Filipino, saving the world.

I don’t like the same things I used to like — they don’t make me happy, don’t light up my eyes.

What lights up my eyes now?

Is that even the question that needs asking?

Have always been hesitant to put a pricetag on my paintings, but finally committing them to a quantifiable value was surprisingly comforting, not to mention “easy”.

Here are some that found new homes during the 10a Alabama art fair— fare thee well, my friends!

Other montaluts now “out at sea”:

– Masked oil painting circa 2000 bought my friend,Gab is Unsubcultured
– Mini montaluts now with by Arlene Barbaza of Artefact Handmade, who pointed out the magical impromptu poetry reading session we had under the mango tree! THANK YOU to you, Remmon, and Mia for that 🙂

Woohooo! Finally decided to ‘get out there’ and sell my paintings– hope you can drop by this weekend, and come home with your own montalut ;P

Let’s SUPPORT INDIE ART xo

More info at the 10a Alabama Page.

Oil on canvas, February 2009.

Losing a friend is difficult.   But sometimes an old friendship needs to be reviewed against the very same guidelines that created it.

I’ve found comfort and company in thinking of a relationship as a river.  It flows as two people flow, and gains strength as these two people share themselves with each other and begin to merge.    Imagine what happens when this river gets reigned in by a dam… It will hate that dam, and with all its might, try to break it down, find a way around it, over it, under it— any way to get through and flow like an invincible river again.

The dam can be anything that halts the friendship: a deep disagreement, harsh judgment, loss of trust.  With effort and love, though, even the biggest dams of this type can be torn down and order in the friendship restored.

Sometimes, a special halt happens in a relationship that no amount of effort can put right.   There’s nothing specific to resolve, nothing that needs a return, or a re-take.   The dam is there because it is part of us– we are both the river and the dam.   It becomes deeply frustrating, and also hurtful to be in this situation because ultimately we are fighting against ourselves.   We can keep on insisting on returning to our natural course as friends–or we can recognize that the dam is not meant to be overcome.  We are not meant to be anything but ourselves.

There is good news though:  the river never stops flowing.   Even in this state that now seems unnatural and stifling, the river is actually flowing just as invincibly, if not more so.  It is gathering speed, generating power.  Power for what, who knows…? But wherever it ends up, it will always be that river…

Friends come and go, and for those that go, we weep and reminisce.  But we must also remember to see goodbyes as gifts, and be thankful, and let them push us to where we’re supposed to go.

The goal of the river is to create a wide, flat valley where it can flow smoothly towards the ocean.

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. 🙂

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 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?