I am going to write about my relationship with a girl named Maya. This girl has been my best friend for 13 years, and we share a bond so immaculate you'd think we were once conjoined twins who shared one heart--how we survive separated remains a mystery. I like to think of her as a soul mate, and I could wax poetic about the depths of this connection. But I won't uber romanticize this relationship because like all relationships in nature there are ups and downs, ebbs and flows, cycles, contradictions and paradoxes. An entire cosmic realm that contains both good and evil. This is what makes our bond complete and utterly real and tragic and mysterious--all at the same time. See, now I've gone and waxed some poetic, which I said I wasn't going to.
But what makes Maya my Maya is the way only she could make me laugh. We were in boarding school together at the age of 14, a tragic circumstance which only brought us closer together. I rebelled, and she followed suit, making me believe that I was tougher than I looked. Deep down I was just a scared little girl whose seeming fearlessness was only brought on by the strength that her best friend gave her. But no matter how much trouble I got myself into, she never did! Although, I have to mention times like when I cut all her hair off and dyed it a toxic orange--she got into a tad bit of trouble for that. An audible gasp was let out by the entire school and faculty when we both paraded into the main hall for church that day. We were rebels all right.
Most nights she would sneak up to stay with me until the crack of dawn when I was moved into an attic room at the very top of our creepy old boarding house. That arrangement didn't last long when I was spotted swinging off from my window like a crazed suicidal monkey child. I was immediately brought back down to the normal dorms on a normal floor; little did we both know that it was going to be my last day at that school. I was expelled the following morning.
Years have passed since those boarding school days. What's left are fantastic memories carved into our beings--never letting us forget the freedom that our imagination and friendship bestowed on us as little girls that felt trapped in an English boarding school. And even though our paths diverged, taking us both to various cities and countries, we stayed true to our friendship. I remember while I was living in Washington, DC, my mum even gave me a "UK phone call" monthly allowance--we should have called it a monthly "Maya quota". It was spent on long conversations with Maya about our separate adventures, heartaches, pitfalls and highs.
Today, an ocean separates us, yet again. We have spent more time physically apart than living in the same city--or even country! Although, skype has been our saving grace, and has allowed us to stay somewhat connected. In fact, what triggered me to write this blog was a link she posted on my Facebook wall this morning. It was a video of an old song I use to play over and over again in order to perfect a little dance number that involved more of a catwalk strut, up and down our dormitory hallway. Ah bless. No one still can make me laugh and cry at the same time the way Maya does.
My work is being considered for a gallery show next week. The three pieces I submitted as a response to Driftwood Salon’s submission call sparked some interest and I am over the moon. The Open Studios I participated in last week went well—I sold a very small drawing of sentimental value to a woman who it just felt right to sell to. Selling work is important, it is our bread and butter after all, but selling to the right kind of people is even more important. And this is why I particularly enjoy the open studio setting where I am able to meet my buyers (and non-buyers) in person and have an honest conversation about almost anything—mostly about their lives and what brought them to the studio.
I’m not saying that genuine conversation between artist and buyer can’t be had elsewhere; only that there is something less contrived about a simple transaction between artist and buyer in this kind of setting—no intermediaries, no marketing pitches, no cheating. It is definitely more empowering for the artist, and perhaps even the buyer. I say this having very little experience of selling my art outside a commercial gallery space. Most of the paintings I have sold were done through a gallery. For the most part, I am unable to tell you where these paintings have ended up.
The Collective Conscious is a great NY Times article from way back in 2006 which touches on the artist collective and new forms of art exhibition and engagement. The Driftwood Salon would fit right under this category since it is run by artists for artists, to put it simply. The artist collective is not a new phenomenon and has been pushing the boundaries and shifting the landscape of the art world for some time now, evidenced by the date of this article. The statement made about the impact that artist collectives are having on traditional commercial galleries is still very accurate:
“It may undermine the cult of the artist as media star, dislodge the supremacy of the precious object and unsettle the economic structures that make the art world a mirror image of the inequities of American culture at large.”
A photographic rendering of the Big Bang taken from knowledgeoman.com
Watching Stephen Hawking's Universe has influenced my thinking on last week's turn of events. I experienced my own Big Bang. An explosion that caused a new beginning; with new forms of life waiting to be explored in an ever expanding universe. This may sound a tad over dramatic, but it suits my mood right now. Everything is rife with symbolism and I wonder whether it has a lot to do with being in a state of crisis. When drowning, we desperately try to cling to some meaning that will help keep our heads above the water--yes, I'm talking about survival mechanisms. I'm not ready to drown yet, or ever. To use the most quoted expression of the past year, "Never waste a good crisis". I plan not to.
I cannot begin to describe the spiked sensations running through my body with this sudden change in my life. One day I had a job; all was calm and well--as predictable as any mundane office job would have it. The next day, it was all gone in a matter of minutes--as unpredictable as layoffs or "terminations of employment" usually are. From predictability at 10:00 a.m. last Friday, to a sudden slap of unpredictability by 10:12 a.m. on the same day. Those 12 minutes represent a strange alternate universe where I was violently yanked off my trajectory, then safely returned, but without my compass. Where do I go now? Where is forward from backward, left from right? Did I even exist up to that point?
I sure as hell know that I exist now, in this very moment. I know that today is Monday, but for the first time in years, it no longer signifies having to be lodged between a chair and a desk in some dingy fluorescent lit cube. At my current state, it certainly helps to demonize the office space as a form of self-redemption. Though I hate to admit that waging war against it doesn't immediately make things better. Jobs are jobs.
I am slowly recovering from the shock as I step into this new and exciting space, albeit a space in limbo. But most importantly, I'm feeling blessed to have the support system that embraced me and kept me afloat in the last two days. Love keeps you moving forward. It's true. The last few days are testament to this. Limbo or no limbo, love is what grounds me.
As fate would have it, I am now my own boss--for a little while at least. I no longer have a claustrophobic and windowless office to sulk in for 8 hours a day. I am no longer embedded in a world of petty office politics and the insecurities, paranoia and anxiety that come with it. And most importantly, no more spreadsheets! Not for a while anyway. These walls have been torn down in the most unexpected of circumstances, setting me free to face my greatest dreams, as well as my deepest fears. In short--this is not going to be easy, but certainly most interesting. I need to sit back, recalibrate, and smell the roses.
If there is one thing that keeps me going, it would be moving, literally from one place to another. I've journeyed from London to Macedonia to Guyana to New York to San Francisco in 4 years and the itch is still there. Maybe it's because I count NY and CA as one really long hiatus (since they're in the same country), which has fed into my longing for some new adventure. Maybe it just runs through my veins?--passed through from my globe-trotting mother's umbilical cord into my hard wiring.
My siblings and I were raised as global citizens and I am indebted to my parents for making me see the world as one gigantic neighborhood, and not a bunch of gated communities filled with wretched xenophobes and inferior cultures. I consider this as quite a feat on their part as progressive parents raising a family in the Philippines--a conservative Roman Catholic country, far far away from the love-crazed, free-spirited, tree-hugging hippies of San Francisco. I have always wanted to see this city, and never thought that one day I would actually be living in it. It's definitely showed me a whacky side to the US--everyone's got to try it.
Yet I still cannot fight the urge to try out new places. Traveling does not satiate this appetite of mine--I need to actually move. There's only so much one can truly absorb in a 3 to 4 week holiday before it's time to pack up and go home--leaving behind a small trace of yourself, and taking away nothing but a superficial imprint of another world in your mind's eye. On the other hand, moving somewhere to live for sometime is an entirely different package deal. You see, you observe, you absorb, you learn, and then you have to deal. Cultural difference no longer pertains to light-hearted amusement. You have to learn to live with it in ways you never had to before. It's actually a really hard thing to do, especially being as hard headed as I am. There is no three-clicks-of-your-slippers and you're back in Kansas, safe and sound.
But I do wonder whether my need to be in constant transition is my own version of three-clicks-to-Kansas. I click my heels to get out too. And by clicking them every x years or so I find myself somewhere new where I am able to reinvent myself over and over again. Maybe, the same fears that keep some of us rooted, are also those that keep others in constant uprootedness. Moving is just another kind of escape route really--a state of statelessness; a suspension of reality. The novelty of the new can be addicting. Perhaps my real challenge is staying put for a while to see how real things can get.
I have not stopped to smell the roses in weeks, and I'm starting to resemble a day-walker zombie, having slept very little since work has picked up its pace. I wish it was my painting that I'm referring to, but sadly, it's not. Coincidentally, and rather symbolically, the project that I am working overtime on at work will be over the day before my Open Studios show on Friday, April 23. I cannot wait to get some semblance of normality back into my life! Those roses need to be smelled. I can't loose touch with them.
I've said this before, and I'll say it again: despite the madness that is my working hours at the moment, my new creations continue to please me, which is unusual to me in times of stress. Normally, my pieces tend to aggravate me, throwing me into my proverbial pit of despair when I am working in "emergency mode" on a strict deadline. Deadlines drive me up the wall. Not a pretty picture at all.
So this body of work is igniting some new flames in my repertoire and thinking. I have been out of my comfort zone and playing with line work. I cannot stop the linear evolution taking place in every piece of my portfolio. I don't know where the urge is coming from, but lines seem to be the theme throughout. Playful, colorful, pattern-making lines that bring forth some sense of a grid system, without serving much of a scientific purpose at all. I like that. A subterfuge, if you will. An empty system. Lines usually represent logic, correlation and directness--paths that tend to lead to some kind of truth. Well, mine are just there to please the eye and trick the brain. It's still very much a mystery to me where all this is going; but hey, like Murakami said: " I have no interest in conclusions".
these photos are taken from the photographer Jack Radcliffe's Behance online portfolio titled Alison, where he showcases a series of photos from Alison as a baby, to Alison as a full grown woman--and every stage in between.
Jack Radcliffe's daughter, Alison, is a stunning specimen and subject of a unique photographic series that follows her travails through the many stages of her life. These photos are simply beautiful. Each picture pulling us closer and deeper into the mystery that is Alison. They provide only a glimpse into private moments in her life that embody the person that she is at that very moment. What we don't see in these pictures, and what interests me even more, is the many changes Jack himself must have gone through as he bore witness to his daughter's evolution in time, space, body and complexity. I can't help but wonder what he must have been thinking or feeling as he took each photo; how the nature of his relationship to Alison--as father, photographer, artist, observer, documentarist--changed, with each click of the shutter; whether the impact of each image would not have been so visceral if it were another person taking Alison's pictures.
The elements of time, history, intimacy, love, plays such a pivotal role in elevating the aesthetic quality or impact of the series, rather than the composition of each image as stand alone pieces. It is indeed the combination of substance and composition that makes it such compelling work. The images being stitched together as one body; this is narrative at its best. It is a story about the ever-changing nature of relationships to places, people, things--to ourselves and to those we love. This story speaks to us from within ourselves. Either we knew of an Alison, we are Alison, we are Jack, or we are both of them--two beings entangled at the sutures of being.
When we experience art that seems to hold up a mirror to our lives, our insides stir and yearn for places we've never been to--both physically and emotionally. I don't know who Alison is but I do feel like I know her on some level, or at least I would like to get to know her--because she's both real and unreal. She inhabits this liminal space that makes her a vessel for our own longings but also a real person with real longings of her own.
This last image in the series ends it perfectly, in my opinion. It is Alison taking Polaroids of herself. This is the last we see of her--as someone who perhaps is reflecting on her own images as pieces to a puzzle that may never be fulfilled, as visual commodities. I doubt this is the last shot Jack will take of Alison; so we know that her story goes on--we just don't see it. Instead, we're left with images of Alison within an image of Alison taking pictures of herself. It's as if she's now become fully aware of the power of her own image, and her ability to remove herself from her own image, yet still remaining the object of our gaze.
unfinished piece that is really doing my head in, April 3
Still working away at the wood panels. Slow, slow, slow at my mellow yellow. I'm working about 8 hours a week--and only at weekends. To my disadvantage, I'm finding that this does not spare me enough time to get into the proper groove of things. By the time I get some momentum going, it's time to pack up and start a new week. I don't like to rush my work, but because I'm squeezing in the painting time in tiny little segments, I can't help but feel the pressure. Nevertheless, my work is still feeling very fresh to me. I'm still in that zone I discovered through my new series of drawings not so long ago--that amorphous zone of new and delightful forms.
However, it's been a painstaking process because I find myself reflecting a lot at each stage of painting --something I use to avoid like the plague, and which was eventually kept to the bare minimum. It use to be a challenge to keep myself from stepping back to think about the direction I'm taking, but I was soon able to master the art of "non-thinking". Too much critical reflection inspires a different kind of piece altogether. My older paintings represented a deliberate effort to disassociate from rational thought to produce something akin to the energy and "purity" of abstract expressionism. But now, instead of letting myself go wild with my automatic impulses, I am choosing to let some thought in a little more: on placement, design, and connection. I'm exercising a different side of my creativity. And so far, despite my lack of confidence in this new approach, something interesting is taking shape, which tells me to go with it some more.
I am going to write about my relationship with a girl named Maya. This girl has been my best friend for 13 years, and we share a bond so immaculate you'd think we were once conjoined twins who shared one heart--how we survive separated remains a mystery. I like to think of her as a soul mate, and I could wax poetic about the depths of this connection. But I won't uber romanticize this relationship because like all relationships in nature there are ups and downs, ebbs and flows, cycles, contradictions and paradoxes. An entire cosmic realm that contains both good and evil. This is what makes our bond complete and utterly real and tragic and mysterious--all at the same time. See, now I've gone and waxed some poetic, which I said I wasn't going to. 
