The Essence of Things

Drawing from real life is easy. Well, it is easy relative to drawing without anything to copy from at all. Once the concept is established and actual scenery or picture is present, I find it easier to render my interpretation of it in paper. What is hard for me is drawing from my imagination. No pictures, no sceneries, nothing but the blank paper in front, the drawing medium on hand and the very distinct picture I have in my mind which has to pass through thousands of neurons, flow through tiny blood vessels and squeeze out of my hand then through the tip of my pen or pencil and on to the paper. Like a radio wave signal, it flows through hills and valleys and depending on the reciever, it might come out clear at the other end or it may not.
In most cases, it does not. But that does not necessarily mean I get disappointed. Sometimes, it turns out much better.

Last year, a couple of days after I have given birth to my beautiful daughter, Julia, I spent most of my time in bed. Recuperating. Since I didn't have much to do, I took my sketch pad and pastels and began sketching the image that was retained in my mind on how my new born baby looked like. I didn't like the outcome then and had stashed it away.

But as I look at the sketch now that Julia is already a very active toddler at nearly 2 years old, I realize and am amazed at how accurate that sketch was on giving an impression of how I have felt about her at that time.
Note that I said - "felt" and not how she looked. Which is a world of difference.
Looking at this picture, I get to again feel her shiny glow of invisible fresh energy, all bundled up in her own sphere, as if wrapped in a bubble of her silent world.
Fragile but pulsing with life. Sleeping yet awake. Manifested, yet forming still.
I remember reading about Zen drawing in a book somewhere - it talked about emphasis on drawing the essence of things, on what makes the cat a cat, rather than on how the cat looked like. (It had confused me at that time. I didn't get it. How could you draw a cat without copying the physical appearance of a cat?)

In a way, this drawing is to me, what makes Julia who she was when she was a baby and not exactly how she looked like on the outside.
I am happy with this drawing. It is not the normal copy exact style I usually have but that of the essence of her.
I am reminded of the famous quote from the Little Prince - "What is essential is invisible to the eye".
To be able to express the essential, the unseen, that which is felt, is a nice path to explore.
You should try it.

Traitor = Me

As of today, I am 2/3 of a traitor that St. Peter was.
I have committed the act of betrayal twice and I could nearly hear the cock preparing his throat as I move closer to making my third. So I write my confession in this blog. Hoping that by my admission on one, the cock would not crow on me.

I attended a two day seminar last week, it was conducted by the Canadian Immigration Integration Project –CIIP. CIIP is a trial project funded by the Canadian government to increase the success of integrating immigrants into Canada. I guess I should consider myself lucky for being one of those selected to participate. It was a great source of information and good practical advises as well on any worries plaguing the minds of would be immigrants. And since the lecturers were Canadian Filipinos, the sessions were filled with humorous stories related to immigration/cultural differences/bloopers, that only the Filipino creative minds could think of.
At the end of the first full day session, we were given a sheet which has the lyrics of Canada’s National Anthem below. And we were asked to stand in front of the Canadian flag and sing along with Celine Dion’s rendition of Canada’s National anthem.

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.

With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!

From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

The “O” got stuck in my throat like a big Oreo, I nearly choked. I couldn’t bring any of the words to my lips. My chest got stiff like an over blown balloon. The ducts in my eyes were full and ready to open at a slightest trigger of a switch.
I felt the surge of all the memories of the 36 years of my life in this country – the Philippines,
the land where I was born, where I grew up, where my great great grand father had swam to bring our family’s generation into to seek refuge from war, the land where my father died, where my memories and people I love are.
I am leaving her - my country, waddling, perhaps drowning, in the middle of the rising tides of poverty, of political instability, of an uncertain future.
I hear her cries of help. She looks at me with her sad eyes, tattered clothes, hungry child on one hand, the other, balancing a heavy basket of bananas on her head, partly to shield her from the heavy rains but mostly hoping someone would buy them so she and her child would eat tonight.
She wades through the flooded streets, through the black polluted waters, through the chaos of cars, jeepneys and buses all caught in the traffic maze.
She is tired, her burden heavy, black smoke from the big buses blurs her face, hairy men with long dirty nails stand by, ready to pounce and grab her beautiful frail body.
She sings to me with her soft, sad, haunting voice, the last lines of her song – “Buhay ay langit sa piling mo. Aming ligaya ng pag may mang-aapi, ang mamatay ng dahil sa iyo.”

I hide my face in disgrace.
I could have continued working with the universities; I could have helped improve their lab’s technical capabilities in science/engineering, I could have continued doing my share in having products manufactured here and not in China, I could have helped train our workforce to be better than their counterparts in other countries, I could have continued volunteering to teach public school children on using computers…I could have, I could have, I could have.
But I wouldn’t be. I am leaving.
I am a coward, a traitor.
Jose Rizal would have spat on my face.

A Tribute To Bergee

You were a bundle of energy when you came,
Barely weaned from your mother’s milk,
My house was too small for you,
Front and back, front and back you ceaselessly ran.

You liked the muddy earth,
I had to pour concrete to keep me sane;
You liked pounding on the wall, as a swimmer would kick the first end of his lane,
I had to build another wall to keep you back;
You wake me up at night and my baby too,
And wreaked havoc in my garden, there isn’t much you didn’t do.

But like a couple, we blended well,
You were a worthy friend;
Never wavering, never heavy,
With your ferocious fangs, you let everyone know you got me covered.

You patiently obliged my wicked streaks,
Lindberg- the superdog! I yelled, as you trotted proudly with your cape in the rain,
You never failed to greet me with excitement,
Even when I couldn’t reciprocate.

You sat by my side, during my darkest times,
A silent friend, an unmoving rock,
Your brows twitched with understanding
Listening quietly like a sage.

Now I touch your head, more bones than flesh,
Weak but ardent still,
Loyalty shines brightly in your eyes
I asked for your pardon, I asked for your wish,
Will you meet me there when it’s my turn?

Your eyes kept staring, as your lungs stopped lifting,
Your heart weakly beats the last rhythms of your life;
Thank you Bergee for having been in mine,
Thank you for leaving this dent in my heart that now ebbs with pain,
I miss your barks, I miss your howls
The house is too quiet without you.

Lindberg "Bergee": 11/13/2000 - 11/19/2007

Serendipity

I am always amazed with all the “unknowns” out there that we, even at this age and time, still haven’t grasp. We may have thought about the possibilities and have the numerous hypothesis on the how’s and why’s of those “unknowns” but still, we don’t have that level of definiteness of knowledge and proof that makes us certain about it as we are of our knowledge that the earth is round today.
I had a recent brush with one example of an “unknown” which had intrigue me the past month. It was on the distinct feeling that there is some force in the universe out there that is influenced by our minds. And that maybe we could actually make things happen to us by our thoughts. I of course know that this is true at the conscious level, but to have it happening at the subconscious level is another thing. A good example of this is serendipity, which is defined as the effect by which one accidentally discovers something fortunate, especially while looking for something else entirely. It is finding something that is useful to you without you looking for it. (Taking note that if one finds something he/she is actually looking for, it no longer falls into this description.)

I was nearly falling asleep on my bed but was trying to do a quick sketch of a picture in my mind before I doze off and risk forgetting it when I wake up in the morning. It was a picture of a lot of umbrellas (top view), and the monotony of these umbrellas is broken by a single woman looking up at an angle towards the side of the viewer (nearly but not entirely looking at the viewer). See pencil sketch image below. I couldn’t get the right angle tilt of the woman’s head and facial expression and after several tries, had decided to drop it off for later when I wasn’t too sleepy.

I forgot to get back to it but after a couple of weeks, while browsing an airline brochure magazine which came in the mail, I was surprised to see a picture of a painting of umbrella tops in the magazine which was very much similar to what I had in mind. See cut off Art today picture below. (And if I had gotten around to painting it, it would have looked similar to it except for the woman’s face glancing back at an angle).

I was much more surprised when on the weekend later, while reading the Sunday magazine which came with the newspaper, I happened to see another photo showing the top of Iraqi Shiite women that had a single woman, looking back up and facing the viewer at an angle. It had exactly the right angle and facial expression that I had in my mind but had trouble reproducing on my sketch. The coincidence of me seeing these two pictures given the image I had in my mind and was trying to put on print was amazing!

Needless to say, thank God for the “unknowns”! Life as we know it would be a rather boring existence without them. No more scientists probing underwater or in space, no more mysteries that spark the imaginations of artists, no more quests for discoveries of unimaginable treasures or valuable truths, no more serendipitous delights such as this example above.. just boring (however definite) facts.

Halloween Reflection

I’d consider this year’s Halloween as Julia’s first. Last year, she was just 6 months old, mostly spent it sleeping, so it doesn’t really count. As foreseen, we ended up going to one of the biggest malls in the country – Mall of Asia. We figured, the bigger the mall, the better, as they might have more Halloween events given the high audience potential. They did have the mall trick or treat event in which children in costumes could freely roam and approach any shop to ask for candies. And at 3:00pm, they had the Nickelodeon Halloween show featuring Spongebob Squarepants and Dora. That sounded like fun at first but when we approached the Music Hall where it was to be held, it just burst whatever dream bubble I had in my mind. Nickelodeon character decorations, loud music, toy booths, a paltry horror house, lots of people in costumes selling stuff, little children everywhere – I am reminded of that fun place the fox used to lure and trap Pinocchio and the rest of the little children. What was I thinking? We left for home before the show even started. (And I’m glad Julia was too young to complain.) Spongebob Squarepants and Dora for Halloween? – that is where I draw the line.

But we did end up having a memorable Halloween and to my surprise, it happened in our own backyard. (Lesson: Never think that Halloween is always greener at the other side of the malls.)

We ended up strolling around our subdivision later that afternoon, passing by our neighbors’ houses. We saw an old lady lighting a candle and trying to make it stand on the steps leading to her house.
“Why are you lighting a candle in front of your house?” we asked her.
“This is for my dear late husband who is buried in Marinduque. The province is too far for me to travel so I am just lighting my candle for him here”, she replied.

I nodded in agreement. I thought it ridiculous for the dead to only see candles lighted for them on top of their tombs. Their ghosts, if they are in our world these Halloween days, most likely would get bored sitting around their tombs all day and since they could most likely “apparate” anywhere, they logically might hover near their still living loved ones, in this case, the old man’s wife.

“For whom is that other lighted candle over there?” I asked, pointing to the single lighted candle in her dark house.
“Oh that one, I’m trying to save on my electricity bill”, said the old lady with a toothless chuckle.

Later that night, we found that most of the houses in our area had lighted candles in their front steps. Most were from far provinces like us, who couldn’t go home to be at our loved ones tombs. It was a peaceful thing, seeing the candles flickering in the night, welcoming the spirits that may roam and letting them know that we still remember. That they mean as much to us now as they had when they were living. And we honor the time they had spent in this world.

We lighted four candles in our steps, one for our dads (my husband’s and mine), one for our great great grandparents/great grandparents/grandparents, one for our uncles and aunts and one for all the rest of the souls who are still stuck in purgatory.

Julia had fun with the candles, and I felt connected with our small community, with the age old tradition, with my small family and with the spirits of the past. We have not forgotten.

Halloween

It is 6 days till Halloween. Now that I have an 18 month old daughter, Julia, I find myself looking forward to it nearly as much as I am looking forward to Christmas. In fact, I now look forward to any universally celebrated occasion that has these two criteria: a non-working holiday and it is child-friendly.

Halloween hasn’t always been called that way to me. It had always been All Souls’ day and All Saints' day (and I wasn’t sure which one was Halloween. I later learned Halloween comes from the word All-hallow-even, which means the eve of “All Hallow’s Day”, which is also known as All Saints' Day.) And I have always celebrated it as such – in remembrance of the souls in purgatory and the saints in heaven. I saw it as a religious ritual and if not for the fact that it is a holiday, I get to play with candles while watching over the dead love ones tombs and have a chance to visit (and get visited) by friends in the cemetery, I wouldn’t have liked it much as a child.

Halloween feels like the western and commercial counterpart of All Saints day - and without the saints. While All Saints day reminds me of candles, tombs, cemetery, prayers, vigils, dead relatives and holy masses, Halloween brings up images of the plastic pumpkins, gory plastic masks, Disney costumes, children in malls, candies and anything orange and black. A lot of it had to do with me now living in a metropolitan city, far from home. Having no dead relative tombs to visit and not wanting to be stuck somewhere in the highly populated travel highways, we are at risk of ending up celebrating it the commercial way this year – going to malls, carrying a pumpkin bucket for candies and looking everywhere to see who got the coolest costume. As a new mother, it makes me wonder if this is the way I would "imprint" this tradition in Julia's memories.

I see traditions and rituals to be a time for remembering, for connecting, for celebrating our being a part of humanity. We needed to set special days else we forget, being mostly engrossed with the little things that keep us busy everyday. In Halloween, it is remembering our ancestors, their spirits, and the people who had been once human and had gone on to the other life. It reminds me of the great carpet of life of which I am a thread, the world we live in now and the spirit world we have yet to see. If there’s a small thing I could add on how I’d spend Halloween here in the city, it would be to infuse a touch of history, spirituality and some magic into the occasion. Halloween in certain cultures after all, is believed to be one of the liminal times of the year when spirits can make contact with the physical world, and when magic is most potent.

(Wikipedia defines the liminal state as one characterized by ambiguity, openness, and indeterminacy. Liminality is a period of transition where normal limits to thought, self-understanding, and behavior are relaxed - a situation which can lead to new perspectives. People, places, or things may not complete a transition, or a transition between two states may not be fully possible. Those who remain in a state between two other states may become permanently liminal.) "Liminal" is definitely an intriguing word!

I thought I’d write a poem-story, to start a personal tradition, to celebrate the season in a way that maybe our ancestors might have spent each day millions of years ago – storytelling; gathering around a fire and exchanging stories that enriched their imagination and connected their spirits to their past, their present and their future.

The Tree Fairy

Rebekkah looked towards the forest
She feels its pulse; she hears it calling.
She stepped into the night and embraced the shadows,
She knew she was going home.

Darkness enveloped her; she floated towards its heart
Somewhere she saw the image of Silas,
Tied up to a tree, he was in pain.
Begging for his life as he was slowly butchered by strangers.
His bloody hands gripped the tree tightly with each blow,
He called out her name – Rebekkah! as he took his last breath.

Rebekkah felt the tree,
She hears him calling from within.
Her soul yearned for his touch, For her spirit to break free.
She felt her body tingle as a tree branch pricked,
She smiled as it drained her blood
It was part of her now and she was part of Silas.
They, neither here nor there.

EJs Drawings

A quote from the book, “Original Self by Thomas Moore”:
“Poetry in the larger sense of the word – poems, stories, myths, painting, dances, dreams – is the most exhilarating and transporting vehicle for travel there is. More effective than space shuttles, more penetrating than warp speed starships, and more probing than mars rovers, poetry takes us far far away to a reality that is at once our own and absolutely alien.. This would be a trite observation unless perhaps we recalled many ancient teachings that tell of the soul’s journeys.”

A colleague of mine showed me two drawings made by her 5 year old son, EJ. I was struck at how devoid of self-consciousness the drawings were. The lines were drawn with confidence, colors were varied and the style itself was distinctively EJ’s. It was like seeing a part of his world, a world devoid of the “polishing” of society and effects that years of education could impose. On this drawing below, it is a world of insects which EJ is fond of.

I have always admired, envious perhaps is a nearer word, the imagination of children. Often, I find my imagination being encumbered by whatever I have learned and absorbed in the past (which at that time were useful). The nearest thing to imagination that I could “brag” about now is on how I could “imaginatively” think up of ways to lessen my housework. It’s interesting to think that we spend the first half of our lives absorbing almost everything that comes our way – to survive, and spend the other half, unloading the “un-useful” things we have collected along that same way – also to survive (and possibly, to remain sane). It does feel like I am constantly sifting, shaking, swirling - removing the sands and rocks to get to the gold.

In art, it’s not an easy task, finding ones style. But it does look quite easy when I look at EJ’s drawings. Style comes so naturally for him (and children in general) — without much thought. Here is another of EJ’s drawing, his mom told me there is a story behind it. I’ll try to convey it as best as I can, although having transferred from one adult to another adult, I don’t think I’m doing justice to EJ’s original version of the story.

These are Wagee and Mooga. They are brothers.

The one above is their mom.

And they all ended up being eaten by a fierce monster. And that was the end of Waggee, Mooga and their mom. (I tried to looking for the fierce monster – to find if justice had prevailed and the monster was locked up somewhere, like any adult would like this story to end, but I was told that it had escaped to another country called “Trash”).

(It just strikes me, that the word adulterated – as in adulterated drinks and which means substances that should not be contained within other substances are present – has the root word “adult”. Why not “substantiated” or chemicaliated? Whoever had thought of this word may have been running along similar line of thinking on adults..)

I attempted to draw my adult(erated) version of his story.

Magee and Wooga are mothers searching for their children. But they fell into the river and got eaten by a school of hungry piranhas. Magee, Wooga and their lost children have met the same end.

P.S. (And the piranhas ended up being caught by exotic fish poachers and shipped to “Trash” country where they were fed to the greedy fierce monster, which got choked to death by one of Magee’s big earrings).

Thank you EJ for letting me travel with you. It was fun!

Art as an Expression of Self

I was surfing through a couple of art blogs as part of my early New Year's resolution of spending some part of my free time focused on enriching myself on anything creative, when I found a nice list of advice posted in Robert Genn's website. (Robert Genn is a Canadian painter and owns the Painter's keys website.) Here's part of his list which resonated with me:

• Find a sanctuary where you can comfortably work.
• Dedicate at least two hours a day to your art.
• Have more than enough equipment and supplies.
• Set short and long term goals and keep track of progress.
• Think of your work as exercise, not championship play. (This advice really made a lot of sense to me!)
• Explore series development and exhaust personal themes.
• Replace passive consumption with creative production. (This one too!)
• Use your own intuition and master your technology.
• Feel the joy of personal, self generated sweat.
• Be forever on the lookout for the advent of style.
• Don't jump into the ring until you're feeling fit.

Armed with a renewed sense of inspiration, I set forth listening to what my "own style" is. I have realized before that I am not entirely a painter, as paintings and pictures seem to be too "silent" for me, powerful but I guess it leaves a lot for self interpretation. I am strongly attracted to poems but also feel that I would have liked the power of a picture to go with it. So I thought I might be somewhere in between.. I found out later that there is such a term as "Haiga", which is a cross between a haiku poem and a painting/drawing. Suits me well! Here's my attempt at it, which doesn't necessarily follow the 5-7-5 convention of haiku but thought that this form quenches my thirst for creative expression at the moment.

I fell into the sea of doubts

Where a hideous monster waits;

Its tentacles silently finding

The hidden crevices of my past;

Dread spreads through me like poison

I watched the pillars fall

Crumbling in its tight grip

It slowly sucked me whole.

The First Step

For each child in this world, there is someone who had helped her take her first shaky step, from which her life’s journey began. A small step, a great feat, a lasting bond.

Just like the first step my daughter took to start her journey, so I am taking this step to start mine.