Happy New Year!

Vintage card found at the New York Public Library Digital Gallery.

Christmas presents!

Thank you Santa!

Simple Pleasures

While having my tea today, I realized that my tea tray reminded me of the happy memories I had of breakfasts in bed at luxurious resort hotels and the delicious Asian meals (specially the desserts) served in Cathay Pacific/Singapore airlines, in which I end up eating in an almost meditative state, having nothing much to do on airline seats anyway and nowhere else to hurry to as in the case of being in beach resorts. Maybe I'll fill my tea tray up with some more of those nice little delightful goodies and add some tiny details (such as a flower picked somewhere). That would add up to making my daily fifteen minutes of teatime quite delightful, wouldn't it?

I am pretty much discovering that tiny details, if noticed and appreciated (maybe adored even), can add a lot to enhancing an otherwise "usual" day. I now truly understand what I have read years ago, why Kelly Preston (John Travolta's wife) would choose to drink her coffee/tea from an exquisite porcelain cup rather than from styros or paper cups, even when it's the only thing she could afford (at that time) to have. There is an elegance in living to it that is quite subtle.

Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas to All, and to all a Good-night! :)

Let's go exploring

My manager have often told me that I inspire her with my clear sense of direction -that I have a clear picture of what I wanted to do with my life, which most people (including her) struggle with. In a way, I agree with her. I have sort of felt that I have always driven myself (sometimes to much more than I would have sanely wanted to) in the pursuit of that which I viewed as my life's destiny, my dreams and ambitions and in doing so, have passed through the pre-requisite and often rough journey of knowing one's self intimately. I could say with the frankness of an aged woman, that I feel I have done almost everything I wanted to do in my lifetime and now in my late thirties, I think of myself as living a semi-retired life. I feel I owe this to the fact that I have struggled to learn (and have accepted) who I am early on. But I do feel my journey hasn't ended yet. It becomes clearer to me when I face a blank piece of watercolor paper and find myself struggling to create something which would somehow show my imagined world. Although I could make the claim of having done everything I wanted to do in my career and my life in general, I couldn't say the same thing for my creative endeavor which is something I have long abadoned when I chose a non-art related career path. Now in my semi-retired state, painting is the one thing I yearn to go back to. But I realize, I do not clearly know who I am in my art work. I do have some ideas who I am not. I am not a realist. As I often find myself disappointed when I see my work resemble too much of the real thing. I am not an abstract painter either as I still like to keep some real forms in. If I am to ask myself what I really want to paint, what I really want to paint are unreal things, fantasy things, like floating jellyfishes, empty martian-like spaces, crooked dead trees, creatures in dream-like places, people in different forms, dilapidated doors that lead to magical places.. I would really love to do be doing that someday. That is my dream. And so, I have resolved to start on another sort of journey - to discover another aspect of who I am, in the drawings that I make. It is daunting and at the same time exhilarating to think that I can be whatever I want to be on paper.

Winter (in some red place)- playing with primary colors

Early Christmas Gift

I am so excited in recieving my Christmas gift to myself today. It came earlier than I thought. I feel like a child! So anxious in opening my package and savoring the pages with my favorite cup of tea in my nice warm bed. So exciting! This is one thing I'll definitely start doing as a Christmas ritual - ordering a gift for myself online as my reward for all the good things I have done the whole year through ;) ...and maybe have them insert a note that says it's from Santa. That would be fun! :)
I got my gift from here.

Camilla Engman is one of my favorite blogger artists. I love her drawings, collages and paintings.

Holiday Fireplace

I find it pretty amusing that there is a channel on TV called "Holiday Fireplace" which shows nothing but a recording of a fireplace burning wood for hours and hours. It is a live recording complete with the occassional crackle and all the sounds associated with wood being burnt. One could sometimes see a hand stretching out to arrange the logs and put in a new one when the wood is starting to run out. Just watching it, made me feel quite warm and toasty. It really is quite amusing.

Taking up Sewing

And so I found myself buying a sewing machine because I had earlier bought five pieces of beautiful fabric from the quilt shop and didn't know what to do with them. When I was a child, I remember playing and trying so hard to sew a few stitches using my mom's old Singer and ended up spending the next hours getting the threads out of wherever it is it decided to entangle itself with. So I approached my new sewing machine with "caution" - hesitation and fear of ruining it are definitely there too. But after an hour of reading the manual and trying things up, I realized that sewing machines nowadays are more sophisticated than they were back then and are now easier to use. And so I made one of the pieces of fabric into a pillowcase. And when I realized it was that easy, I then decided to make Julia's pajamas. And even that turned out great. Just looking at the sewn threads on the fabric boggles my mind. I can't believe I could make such uniformed stitches so easily! I realized it never is too late nor too difficult to try the things one have been wanting to do for years. All I needed was to take the first step - like buying a sewing machine.