I’ve been thinking a lot about sadness lately, but only because it seems to have elected itself as a permanent sheen on my otherwise pretty good life. I have found myself getting sad over the littlest things like having to explain things to people twice, social exclusion, accidentally exposed rolls of film and, most recently, withholding tax.

Once, Reggie wrote that she doesn’t even remember what kind of things she used to be so sad about in high school. I know what that feels like, when it comes to my life, too. Because, I don’t think my life was ever severely lacking, at least in the ways that mattered. It’s just like that Smashing Pumpkins song, I’m in love with my sadness, but believe me when I say that I never truly mean to be.

At some point in my life, I agreed with a lot of things that John Green’s female protagonist in Looking for Alaska thought. Alaska said, “Pudge, what you must understand about me is that I’m a deeply unhappy person” and briefly, I believed with all my heart that that was just the kind of person I was. Lately, I’ve been giving in to sadness and negativity, and the truth is, I haven’t felt as disconnected from myself as I do now.

It’s not like “I don’t know myself anymore,” but it’s more like “I don’t feel good when I respond or think this way.” I don’t think I’m alone when I say that sadness is beautiful. It’s beautiful in a way that honesty and vulnerability are beautiful, especially in the face of ugly, painful things. I’m drawn to it, because it opens up a more interesting complexity in humanity, reveals a side that a lot of people would just rather ignore.

“Brod discovered 613 sadnesses, each unique, each a singular emotion, no more similar to any other sadness than to anger, ecstacy, guilt, or frustration. Mirror sadness. Sadness of domesticated birds. Sadness of being sad in front of one’s parent. Humor sadness. Sadness of Love Without Release.” — Everything is Illuminated; Jonathan Safran Foer.

But, just because it sometimes can be beautiful, it doesn’t mean that I should constantly seek it out and put myself in situations where sadness will prevail over everything else.

It’s no secret that I relate to a lot of coming-of-age stories. These stories reflect basic human pains, stings of which are often felt for the first time, and then they tell of how young people overcome them. The first pangs of betrayal or rejection might just be some of the worst feelings in the world. Sometimes, it gets worse, but we learn, we grow, and we cope. That’s how the world works. I think sad situations are inevitable, but ultimately, you get to choose how you respond and how much of yourself you allow to be affected.

I don’t mean to say that it’s better to be a happy person than to be a sad person, but I think that I personally should know by now how to better deal with these bouts of sadness and these tiny tragedies, without having to feel like the whole world is ending or that my heart is imploding on itself. My So-Called Life‘s Angela Chase is an early adopter in Wallowing, but I imagine that even she eventually had to suck it up and deal with her feelings, too. I’m thinking, maybe, so should I.

“Do you have doubts about life? Are you unsure if it is really worth the trouble? Look at the sky: that is for you. Look at each person’s face as you pass them on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street, and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. They are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing. Stand up and face the east. Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky. It’s okay to be unsure. But praise, praise, praise.” — The Shared Patio; Miranda July.

The past few weeks have been busy and even though sometimes I feel like I haven’t been doing enough, a review of events—I’d like to think—proves otherwise. So far, April has seen two art-related things, 16×16, which was for Young Star’s 16th birthday and a fundraising for Outerhope organized by Blanc Gallery.

For Young Star, 8 visual artists collaborated with 8 photographers, working on 16×16 canvases. I was partnered with Hannah Reyes, who is one of the most talented (and sunny!) people I know. It was such a great experience for the both of us and I think our styles worked really well together. Primer, a sponsor of the event, even chose our piece, “Keeping Things Whole,” as their favorite. :)

We decided to name our piece after a poem by Mark Strand called “Keeping Things Whole.” Hannah’s photos were mostly from her travels around the Philippines. Here’s the poem:

Keeping Things Whole
Mark Strand

In a field
I am the absence
of field.
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.

When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body’s been.

We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.

Stole some more pictures from the event, but click here for the rest of the album by Young Star.

Sarie, Joey, Martin, Becca, me and Tim.

Sarie, Therese, Nice, Joey, Leloy, Martin, Becca, me and my brother, Luis.

I didn’t get to go to the fundraising night for Outerhope, but you can see the piece I made by clicking here. I hope my contribution helped them, even a little bit, though I have no news if it did.

On to the exciting part (as if these things weren’t enough)! Two great things are coming up this May. My friend Zoe has been working her butt off for Lightbombs Contemporary and has kindly invited me as one of the artists she wants to represent in Hong Kong. This May, Lightbombs is going to be part of Art East Island, which occurs parallel to Art HK, the International Hong Kong Art Fair.

I’ll be showing a few pieces along with Zeus Bascon, Michael De Feo, Jed Escueta, Dex Fernandez, Dan Findlay, David Griggs, Jonathan Jay Lee, Maya Muñoz, Christina Quisumbing Ramilo, Marc Standing and Pancho Villanueva. If you’re interested, here are some more details!

I’m so excited because I’ll be able to catch the art fair this year. The day after we get back, another group show will open! Through The Looking Glass: Jose Rizal opens on the 26th of May at Manila Contemporary.

I’ll be showing alongside Jacob Lindo! Who is extremely talented, and towards whom I feel talent envy. If you recall, I fangirled like a lunatic over his solo show at our gallery a couple of months back. He is amazing, and I am both excited and scared (that I’ll make crap!) but I’m really thankful that I’ll be a part of this show.

Things are falling into place (I think). I have a couple more news but I’ll save those for another entry. Once these things have taken a more discernible shape. Sometimes, I feel listless and down, but then when I sit down and think about my life, really think about it, I find that there are tons of things that are worth working hard for.

A week ago, I noticed a large number of traffic to my portfolio, http://carina-santos.com, coming from one James Templeton. At that point, he had only a splash page and a banner announcing that his site was still underconstruction, but permalinks to specific pages brought to my attention that this dude was ripping off my layout.

Lo & behold, when I checked back a few days later, his new website was up.

Which is cool and all. Except it’s pretty much an exact copy of mine:

The grids and the code were the same. The navigation was the same, it was the same even down to the colors, and the sidebar information. Continue reading On Design Copycats…

I tried to keep them small things this time.

• Read 7 books. Cut down the amount drastically, because I never reach the original reading goals I’ve set anyway.
• Clean out closet or my side of the room. One or the other, because I don’t think I can do both.
• Update resume. I think I need a letterhead.
• Make business card. Because it’s kind of embarrassing that I still don’t have one.
• Earn at least (privately disclosed amount). Steps toward my end-of-the-year goal.
• Figure out specifications for Codeword: White. Scary deadlines approaching!
• Finally sort out mail that’s going out. Because it’s just gross that I still haven’t.
• Retrieve cameras from repair shop.
• Watercolor once a week! So I can get better at it. I forced my dad to teach me, see.
• Write (an outline of) a short story. Just because I think I need to do it now, or else I might forget how to.

For real now. I think sometimes I forget that I am twenty-three, have been done with college for over two years, and am trying to carve out a decent life for myself. If I remembered that more often, maybe I would quit living like it’s summer vacation for me, too.

Anyway, fingers crossed. I’m going to get rid of all of these lazy bones and follow through this time.

Film used: Kodak Gold 400 and Lomography CN 800.

Finally, I get to somewhat write about Death Cab for Cutie. Being generally unemployed as we are, Sarie and I lined up at around 1:30 p.m. for an 8 o’clock show, and we thought that might have been too much. But when we got there, there were two other groups of people who had already been waiting there since 10 and 11 a.m. Call it crazy, but we’ve been waiting for this show for ten or so years.

A few hours into waiting, we caught part of the sound check. It was spine-tingling hearing Ben Gibbard’s voice float towards us across the room, through the glass. (A melody softly soaring through the atmosphere, hehe.) I felt my heart rise up to my throat, and it was a nice preamble to the show we were about to see. Some of the songs they played weren’t part of their set list but we didn’t know it at the time, so it was like an extra show. These were the songs they played:

• “Different Names for the Same Thing”
• “Meet Me on the Equinox”
• “Death of an Interior Decorator” — this was particularly fun. Everyone we were there with sang, Can you tell me why you have been so-oh-oh-oh sa-ah-aaaaahd?
• what we think might have been a portion of Big Star’s “Thirteen”

In the end, I wasn’t allowed to bring in my SLR—hey, a girl’s gotta try!—so it’s been a painful wait for these photos to be processed, since I took with the only other camera I had with me, an LC-A+. With only one range, four focus points, and a dark room, I’m pretty happy with the results.

Sarie, Belle & Helga. We were front and center. It was glorious.

Thinny Ben! He ran all over the stage like a little critter.

Here be the rest of the photographs, the set list, et al.

On February 27, Winston kindly invited me and Sarie to a soft opening of The Mind Museum in Taguig. It was a great experience, but I don’t know if I’m willing to shell out Php 750 for it. I think it’s probably more worthwhile to check it out if you have children, or if you can avail of the student’s and/or teacher’s discounts, which is a dramatic decrease from the price.

I’m in love with the design and the structure itself, but there’s a lot of improvements they can still make (i.e. displays, readability/copy, screen presentations, etc) for it to be truly “world-class.” It was still pretty fun to see all the displays, though. I wish I paid more attention in science when I still had school.

The Mind Museum opens on the 16th of March. Book tickets here now: http://www.themindmuseum.org/

We were greeted by this robot-type thing named Aedi. I don’t actually know if she functions via a motion sensor because she was already talking when we got there and then she kind of stopped mid-sentence.

After an informative (but pretty text-heavy) display on The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments, there’s a “fork in the road.” To your left is a Filipino-centric area where you can learn more about native animals and the state of the environment in the Philippines. It’s more concentrated on biodiversity and ecology. It’s kind of sad to see how it doesn’t seem like the right people are focused on the conservation of our natural environment. We have so many beautiful animals that I’d never even heard of and I probably won’t be able to see them either, since they’re habitats are continuously destroyed.

Read more about our trip to The Mind Museum