Sprocket Rocket images from Hong Kong! Featuring: Stanley Park, Disneyland, The Peak, and the view from thousands of miles up in the air. Lomography CN 100.

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My brother, Luis, had his first one-man show on the same day that I did. However, he also had another one-man show at Manila Contemporary that same week. (Insane, I know. He is cray.) Exposition features some of his larger work, which I love without bias.

Typically, I look for themes and meanings behind works of art. Coming from a show I put up myself, I have realized how potentially irritating and inaccurate it is to form analyses of works that have no literature to back it up. I don’t really mind so much; it’s more of I don’t want people to get the wrong idea. In any case, Exposition is pretty straightforward. I think the message here is more of the beauty that can be found in something as commonly depicted as skulls, and that this subject matter doesn’t necessarily have to be macabre or horrific.

I personally think that the fact that these were rendered so detached and void of anything thematic is partly what makes them so beautiful. The scale and the skill with which these pieces were made are what make these pieces so visually arresting. How is one moved by what is essentially a symbol of death, something that depicts the absence of life, feelings, and emotions?

It’s a funny feeling trying to explain why my brother’s work is so good (haha), so I’m going to stop now. If you find these photos to be stunning, however, I urge you to stop by the exhibit one of these days because they are so much more beautiful in real life.

Spot the Shinji.

This is Sarie with my favorite piece, for scale! (She’s about as tall as me.) It’s of a fox, and everyone seems to love it the most.

Detail.

Lion skull.

Our youngest sibling, Isabel, also passed by. We almost never see her around these parts, so it was nice seeing her there. I mean, she’s always fun:

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Exposition is on display until January 8, 2012 at Manila Contemporary (Whitespace 2314, Chino Roces Avenue, Pasong Tamo Extension, Makati City). Gallery hours are Tuesday – Saturday: 11am – 7pm, Sunday: 11am – 4pm. It’s closed on Mondays and public holidays. Contact information: +63 2 8447328, info@manilacontemporary.com.

So much has happened these past few days. I put up my own show, which was both gratifying and encouraging. I’ve been turning down heavy design jobs to consciously concentrate on making art. I still say yes to small projects, though as I’ve been running out of time but also having the time of my life. At least, in that aspect. Thank you to everyone who’s been supportive and, well, nice about my work. Warms the heart, it really does.

Lately, the difficulties of happily living a life in the way that I would like to have presented themselves to me, and in moments of blind panic, I just really shut down. It’s always dumb and irresponsible, but I am a wallower, so I wallow. I don’t want to be anymore, though. I used to think that there were situations that I absolutely couldn’t rise above and so, despite claiming to be a never give-upper, I have thrown the towel in countless times and pitied myself and I reveled in my sadness and lameness. I felt sorry for myself, and looking back, I honestly feel ashamed that I indulged in caring too much. I feel ashamed that I decided to not do anything about any of these things and just gave in to my melodramatic, despairing heart.

A lot of other things have happened, too.

My mom’s brother, Tito Dennis, passed away last Sunday. It wasn’t sudden, because the condition of his health wasn’t really a secret. But, Tara Maclay, in “The Body,” said of her mother’s death, “It’s always sudden.” It’s always going to be too soon.

More than mourning for his passing, I am sorry that I never made it a point to get to know him. We went to a couple of memorial services and it was so moving to hear how much of a great teacher, friend and colleague he was (he’s the Director of Computer Science and IT in Asia Pacific College). People loved him there. He was, in their words, a visionary.

It felt really sad to me that I couldn’t say anything much more than “he was always so nice to me” or “his smile always lit up the room” or “he loved his cars so much.” I’ll always be sorry that I never really got to know that side of him that people got to cherish. I don’t have a strong, particular memory with my uncle, and this makes me so sad.

I also feel ashamed that I have invested in people that shouldn’t really matter, but never got to know those who do. I have so many cousins and I never really got to know them as anything more than that. We don’t graduate from small talk, and this new, strange part of me really wants to be there for my family.

In any case, I’m glad that there are so many people who loved him while he was still here. I just hope he knew, in whatever little way I could express, that I loved him, too.

Quick entry because I am away on a long vacation and I miss my family. I meant to write this post when my mom got discharged from the hospital after she was confined on her my birthday. It was meant to be a welcome back post because I know that she reads my blog. (Heh, hi mama.)

I guess it’s just a small update because lately, I’ve been appreciating my family more. It’s not perfect, but I’m slowly realizing how my parents really brought us up the best that they could. I like looking through old childhood pictures, because we always seemed so happy.

I don’t know when they will see this post, or if they will even see it at all. But I suppose this is a big thank you to my dad and mom, Soler and Mona, my kuya, Luis, and my little sister, Isabel (who is a brave little toaster, through and through).

I love you, and I love being part of this family.

If you have family—or friends who are as good as—I hope you take this time to let them know how much they mean to you.

To my beautiful sister,

It’s still your birthday in other parts of the world! So, I would argue that this isn’t a late birthday greeting. Currently, you are in the other room, watching all of the T.V. episodes while you were away on your trip to Germany and Austria. You were gone a whole of seven weeks, and I think that the entire household was in a bit of a quiet mess, as evidenced by the frequency of our FaceTime buggery, and constant Wall Posts of variations of “Why aren’t you online?”

In that time, I saw from a distance how much you were growing up to be your own beautiful person. I saw how much patience you had been cultivating inside of you, how you dealt with difficult people and with difficult situations. Stuck in a foreign land! I felt like a little baby, with my wussy problems, battling with the Manila heat, while you were bundled up in a padded jacket all the way out in Europe.

Sometimes, you talked to me when you were feeling a little sad. I was happy for the interaction, but I was sad for your sadness, and frustrated at my inability to make things better from where I was. As the weeks wore on, you seemed to be getting on pretty well. You were busy and having fun, and thank goodness—adjusting!—but thank you for tagging me in photographs you thought I would like.

I always thought that, between the two of us, you were the more thoughtful one. (Don’t think I forgot all about your birthday: your present is in transit as I type this.)

Though you are often difficult to be around (heh), I really missed you while you were gone. It’s not an aching, incapacitating sort of missing; rather, a knowing of something just not being there. There were so many things I wanted to have shared with you but couldn’t, so many stories that I would have told you had you been here. I’d taken to sleeping on your side of the bed, but you already knew that.

There are so many things that I could say to you, I’ve known you all twenty-one years of your life. I have yet to learn so many different parts of you, but what I want to do right now is thank you for understanding me, as a person and as a sister, and for loving me despite our constant butting of heads and ideas and opinions, and our arguing, and our constant misunderstandings. I’d like to think that we get along better than we used to, and I’m so grateful for that. You’ve always been one of my favorite people, and even though you don’t say it back as often as I say it: I LOVE YOU.

I pray for nothing but the best for you. You are such a wonderful person, and I’ve always admired how weird and random your personality is. Thank you for making me laugh, and for cheering me up when I’m sad. Thank you for knowing when to leave me alone, and when you need to hug me back. Thank you for letting me be your strange older sister who is, in many ways, less wise than you. Thank you for teaching me the value of not compromising who I am because of what others thought, and for at least pretending to take my advice into consideration.

I hope you know that I am always here for you. God loves you, and I hope you know that he is always watching out for you; especially, for all the times that I can’t. You were always one to look after yourself (Remember that time, when you were really little, and mama and papa hid from you at the mall? How, instead of crying, you put your hands on your hips and surveyed the surrounding area, just knowing that something was up?) but look to him when you feel like you can’t take it. He’ll see you through.

I hope you remember to be brave.
I love you, always.

Love,
Ina