Nikon FE, Fuji Provia 100

Sometimes I think I forget about why I do things.

I think I forgot about why I liked to blog in the first place. My first blog was born because my best friend gave me the link to her secret one, and although she was a much better writer than me, I wanted to tell stories, too. I got my LiveJournal because someone I liked had one, too. It resulted in Nothing Special, but I moved on to making bonds with people over the Internet, which was, at the time, kind of a creepy, shady thing to do. We talked about obsessions, and real life, and asked no one in particular why the world was so unfair. We grew up and moved on, but LiveJournal has always been a safe place for me.

I got Nothing Spaces because of envy, mostly. I read a lot of personal blogs that were “.coms” and I admired the honesty and candidness of those journals and diaries. Back then, people didn’t really Google people, and no one really plugged their blogs. They just poured their hearts and souls and pictures in these repositories, and people from all over the world somehow connected with them.

Mary Oliver wrote the “instructions for living a life:” Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.

Sometimes, I’d like to think that that is why I do what I do. It’s not something I earn from (although a lot of people who get in touch with me for work find me through here), and it’s not something I use to share what I do (although I have been wanting to do so for a while). It’s just here, because I am “living a life.”

I like taking photos, I like writing, and I like telling people about things that I find. I like telling stories on blogs, because truthfully, it’s the best way I know how to. I’m not very articulate, nor am I particularly good at adding flourish to my story-telling. A lot of people kind of hate on blogs, and I understand why. It doesn’t mean I agree, but I get it.

When I see blogs today, I realize it’s very different from what I grew up with. It feels kind of like how old people don’t really “get” the learning curve of computers. All of a sudden, there is an influx of blogs that were monetized and sponsored, and I couldn’t wrap my head around how it all worked.

I was obsessed with figuring it out for a little while, and it was a huge blow to the ego when my stats began to dwindle. And it got sad when I realized that what began to motivate me to post were my stats. So I stopped caring.

And now we are here.

I don’t think I can recreate the earnestness and honesty that gave birth to so many funny, endearing blogs that I used to spend hours reading in high school. I don’t think that writing here even improves the quality of my writing.

But I’m paying attention, and I’m being astonished, and I’m here to tell about it.

The post INSTRUCTIONS FOR LIVING A LIFE. appeared first on Nothing Spaces.

I just recently discovered that I actually have some followers on Bloglovin’. I don’t really know what that is, but I think it just basically alerts people who follow me there if I have a new post. I am “claiming” this blog now, with my Bloglovin’ account. It turns out, I signed up for the service over a year ago, but I just never configured the settings.

So, if you want, you can follow me there.

However, I have also set up an RSS feed, which you can subscribe to via this link. I use Google Reader myself, but I know there’s a lot of other feed readers all over the world. I just found out I hit 200 feed readers, so thank you, whoever you guys are.

I know not a lot of people really use RSS feeds, and I made this page a long time ago to sort of explain what it does. In the simplest terms, it just makes it easy for you to know when your favorite blogs (your subscriptions!) have updated. Kind of like an LJ friends page or a Tumblr Dashboard for pretty much the entire Internet.

Anyway, thank you, whoever you are, for reading what I write. I know it’s been a confusing two years over here, but I’m still glad you’ve been with me.

The post PSA: BLOGLOVIN’ & RSS FEEDS. appeared first on Nothing Spaces.

A few months ago, Kwen messaged me to tell me that Frankie, one of my favorite magazines, is available through a local shop called Fika Fika Fika.

I immediately ordered Issue #41, May-June 2011, and the process was quick and painless. The delivery was also very prompt. I was surprised to see that in addition to the issue I ordered, as well as some other goodies (paper products, writing tools, etc), she also enclosed a back issue! I already had this issue (and I’m trying not to be a big packrat anymore), so I asked Fika Fika Fika if I could just give it away to a Nothing Spaces reader, and she said yes!

Anyway, up for grabs is Frankie #39, Jan-Feb 2011.

Since the issue is about feeling like you belong somewhere, all you’ve got to do is comment with your name and where/when you feel like you most belong.

A few notes and rules:

• The contest is open to all. However, you must be willing to pick it up from a gallery along West Avenue, Quezon City or pay for shipping. (Normally, I would pay for it, but I am trying to save!)
• You can only comment once.
• Winner will be picked randomly.
• Winner must reply to the email alert within 24 hours of receiving it, otherwise I will pick another winner.
• You can comment until 11:59 PM on July 31, 2011 (+8:00 GMT).
• Pop by Fika Fika Fika! The shop’s got a lot of interesting things for sale, as well as back issues of Frankie. Unfortunately, Issue #42 is sold out. However, I can vouch for every issue of Frankie they still have stocks of.

Okay, that’s it! If you have any other questions, please leave a comment below, and I’ll try to get right back to you.

Happy commenting!

The post NOTHING SPACES x FIKA FIKA FIKA GIVEAWAY. appeared first on Nothing Spaces.

Dear Reader,

If you are still around, it would (maybe) interest you to know that Nothing Spaces turned two a few days ago! I’ve been experiencing server errors for the past month and a half, so I’ve held off posting, but I am pretty sure that I’ve fixed the problem (concerned the IP address my FTP account was pointing to), so I’ll be posting pretty regularly here again.

I have a bunch of posts up my sleeve right now, I just have to get around to writing them. Some will probably be exciting! Others, not so much. In any case, I just wanted to say that NS turned two (!) and that I am not dead. A list of things I have been up to:

• Bangkok! I went with Karen, Therese, Roxy & Sarie. We stayed there a whopping 8 days, and had a great time eating and just exploring the city. Here is a photo post, in case you missed it. I would very much love to go back.
• Bohol! I went with my family to Bohol, one of the Philippines’ biggest tourist destinations. I have never been, and although our stay was quite short, I had a really great time with my folks.
• Farm Visit part 2. Went to Herbana Farms again this weekend, where we had a great frakking lunch (no joke). I brought home rosemary and lavender plants for my mom.

And so on! It’s funny, but I think I have been out of the house more times in the year I’ve been out of college, than during all four years that I was in it. I think I’ve been opening up a bit more. One of the best things I’ve learned on my Bangkok trip is that shyness is a crutch. More on that soon.

A big personal victory for me was contributing to Rogue for the month of May. I held off posting about it, because I didn’t have my physical copy yet, and then things got in the way. But here, I am announcing it now. This is one of the pieces that I made for the issue. Here is another one:

I hope you guys get a copy, because—and I don’t mean this as a pat on my own back—it’s such a great issue, touching on a wide variety of topics and it has a lot of great art by Dan Matutina.

In the meantime, I’m working on some posts (I have a lot in mind and they are a jumbled mess in my head!), and a give-away for Nothing Spaces’ second birthday. For everyone who stuck by weird server shenanigans, thank you! My traffic went way down, but I got a lot of messages telling me my blog was down and that they missed it.

Just so you know, I missed you guys, too.

Love,
Carina

The post Happy Birthday, Nothing Spaces! appeared first on Nothing Spaces.

I’ve since grown out of Candy. Mostly because my interests have morphed into other things, and I guess I also just grew up. But I do still check their website from time to time and occasionally write for them. (Incidentally, all these web features are about Harry Potter.)

This is a late post, since all the new issues are out on the stands right now, but I suppose it’s still worth mentioning. I got a small feature on the March cover for this blog (I realize that’s kind of weird and self-referential to post about it, but well—)! The April issue has BBV on it, but if you still wanna read the tiny blurb on Nothing Spaces, try looking for the March issue with Taylor Swift on it:

It was kind of strange (in a pleasant way!) to be leafing through the issue again, because I couldn’t really relate all that much anymore, but a tiny part of me was feeling a familiar kind of comfort. And, you know, I actually was able to learn a few new things because of really practical tips. Who knew! It’s also kind of funny when I read about boy-related things and thinking about how I used to be so into these things.

Candy was such a big part of my life. I always wanted to have something I sent in posted on Anything Goes! I think I might have been part of it once, and it thrilled me so much. It was such a big deal when my friends’ letters would get published, and when I won a contest~ for e-mailing in a blurb about my life hero, it felt like such a high high. I would read the embarrassing stories with my sister and we’d vote on the worst ones. I would also always attempt to do the Candy wink… to no success. I’m pretty glad digital cameras were a rarity back then.

The variety of people who alerted me to the news was pretty funny and surprising. I knew I was going to be featured (the editor of Candymag.com, Macy, asked me for a photo), but I didn’t expect these strange variety of people to be the ones to tell me about it. People I knew from high school, college, church, and the Internet told me, and I guess I was surprised that Candy was still a part of the lives of so many people I knew.

I think that no matter what happens, I can’t ever deny my Candy roots. I’ve changed a lot since my obsessive Candy-reading days, and I’ll probably change again, but I think that Candy will always have a tiny pocket in my heart.

The post Candy Girls. appeared first on Nothing Spaces.

My bookshelves are mostly done! I just need to reorganize, and maybe rethink some of my literary choices. Of course, I am torn, because as much as I would like to throw out embarrassing novels and such, I remember having an enormous stack of The Secret Life of Alex Mack and Full House (!!!) novelizations and giving them away. And the truth is, I kind of want them back… for no real reason other than I am a pack-rat who delights in nostalgia.

Ahem.

Here are some pictures, but there is not a lot, because while I think books are cool, I don’t know if people will be able to stand reading about another person’s half-assed attempt at organizing them. Maybe when I’m done with the entire room?

So, for those not in the know, I share a room with my sister! So, yes, we have sort of a halfsies arrangement. Sort of like a Twin Popsie. This is what half of my half looks like:

For the curious: clicking on the image will take you to the Flickr page,
which I have liberally supplied with notes as to which shelves have what kind of books.

Random fiction, the iPod and iHome I inherited from my dad, and P.T. Flea.

One thing I am proud of is that I have enough poetry books to fill an entire shelf cube thing!
I bought a lot of poetry books last year. I don’t can’t analyze them properly, but I do enjoy reading.

Top shelf! It’s narrower, so that is where I have relegated the stumpy books.
A lot are still wrapped in plastic because I am stricken with the disease of buying faster than I can read.

Anyway, more from me soon, I promise. I have a slew of posts that I have been working on (in my head, but still!) and I’m really excited about them. This was just the easiest to put together and type up, so this is what you are getting! I am just really out of sorts and out of time right now. I need to calm down, but I can’t seem to figure out how.

Also, I think it’s almost time for a new layout? What do you think?

The post Small Victories: (Kind of ) Neat Bookshelves. appeared first on Nothing Spaces.

In which I talk a little bit about the things I learned last year, and the things I would like to do in 2011.

Previously, some introspection. Here’s Part II.

As much as I would like to downplay 2010, it really has been a significant year. It doesn’t seem so, whenever I look back on the days where I would waste away in front of a computer screen, but I think I did a lot of growing up.

Some lessons I arrived at in 2010, with links to the original blog posts, if you care to re-read them:

• The Importance of Being Earnest — In which I try to not care about what other people thought. (March 2010.)
• Things I Have Learned From Beatles Rockband: Life and Art Edition — In which I learn just how important Timing is, with the help of a video game, painting woes, and The Album Leaf. (June 2010.)
• The Trouble With Pretending — In which I realize that Your Best Bet Is To Be Yourself. With a little help from the likes of KVJ, Kurt Cobain, Salvador Dali, and JKR. (September 2010.)
• Life Lessons Told In Seven Acts — In which it took a trip out of the country to make me realize that a) I do like spending a considerable amount of time alone, b) you can understand The Big Things by getting to know the smaller, more specific things. (September 2010.)
• Making Time & Making Space: October, I Hated You A Little Bit — In which I learned that some things ask for patience with the enormity and range of a continuum in exchange for growth. (October 2010.)
• November’s Battlecry — In which I realize that it’s never too late to instigate changes in your life. Most of my goals were unsuccessful, but I think the lesson is still there, so it still counts. (November 2010.)
• Progress Report: Deerest (5 June – 6 Dec) — In which slow and steady won the race. (December 2010.)

More than anything, 2010 was for self-discovery. I feel like I’ve really been tested by so many things, and I’m slowly starting to see just what kind of person I am. I think 2011 might be more for making the changes I’d like to make, because there are a few that I can think of. I don’t think I’m necessarily a bad person, but I know I’d like to work on things like negativity and the lack of productivity, like listlessness, like letting the little things go, like enjoying things for what they are instead of agonizing over what they don’t turn out to be. Like the semi-permanent scowling!

I feel like 2010 was such a big year, but it was followed around by a dumb, relentless, dark cloud that just sort of sits there all the time and ruins the view. So, I want to see as little of that dark cloud as possible this time around. I want to worry less, and really have that ability to just focus on the things that I can control, instead of losing my shit over the things that I can’t.

As for goals and resolutions, I really have a lot of those. Some of them are really specific (e.g. learn how to drive, build a painting portfolio, write regularly, be better at my job, finish the Bible, keep a budget, etc.) and some are not exactly quantifiable (e.g. be nicer to people, stop propagating bad conversations about people, forget your credit card’s security code). I think this year is going to be about being more, trying more, doing more, and so on.

But like I said, Courage and Kindness are some things I’d like to still carry with me this year. Hopefully.

I think I’m keeping some goals and resolutions to myself, and I think I might give myself a break and not feel like a failure when I end up not getting to do some of the things. Yoda said, “Do or do not. There is no try.” And, I mean no disrespect when I say that I disagree, because I really feel like it takes a lot of courage to simply try. In trying, there is a conscious choosing of something uncertain. There is a moment where you decide to go for it despite the absence of the assurance of success. I think that speaks even louder than outright success.

First thing tomorrow, though, I’m going to give my productivity a swift kick in the shins and ask him where he’s been hiding all this time. And then, I’ll see where we go from there.

The post Endings & Beginnings & Things In Between: Part II. appeared first on Nothing Spaces.

• Workspaces, Tumblr
• Anik-Anik Love (Filipino creatives)
• Workspaces, Share Some Candy

The point of this post: My brother and I tagged along with my parents, who were having a meeting with Manuel Ocampo. You must understand that I am pretty much in awe of this man. Aside from being an art world BAMF with his name in lights all over the world, he was also partly responsible for the art inside Beck’s Odelay. Degrees of separation down to three! (Two? How do you count them?) Despite that, he is also quite nice and sincere. I wrote about him and his curatorial debut, a group exhibit comprised of Filipino artists held in Berlin, in UNO Magazine, for their October issue. (Solenn Heussaff was on the cover, my heart!)

(I do that with my shirt whenever I feel awkward/displaced. Good of my dad to capture it on film?)

Anyway, what was supposed to be a meeting turned out to be a studio visit to two other artists’ spaces—Gerry Tan’s and David Grigg’s—and a gallery, all of which were conveniently located not three minutes away from each other. Here are a few photos, the rest will be under the cut.

Seeing these workspaces reminded me of the reason behind the name of this little home for me, my sacred space. Taking the name from Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” my favorite book, where he talks about “Nothing Places.” To quote:

“[W]e started marking off areas in the apartment as “Nothing Places,” in which one could be assured of complete privacy, we agreed that we never would look at the marked-off zones, that they would be nonexistent territories in the apartment in which one could temporarily cease to exist…”

The idea of my own little area, to be who I am and make what I like, regardless of other factors, is so appealing to me. I think that’s maybe why I always talk about wanting to move out. It’s not that I’m tired of the people I live with (because, at the very end of it, I do love my family very much), or that my circumstances are at all inconvenient. I just really think that I maybe need a space—mine—to be me, without having to explain or apologize or hold back. I think I just really need to mark off my own Nothing Spaces, beyond the screen.

Perhaps in 2011? For now, I’ll make do with what I have, try to be the most of myself that I can be.

Loads more photos under the cut. They’re pretty interesting. :)

Manuel Ocampo

Book shelf! With a piece by MM Yu (pick-up sticks).

Inexplicably endearing.

Duchamp reference?

—

Gerardo Tan

This is apparently where they all convene to eat.

We had some wine. I’m not normally a wine person, so at one point, it felt like a punch in the face.

Coffee maker! + a piece by Romeo Lee.

Music! The stack has Pavement, The Rolling Stones, Lou Reed, Yo La Tengo,
but Beck’s Modern Guilt was playing when we got there.

People next door playing Bingo.

—

David Griggs + LOST Projects

When we dropped by LOST Projects, an alternative art space, a show by Melbourne-based Ben Quilty was on display. I was pretty much amazed. The frakking textures and colors on those paintings are really something else. It really made me want to try out different techniques for painting, but I don’t know… We will see!

It’s not in this photo, but I was most excited about a collection of Brautigan’s poetry.

The post Studio Visits & Nothing Places. appeared first on Nothing Spaces.

So I’ll reserve those stories when my day becomes particularly dour and I need a scapegoat.

That’s the Master Plan, at least. And, quite frankly, I am pretty excited.

The post Sickly Times and The Love of Books. appeared first on Nothing Spaces.

So, I’ve been toying with the idea of selling stuff I make online. I’ve been working on some badges/buttons (like the ones I used for my thesis, but also another new ‘set’ that, in my humble opinion, is pretty exciting), since people seem to love those. But then, I’m thinking of making some prints as well.

These are A5 in size (or half of A4) and 3/4 are references of things dear to my heart.

Yes/No? What do you think? Should I make more or should I just stick to my day job? (LOLJK, I don’t have a dayjob.) Let me know what you think, please. I’d really appreciate it.

Suggestions (of what else to make—as in, shirts, tote bags, etc?) are also most welcome.

Love,
Carina

P.S. Sorry for the stupid title. I haven’t even read that play.

The post To Sell or Not To Sell, That is the Question. appeared first on Nothing Spaces.