What Have I Been Up To! // August 13, 2010

Online activity has dwindled a bit, and has been reduced to looking at YouTube videos, cleaning out my Google Reader and reblogging Things That Make Me Cry. My Macbook Pro’s in the laptop hospital, see. It’s been there for the past few days, maybe a week now? But I’m just glad that it started having problems while it was still under warranty, and not after it had expired. That’s some stroke of luck, at least, isn’t it?

Anyway, so things I have been up to:

Trying to get back into film photography!
This is the FM-2 I used in high school. I remember close to nothing about using it.
That’s kind of sad, but the important thing is that I am determined.

Tried Perfect Binding!
Success, mostly. I have two new blank journals right now. I will not sell them,
because they look really handmade, but I understand the binding process more now, so yay.
More photos of the journals and the process (sort of) under the cut, if that interests you at all.

Re-reading Harry Potter in between everything!
I finished “Chamber of Secrets” today, which is exciting, because “Prisoner of Azkaban” is my favorite.

Getting the most mileage out of this fantastic cup.
This is currently my favorite cup and has aided me in keeping hydrated.
It’s by Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, featuring a double-walled ceramic body and a silicone cover.
I’ve since used it for coffee, water, hot chocolate, tea lattes. I’m thinking of using it for soup next.

In other news, I have been employed. (!) I will talk about it more in the next post, although I haven’t exactly really been working-working yet. (I start on Monday.) Still, it’s pretty exciting.

In other other news, my mother has been admitted to the hospital and has been there for the past three days. I think she’s on the mend now, so thanks to everyone who has shared a thought and a prayer for her. It really means a lot.

Continue reading What Have I Been Up To!…

 

Bernardo Pacquing’s “Earth Mounds” // August 12, 2010

I’ve been a big fan of Bernie Pacquing’s work, ever since I saw this piece from an exhibit at West Gallery, when it was still operational in Megamall in 2008. I don’t know why, but I’ve never really gotten a chance to see his work much after that. So, when I heard that he was mounting a solo show at Finale, I practically begged my parents to go with me. (The last we ventured into Makati on a Friday night, we were stuck on the road for two hours, so they were a little apprehensive.)

Thank goodness they agreed (I’m mostly incapacitated, transportation-wise, because I am not exactly the best commuter, and also, I cannot drive), and that the traffic was merciful.

Pacquing’s exhibit is called Earth Mounds, and I read it after I’ve had a proper look-through, so looking at each piece was sort of magical to me. This is really one of the most cohesive shows I’ve been to in a while, and it was such a big pleasure looking around and kind of realizing how things went together. I don’t think it really comments on anything much, but it really is one of the best shows I’ve been to this year.

my favorite piece from the Mound series

From the door, I started with his Mound series, and my mouth kind of hung in awe, and I’d let out a little chuckle, because it’s ridiculous how strong each piece was. And then I moved to the Arches series, experienced a heightened level of my initial reaction until I made my round about the room and was just completely floored by how, in tiny details, everything tied together. I even made like a pretentious art douche and wrote in a little Field Notes notebook, because I really just wanted to remember the little details about the show that made me smile.

In Earth Mounds, Pacquing uses the shape of the dome, lots of curves, and geometry. I don’t know if he intended it, but the installation pieces were also strong parts of the exhibit, providing a more tactile and tangible way of presenting the idea of mounds and domes. Most of his imagery is not representational, but Pacquing asserts forms of architecture, with the installations seeming like little buildings, little structures. The works on paper offer the feeling of standing as blueprints, working really well and closely with the rest of the pieces.

I’m also such a big fan of his color palette. In retrospect, the show also probably owes part of its cohesion to Pacquing’s mastery of color. See, I would never be able to think of these color combinations. But his nifty little mind was able to mix bright blues and yellows with soft pinks and a minty green. Look at this beautiful piece.

“Termitaria”

“Termitaria” (detail)

This particular one entitled “Termitaria” is, I feel, an excellent assimilation of the entire show. Combining the imagery of mounds, and playing with structural elements, with the inclusion of the material used for the installation pieces (wood), it is such a stunning and visual piece. It made me feel bad that I don’t have money to buy it, and my own house to put it up on.

So, this is a pretty late post (I went on the 6th of August), but you are a lucky lot because the show will be up until the 30th! Just go to Finale Art File between 10am and pm on a Monday-Saturday. It really is a beautiful show that you should see.

Here’s Finale’s address:
Finale Art File
La Fuerza Compound (Gate 1)
2241 Pasong Tamo, Makati City
(across Philippine School for Interior Design)

Continue reading Bernardo Pacquing’s “Earth Mounds”…

 

Why I Write Fiction. // August 8, 2010

This blog is Looking For Alaska’d Out, I know, but its author, John Green, is brilliant in so many other different ways. Lately, I’ve been thinking about the importance of cohesion and unity and meaning in created works, and how a lot of my writing has been thoroughly insubstantial. I say this with an earnestness and a modesty that I hope will not be taken as me fishing for compliments.

The truth is that, when I began really thinking about being a writer, it was because of fiction. And now, after being a fellow for a Heights workshop two (three?) years ago, I have turned up with nothing to show for it. When people assume that my Biggest Life Dream is to be a designer, I politely correct them and say that what I really want to be is a novelist. I still want that, and I’m more than a little bit ashamed that I haven’t been doing anything about it.

I think I might have frozen up a little bit, and maybe I’d become a little paralyzed by the thought of potentially writing something awful or shallow or empty. And then, through the course of this stagnation, I’ve forgotten how to try.

The point of this entry is that, while randomly watching John Green’s latest update on the vlog channel he shares with his brother, Hank, this wonderful man gave me the jolt that I needed, I think. And with his parting words, the pressure has been lifted off of me, to come up with something beautiful or harrowing or life-changing, replacing it with the desire to create something true.

And then, I’m left beginning to think that, maybe, I’m ready to write stories again.

“There used to be a barn in this field, a barn where I first told a girl I loved her, and where I spent my first all-nighter studying world history by flashlight while drinking astonishingly bad wine. Emily Dickinson wrote that success is counted sweetest by those who ne’er succeed, and so, too, youth is counted sweetest by those who are no longer young.

Nostalgia is inevitably a yearning for a past that never existed, and when I’m writing, there are no bees to sting me out of my sentimentality.

For me, at least, fiction is the only way I can even begin to twist my lying memories into something true.” — John Green

 

 

 

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