Artist on Artist Insults

What If Bloggers Started Being Honest?

Imagine if these artists were bloggers, they would have only received accolades. It's worse with Facebook. No one can really be honest on their blogs and pages. It's like going to a friend's  house and throwing toilet paper all over. Friends don't do that. That would be impolite and unkind. Here's a list of Artists' insults on Artists from Flavorwire, my favorite cultural news and critique magazine. Now can we start with each other?  Now don't let this list stop your  artistic drivel, I mean drive. Hahahahahahaha!!! It's really not kind to criticize anyone trying to be an artist or curtain designer. DELETEDELETEDELETEDELETE...

1. Andy Warhol on Jasper Johns:

“Oh, I think he’s great. He makes such great lunches.”

2. Salvador Dalí on Piet Mondrian:

“Completely idiotic critics have for several years used the name of Piet Mondrian as though he represented the sum mum of all spiritual activity. They quote him in every connection. Piet for architecture, Piet for poetry, Piet for mysticism, Piet for philosophy, Piet’s whites, Piet’s yellows, Piet, Piet, Piet… Well, I Salvador, will tell you this, that Piet with one ‘i’ less would have been nothing but pet, which is the French word for fart.”

3. Marc Chagall on Pablo Picasso:

“What a genius, that Picasso… It’s a pity he doesn’t paint.”

4. William Powhida on Takashi Murakami:

“…that hack Murakami trying to consume the market whole and ended up designing handbags…”

5. Pierre-Auguste Renoir on Leonardo da Vinci:

“He bores me. He ought to have stuck to his flying machines.”

6. Linder Sterling on Damien Hirst:

“Dead butterflies, cows, horses, humans, sheep, and sharks — it reads like the inventory of a funerary Noah. How many halved calves suspended in formaldehyde does the world need? To my way of thinking, none.”

7. Edgar Degas on Georges-Pierre Seurat:

“I wouldn’t have noticed it except that it was so big.”

8. Joseph Beuys on Marcel Duchamp:“The silence of Marcel Duchamp is overrated. It has become the territory of a few intellectuals, far from the life of people.”

9. Mihail Chemiakin on Voina:

“Many of us can draw a phallus with our eyes closed, but to create something serious? That’s hard, that needs to be studied. Anyone can be an amateur shit-doodling hooligan. It’s unpleasant and casts a shadow on all serious artists.”

10. Frida Kahlo on the European Surrealists:

“They are so damn ‘intellectual’ and rotten that I can’t stand them anymore… I’d rather sit on the floor in the market of Toluca and sell tortillas, than have anything to do with those ‘artistic’ bitches of Paris.”

11. Francis Bacon on Jackson Pollock:

“Jackson Pollock’s paintings might be very pretty but they’re just decoration. I always think they look like old lace.”

12. Willem de Kooning to Andy Warhol (at a party):“You’re a killer of art, you’re a killer of beauty, you’re even a killer of laughter. I can’t bear your work!”

13. Alberto Giacometti on Pablo Picasso:

“Picasso is altogether bad, completely beside the point from the beginning except for Cubist period and even that half misunderstood…. Ugly. Old-fashioned vulgar without sensitivity, horrible in color or non-color. Very bad painter once and for all.”

14.William Blake on Peter Paul Rubens:

“To my eye Ruben’s coloring is most contemptible. His shadows are of a filthy brown somewhat the color of excrement.”

15. Francis Bacon on Henri Matisse:

“I’ve never liked his things very much, except the very, very early things… I loathe them. I can never see what there is to it, with all those squalid little forms. I can’t bear the drawings either — I absolutely hate his line. I find his line sickly.”

16. Banksy when meeting Robbo:

“Never heard of you.”

17. Michelangelo on Raphael:

“Everything he knew, he learned from me.”

18. Salvador Dalí on Pablo Picasso:

“He finished modern art at one blow by outuglying, alone, in a single day, the ugly that all others combined turned out in several years.”

19. J. Alden Weir on the French Impressionists:

“I never in my life saw more horrible things. They do not observe drawing nor form but give you an impression of what they call nature. It was worse than the Chamber of Horrors.”

20. Claude Monet on the French Realists:

“Poor blind idiots! They want to see everything clearly, even through fog!”

21. John Lurie on Julian Schnabel in the painting Hittites Attacking The Schnabel:

“Oh Lord of Gods we must smite the terrible Schnabel.” “Yes, smite the Schnabel.”

22. Andy Warhol on Julian Schnabel (in his diary):

“Julian Schnabel called and said he was coming by with that rock person, Captain Beefheart. And we didn’t want him to, and then I got worried that Julian might have heard what I’d been saying about him — that he goes around to other artists’ studios to find things to copy.”

23. Salvador Dalí on Paul Cézanne:

“I began a happening in New York by announcing in front of three thousand spectators that Cézanne was a catastrophe of awkwardness — a painter of decrepit structures of the past. I was applauded, principally because nobody knew who Cézanne was.”

24. Nicolas Poussin on Caravaggio:

“Carvaggio’s art is painting for lackeys. This man has come into the world to destroy painting.”

25. Titian on Tintoretto:

“He will never be anything but a dauber.”

26. Salvador Dalí on Jackson Pollock’s style:

“…The indigestion that goes with fish soup…”

27.Gustave Courbet on Edouard Manet’s Olympia:

“It’s flat, it is isn’t modeled. It’s like the Queen of Hearts after a bath.”

28. Frederic Leighton on James McNeil Whistler:

“My dear Whistler, you leave your pictures in such a sketchy, unfinished state. Why don’t you ever finish them?”

29. James McNeil Whistler on Frederic Leighton:

“My dear Leighton, why do you ever begin yours?”

30. Anonymous vandal on Shepard Fairey:

Can we even call this art? Seriously?!

Writers Insulting Writers

Return Of The Art Of The Insult

The Art Of The Insult

Archival pigment ink. 8"x11" on 11"x14" Bristol Board

We are obsessed with the quest for "self". We want self satisfaction, self-esteem, self-actualization, without regard for standards. These days people try their damnedest best to be polite,  therefore, modern writers and poets only have sycophantic friends and coaches who praise their work. It is even funnier when a serious critic attempts an honest critique. The sycophants will attack him. If not for self-publishing, those self proclaimed writers' novels and book of poetic rubbish will never see the light of day. Go ahead, the earth is full of trash anyway. What did Oscar Wilde say? "There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book. Books are either well written or badly written. That is all." Listen to a critic or find an honest friend with taste. Now look at "art". Everybody is an artist.

A little background on this post. One day, a fellow analyst at work told me about a novel she was reading. She thought it was a good novel. The book had been passed around the office and I was one of the few who had not read it. I asked what it was about and she proceeded to tell me about an ordinary story. Then she said "You may not like it. It is not your type." I was curious what she thought my type was, so I obliged. It was not a novel at all. It was a 300 page-newsprint, paper bound book, published by some obscure publishing house. I call them disposable books. After reading five pages, I gave it back to her and said. "You are right. I can't read this crap. I'd rather poke my eyeballs with toothpicks." We laughed. Seriously, the dearth of literary talent. My friend liked it because the protagonist swore a lot. In fact every sentence she uttered had the word "fuck" in it. "I said, no one I know speaks like that." She replied "I do." So there you go.

Best Writer on Writer Insults
from Flavorwire

30. Gustave Flaubert on George Sand

“A great cow full of ink.”

29. Robert Louis Stevenson on Walt Whitman

“…like a large shaggy dog just unchained scouring the beaches of the world and baying at the moon.”

28. Friedrich Nietzsche on Dante Alighieri

“A hyena that wrote poetry on tombs.”

27. Harold Bloom on J.K. Rowling (2000)

“How to read ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’? Why, very quickly, to begin with, and perhaps also to make an end. Why read it? Presumably, if you cannot be persuaded to read anything better, Rowling will have to do.”

26. Vladimir Nabokov on Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Dostoevky’s lack of taste, his monotonous dealings with persons suffering with pre-Freudian complexes, the way he has of wallowing in the tragic misadventures of human dignity — all this is difficult to admire.”

25. Gertrude Stein on Ezra Pound

“A village explainer. Excellent if you were a village, but if you were not, not.”

24. Virginia Woolf on Aldous Huxley

“All raw, uncooked, protesting.”

23. H. G. Wells on George Bernard Shaw

“An idiot child screaming in a hospital.”

22. Joseph Conrad on D.H. Lawrence

“Filth. Nothing but obscenities.”

21. Lord Byron on John Keats (1820)

“Here are Johnny Keats’ piss-a-bed poetry, and three novels by God knows whom… No more Keats, I entreat: flay him alive; if some of you don’t I must skin him myself: there is no bearing the drivelling idiotism of the Mankin.”

20. Vladimir Nabokov on Joseph Conrad

“I cannot abide Conrad’s souvenir shop style and bottled ships and shell necklaces of romanticist cliches.”

19. Dylan Thomas on Rudyard Kipling

“Mr Kipling … stands for everything in this cankered world which I would wish were otherwise.”

18. Ralph Waldo Emerson on Jane Austen

“Miss Austen’s novels . . . seem to me vulgar in tone, sterile in artistic invention, imprisoned in the wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world. Never was life so pinched and narrow. The one problem in the mind of the writer . . . is marriageableness.”

17. Martin Amis on Miguel Cervantes

“Reading Don Quixote can be compared to an indefinite visit from your most impossible senior relative, with all his pranks, dirty habits, unstoppable reminiscences, and terrible cronies. When the experience is over, and the old boy checks out at last (on page 846 — the prose wedged tight, with no breaks for dialogue), you will shed tears all right; not tears of relief or regret but tears of pride. You made it, despite all that ‘Don Quixote’ could do.”

16. Charles Baudelaire on Voltaire (1864)

“I grow bored in France — and the main reason is that everybody here resembles Voltaire…the king of nincompoops, the prince of the superficial, the anti-artist, the spokesman of janitresses, the Father Gigone of the editors of Siecle.”

15. William Faulkner on Ernest Hemingway

“He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”

14. Ernest Hemingway on William Faulkner

“Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?”

13. Gore Vidal on Truman Capote

“He’s a full-fledged housewife from Kansas with all the prejudices.”

12. Oscar Wilde on Alexander Pope

“There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the other is to read Pope.”

11. Vladimir Nabokov on Ernest Hemingway (1972)

“As to Hemingway, I read him for the first time in the early ‘forties, something about bells, balls and bulls, and loathed it.”

10. Henry James on Edgar Allan Poe (1876)

“An enthusiasm for Poe is the mark of a decidedly primitive stage of reflection.”

9. Truman Capote on Jack Kerouac

“That’s not writing, that’s typing.”

8. Elizabeth Bishop on J.D. Salinger

“I HATED [Catcher in the Rye]. It took me days to go through it, gingerly, a page at a time, and blushing with embarrassment for him every ridiculous sentence of the way. How can they let him do it?”

7. D.H. Lawrence on Herman Melville (1923)

“Nobody can be more clownish, more clumsy and sententiously in bad taste, than Herman Melville, even in a great book like ‘Moby Dick’….One wearies of the grand serieux. There’s something false about it. And that’s Melville. Oh dear, when the solemn ass brays! brays! brays!”

6. W. H. Auden on Robert Browning

“I don’t think Robert Browning was very good in bed. His wife probably didn’t care for him very much. He snored and had fantasies about twelve-year-old girls.”

5. Evelyn Waugh on Marcel Proust (1948)

“I am reading Proust for the first time. Very poor stuff. I think he was mentally defective.”

4. Mark Twain on Jane Austen (1898)

“I haven’t any right to criticize books, and I don’t do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone.”

3. Virginia Woolf on James Joyce

“[Ulysses is] the work of a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples.”

2. William Faulkner on Mark Twain (1922)

“A hack writer who would not have been considered fourth rate in Europe, who tricked out a few of the old proven sure fire literary skeletons with sufficient local color to intrigue the superficial and the lazy.”

1. D.H. Lawrence on James Joyce (1928)

“My God, what a clumsy olla putrida James Joyce is! Nothing but old fags and cabbage stumps of quotations from the Bible and the rest stewed in the juice of deliberate, journalistic dirty-mindedness.”

Artists Insulting Artists

Dr. Mercedes P. Adorio: Doing and Giving Our Best for Country and People

Dearest friends: I am so happy, honored and humbled to share Dr. Mercedes Adorio's speech at the 100th Commencement Exercises of NOHS, to the 2012 Graduating Class. 

Doing and Giving Our Best for Country and People

Mercedes P. Adorio, Ph.D.

NOHS, Class ‘59

Mr. Rizalino Tortosa, SchoolsDivision Superintendent, Mr. Mario Amaca, School Principal, teachers, parents, guests, and most of all, to our beloved graduating class: Magandang hapon sa inyong lahat.

I am very pleased to be with you today to celebrate with your parents and teachers a very important milestone in your life. Graduation day is always a beginning of a new venture. After 4 years of adolescent displays of intelligence, fun, and laughter, you ask yourself, Now What? Believe me, that is not an easy question.
Being older and having come to grips with the harsh, cold, but also challenging and sometimes exhilarating reality, let me help you find meaning to the question NOW WHAT ? After tonight, after the party, take time out to study carefully the situation you are in. You need to pause so you can think more clearly. What options are open to you? Are your parents ready to send you to college? Is pursuing a degree intimidating or impossible?

But for those who feel that the family cannot afford to send them to have a traditional college education, one member of class 1959 can show you that nothing is impossible for those who are determined to succeed. I refer to our classmate, Captain Jose Garcia who worked his way to college by being a working student. How you deal with setbacks matter. JoeGar, as we fondly call him, had the attitude to offset negative situation and the determination to harness his energy and time in resolving difficulties caused by financial want. He refused to be victimized by poverty. JoeGar must be a wise young man to have seen “the half-full glass rather than the half-empty glass.” Like other young people with the same mind-set, he looked for the positive in a negative situation and intervened. He did not put a ceiling on his ambition. He knew how to balance the forces of nature and to come out the winner. JoeGar, and others like him, determined the course of their destiny. They purposefully map out the path they wanted to tread. So can you.

What if you cannot obtain a college degree? Remember that the persons who contribute the most to our economy are not all college graduates. A huge proportion of overseas Filipinos who send regularly to their families are technical workers trained and certified by the Technical Skills Development Authority (TESDA). There is a regional office of TESDA in Negros Occidental. Young people who become skilled workers find employment easier because they fill the need of businesses and industries here and abroad. In Metro Manila, short-term training programs, in addition to TESDA, are initiated and supported by local governments. Do not miss any of these opportunities when they come and do not consider technical training as less prestigious than a college degree. According to Confucius, In education, there should be no class distinction.” Our overseas technical workers are not called heroes for nothing. They indeed contribute to nation building.

Why do people succeed while others do not or cannot see success and leave their fate in the fickle hands of luck? Having the talent is not enough. Calvin Coolidge aptly says it: “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not.” Being a bright student and in section 1 of the graduating class is not enough. To become the best of what you want to be, you must infuse your talent with passion, dedication and commitment to your work. Coolidge further said: “Persistence and determination are omnipotent.” Maria Luisa Defante did not come from the upper sections of Batch 59 but she won the 2003 Metrobank Award as an Outstanding Teacher of that year, a national recognition which she won over hundred candidates from different regions of the country. People who want to succeed, like Joe Gar and Maria Luisa, know what they truly want for themselves.

That’s the first thing we must remember. People who want to
succeed know what they want. You may not know what it is that you want now--but you can create a vision of that person you want to be. This vision may be inspired by God, or by a character you read in a novel, or you can choose a role model. This vision is the fuel that can sustain you in working harder than what is ordinarily required. This “big picture” of yourself will make you more focused on your work and sustain your energy for the post-baccalaureate studies or training with less distractions than the average guy. The need to achieve and the desire to want more and do more--are the catalysts to inflame your vision. These are the psychological tools of persons who look for ways to improve themselves. They are not satisfied with what they are doing. They ask, How can this thing I am working now get better? What else must I do to improve myself? If you think you have already done your best, and declare that it is enough, you will start sliding back to mediocrity. Success will escape you.

The second thing to remember is that true success comes about when a person zoom-focuses on the right things about their work or their studies. These are the fundamentals of everyday work. These are the things that are so simple, ordinary, doable, and may be called boring. If you want to be the best student or worker you can be, then do what are expected of you--not complaining, not grumbling about the difficulties you face. You might know Vangie Labalan, the actress. She is known to us simply as Christina, our classmate in Batch ‘59. Even in high school she wanted to be in the movies. But what makes Christina productive even at the age of 69, when others much younger than she have long retired from the movies? Christina maintains a simple regimen that is consistent with what successful people do. She was and is never late for her shooting, or absent, when the director calls, and she shares her talent with young, novice actors--very simple fundamentals for staying productive in a fickle business.

Many good students feel proud to be invited to teach at the University of the Philippines. But to stay in the university, you must do the 3 fundamentals: teaching, research or publications and community service. Doing the fundamentals must be on-going, year -in and year- out. Past credited works are not considered for the next promotion. There are no excuses. That is the nature of success in the university and in similar institutions and business enterprises. Success is on-going, not an end goal. It is doing successively what are required and zoom-focusing on the fundamentals that matter. It is tough to stay focused but success does not smile on those who only wait for lady luck. Don’t get me wrong. To be successful does not mean working like crazy. Fun, laughter, vacations, and giving attention to other things are diversions we need to recharge our batteries. But the vision we have of ourselves will bring us back to our goal.

The third element of success is to become mentally tough. There are many distractions-- drugs, smoking, drinking, smut, and going out with disturbing characters. You are going to meet people of questionable values but are convincingly attractive. Young people who want to create a better life for themselves need mental toughness to say NO to these distractions. But as human beings, we have the capacity to will things to happen. We can decide not to smoke, not to drink, or analyse which alternative ways of doing things are right for us. The best athletes follow a regimen of countless practice, practice, and more practice. A writer reads, writes, and reads and writes many a sleepless night. A scientist spends a long time in the laboratory. A farmer spends days tilling the land and watching his crops grow healthy. A fish vendor makes sure his fish are fresh everyday so that his “suki” will not be short-changed. They do their work they like to do with passion and commitment. You have a choice in life. Others choose the path that leads toward their vision. When you are mentally strong, you can face adversity, even embrace it. Adversities are temporary and are merely diversions to something greater. Believe in your power to succeed and you will succeed.

The fourth element of success requires an understanding that we are all connected in some ways, called in social psychology as “collective responsibility.” Arthur Gibson, a tennis champion, once said: “No matter what accomplishments you achieve, somebody helped you.” It seems that we have become responsible for each other--perhaps not directly--but through our examples, we make others also better. Foremost, give thanks to those who have helped you reach where you are now--your parents, teachers, classmates and others. I have not heard of NOHS graduates who are prostitutes, criminals, or if government officials, corrupt and lazy. This is a tribute to our Alma Mater for giving us an education, not of knowledge only but-- of more importance-- the ability to discern what is right and wrong. It may be late for me to say how grateful I am, after 53 years, but let me say thank you, my dear Alma Mater. And most of all, we give thanks to our Lord for watching over us and giving us the strength to pursue our goal and give meaning to our life. We give thanks to God for our beloved NOHS.

The last element, but not the least, of success, is leaving a legacy for the greater good. I know of a lawyer, a graduate of NOHS, class ’67 who is permanently recorded in the Supreme Court Review Abstract (SCRA) for winning three landmark cases. This is her contribution to the practice of law in our country. This honor does not come often, even among lawyers who graduated from the University of the Philippines-College of Law, her Alma Mater, Class ’82. I know her personally, she is my sister Leah. Before she died, she said she wanted to award every year to a graduating student who is most outstanding in Mathematics. Class ’67 will hopefully work out the details of this award. This is her legacy. What legacy will you leave your Alma Mater? What examples are you going to show your love for her? There are many simple ways we can do for our country--become active advocates for the environment, for justice, or peace, or work for the protection of children and women against trafficking, or doing the simple task of keeping our community safe and clean. Robert Louis Stevenson said that we “don’t judge each day by the harvest [we] reap, but by the seeds [we] plant.”

The theme for this year’s graduation is Your Gift of Learning: Our Tool for Nation Building. To study in NOHS is certainly a gift from the Filipino people. The Secondary Education Act made public high schools accessible to all. In this sense, you are Iskolar ng Bayan. Your education had been shouldered by the Filipino people. It is but fitting to respond to this generosity by doing your best to serve our country at every opportunity. The advice of Class ’59: Think well and do good. As students, NOHS has instilled in us the will to know, it is now time that we muster the will to become.

You have done your best as high school students. You are now going to start your journey toward adulthood. As you go through the process of determining your future, remember you are the author of your destiny. Your Alma Mater had done its best to equip you with the tools for making decisions, for evaluating options, and a consciousness of the needs of others and of our country. But the choices are yours to make. Your parents and teachers give you their support and love. Class ’59 cheers for you and say with love and full of hope, PRESS ON!

To the graduating class, claim your place under the sun. Stand up proudly, and say with all fervor, MABUHAY, Class 2012!

Mabuhay! Maraming salamat.

My Favorite Quartet And My Favorite Teacher

My Favorite Quartet

Archival pigment ink on 11"x14" Bristol Board

Has this ever happened to you? You are filled with so many conflicting emotions, you panic because you can't decide which one you want to express first? This is how I feel today. My children are laughing at me because I just discovered Amy Winehouse and I am so awed by her voice. I ran to the mall today to buy her CD albums and I have been singing aloud, the first time after several years. Then I catch myself being so happy and then I stop. I know about Amy's tragic life and that makes me sad. How could one who had so much soul slip like that? I feel so tender towards her memory. Then on my way home, I sent a text message to my eldest sister to ask her when she will be the guest speaker of the 100th Commencement Exercises of Negros Occidental High School. Today!!! The school opened on July 1, 1902 but wars disrupted a few years of instructions.   She was selected by the Alumni Association to do the honors and they also recognized her as an Outstanding Alumnus. Okay, so you say, it is only high school but this is a very special school. It is the oldest educational institution of the province of Negros Occidental when the island was a republic! (Oh yes, the island where I was born was its own republic during the Spanish occupation!) My sister joins the ranks of NOHS's outstanding guest speaker roll, together with former presidents, senators, Supreme Court justices, diplomats and other outstanding citizen-alumni given the honor. Anyway, I am so proud of my sister!!! So special - 100th Commencement Exercises. Our parents would have been so proud. I am so happy but I am also so sad. I am sad because I know if our sister Leah (also an NOHS almunus) was still alive, I am sure she would accompany my sister Mercedes.  

So I posted this photo on my Facebook page and so many of my friends had my sister as their teacher when she taught elementary school for a few years. It is wonderful to know that I am not biased in my assessment and to read their comments telling me she is their favorite teacher and they send their thanks and hugs makes me swell with pride. 

"The guest speaker for NOHS's 100th Commencement Exercises is none other than our Ms. Adorio, shown here with her 5th grade class in ETCS. I think this was in 1970.  Dr. Adorio (in black striped dress) was selected by the NOHS Alumni Association as the distinguished guest speaker for the 100th Commencement Exercises and also recognized as an outstanding alumnus. She is also an alumnus of ETCS. I once wrote this about her: "I think there is something wonderful about being a good teacher. You positively affect people's lives and inspire them. I think I may be biased now, but I have to say that she is one of the best  teachers I had. It was difficult for me because I had to prove twice as much that I deserved the grade I got and if I misbehaved, not only did I have to answer to her as my teacher but also as my sister and then our mother definitely had to hear about it! Ms. Adorio left LCC and ETCS for the University of the Philippines where she pursued her masters and PhD degrees and was invited to join the faculty. She taught at the UP College of Education for many years. She was a Fulbright Scholar to the U.S.A. and then a Fulbright Exchange Professor. She spoke at international conferences on Special Education. She currently teaches at several universities in Metro Manila, runs a special school and is the author of several books on Special Education on which she is considered an authority.""

I would like to add that she is a terrific sister. She holds our family together. She is a beacon for my brothers and sisters and we owe our success to her because as our eldest, she encouraged and supported us to do our best, nurture our ambitions, and follow our dreams. She always defended me when my Mother scolded me for drawing too much. She gave me my first set of professional colored pencils, charcoal and pastels when I was ten years old. She took care of my sister Leah when she became ill of cancer.

Thank you Inday Ched. I love you.

I am so happy and I am so sad. I miss my brothers and sisters...

Cyclobalanopsis chevalieri

Cyclobalanopsis chevalieri (Hickel & A. Camus) Y. C. Hsu & H. W. Jen, J. Beijing Forest. Univ. 15(4): 45. 1993. 黑果青冈 hei guo qing gang. Pen and ink on ATC-sized Bristol board. Read the description of this oak from Vietnam and China, here.

Sad Is Okay And Solitude Is Perfection

Sad Okay.  8"x11" pigment ink on 11"x14" Bristol Board. Yes, each full blade of grass was drawn individually. :)

I looked at some family photographs this weekend and there I was as a little baby, toddler, schoolgirl, high school student, college student, young adult, daughter, sister, wife, mother, friend...I was so happy. I knew I was happy because I remember the occasions. There was a photograph where I looked like I was almost crying from laughing. My sister Freah can make me do that, even over the phone. It hurt to talk to her sometimes because I laughed so much my abdomen hurt. We did not even have to tell jokes, we just started telling it and we both laughed. These days, we don't do that... not that I seek it or miss it. These days, I have a lump in my throat and my heart seems to be jumping off my chest when I remember people I love. I was always smiling when I was with my sisters and friends. I smiled a lot. I was a very happy person. I told a lot of jokes, even if I always mangled the jokes that my family and friends laughed at my delivery instead of the jokes.  Here's something very interesting. My brother Daniel took many candid photographs of me even when I was a little girl and I looked so serious, deep in thought even when playing with mud. I had that expression my sister Mercedes calls "Physics" look. It is the look one has when solving a physics problem. These days I find myself reflecting a lot. I love my solitude. These days I find myself not unhappy, nor devoid of happiness, yet feeling sad and you know, I find it quite satisfactory. Where in the past I used to seek a reason to smile or laugh or not be sad, these days, I am fine with it. I think it's okay. 

All these ink to illustrate solitude. It is quite desirable state, isn't it? I like it very much. I think it is my addiction, solitude I mean, not drawing or painting. I think drawing and painting are just excuses and masks.

Look! Always walking or looking towards the right,...except in deep sorrow and then I lean to the left. :)