Getting Dark

Nights are a little longer now and daylight fades quickly.  Dusk creeps in when there still used to be a mild, afternoon sun and my mind starts to walk down the dark hallways that are filled with strange beings. 

They come in nightmares, grotesque creatures that only a mind steeped in greyness and mist can conjure.  I give them names and they speak to me and tell me of fear and running and loneliness. I realize that I know them.  They are after all, not really different from me -- they are who I am when I lash out and howl, when I look at myself and not like what I see.

My hands have become busy, trying to draw them out.  Hoping that by giving them form they will be easier to live with.  

Hammering on tin, I create a cage for a crimson butterfly.  Trapped in grey shadow she waits patiently for sunlight, her delicate wings blood-red against blackened metal.  Garnets stand guard around her protecting her from the night's demons, banishing the melancholy that comes with the darkness, keeping safe the passion that sits still for now, waiting, waiting, waiting for light.

And now I lay me down to sleep, around my neck this talisman I keep.  

Wishcasting Wednesday: What Guidance Do You Wish For?

Be there when I am afraid. Fear makes me do crazy, silly things that I later regret.  Like backing out of an activity I really, really would like to do, or keeping my mouth shut because what I want to say does not echo what everyone else is saying or even keeping my face covered when I should be walking tall and proud.

Be there when I am discouraged.  When I look at what I have done and only see the cracks, the misses and the imperfect story that is my life. 

Be there when I am lost. When every turn seems to lead to another dead-end, when directions given don’t seem to match where I want to go, when I lose sight of why I want to do something, when I forget that holding another wandering soul’s hand  is sometimes the way to find the center.

Be there when I am jubilant and happy.  Remind me that these times DO come.  Laugh and dance with me to more of these moments.

Be there when I am sitting in Light, when everything falls into place magickally and when I feel that I can do anything .  These are the times when I feel invincible and powerful and sharing them  is the only way I can say thank you.

I wish for guidance that walks patiently beside me, never tiring of whispering instructions even when I don’t seem to be listening.

I wish for guidance that will lead me inward and then outward – to find the answers that I look for, answers that will lead me out of the labyrinth, into sunlight and straight into the purpose that has been laid down for me.

  

An Afternoon in Alabama (Street, That Is)

I had a plan. It was so simple I knew it would work.  In order to keep a promise, get my hands on one of those new mini leather journals by Enan and Nadja of  Alunsina Handbound Books, and have enough time to take a quick nap before my brother's birthday dinner, I mapped out the steps I was going to take at the Handmade Art Fair at No.10a Alabama Street:

1. Brave the noonday glare (I hate glare!) and leave the house right after lunch. Get to No. 10a Alabama in 15  minutes. (Hey, on a Sunday, anything is possible!)

2. Walk  in and find Enan and Nadja’s space.

3.  Pick up precious leather journal.

 4. Do a quick 20-minute tour of the place.

5. Brave the mid-afternoon glare (I really, really hate glare!), get home and nap (aaah).

6.       Total time spent: 1 hour and 30 minutes AT MOST.

I should’ve known that the perfect little plan would be all for naught as soon as I saw this guy:

It was a sign.  This fellow, like me, had resolved to stay no longer than an hour and do a quick exit.  But here he was, reduced to skin and bone (mostly bone in my assessment) and still he could not leave.  The draw of the handmade, the call of creativity and art proved far much stronger than the desire for a Sunday afternoon nap - or even meals I think. (Uhm, mister - you're clavicle is showing.) 

Shaking it off as coincidence, I moved to step no. 2 – get the leather journal from Alunsina Handbound Books.  Not easily accomplished though – I had to pass through several tables of handmade goods and I had to remind myself constantly that I had a mission to get out in 45 minutes or less – or else my wallet would self-destruct. 

It was the hardest 10 meters I had to walk through in my entire life.

Surrounded by handmade items, I was in heaven.  Not a single mass-produced, neon colored baller ID in sight.  There were no tops that had that ubiquitous hand-lettered sign that read “Korea blouse – 150”, no stalls that advertised chemically laden skin whitening poison.

Instead, I found these:

‘80s themed shirts by i love 80s that screamed to me, bringing back memories of that carefree decade when bad men were vanquished by a few swift kicks from Bioman and Scheider and your friends considered you top dog if you had an Atari  

Vintage inspired jewelry by Erika Avancena Bustamante that brings one back to simpler, less harried times

Vintage buttons transformed into pretty rings

Handmade quilts by Linda  – all of them with a fascinating story to tell

Whimsical paper quilling pictures by Amihan Abueva

Amazing art by Eugenia Alcaide  which were responsible for my jaw involuntarily opening and closing and opening again in sheer awe. (She does custom work - so if interested, you can get in touch with her via eugeniaalcaide@yahoo.com.) 

Portrait done entirely with string

This is a three layered drawing - first layer shows the full face, behind it is a skull and I think the third layer is another angle of the lady's face.

I finally made my way to Enan and Nadja’s space and snagged my journal – all within two and a half hours of arrival.   It took me another half hour to get my nieces to move away from the table selling clay art (bribery with handmade clay pendants always works!).   Another  half hour to do another walk-through (translation: more shopping) and squeeze in a pleasant chat with Ms. Sandy Beltran (she of the  Triple Treat Tiangge and Reading Room at Cubao Shoe X) who was tending a booth showcasing  her Pippin Art and I was set to go.

I looked at my watch. It was 5:00 p.m.  and I had missed my deadline horribly.  My wallet, however, did not self-destruct  and being around handmade artisans and artists had energized me far better than any nap could.  Sometimes, plans go awry for the best reasons.

(The Handmade Art Fair at No. 10a Alabama happens each month. This address is also where you can find Resurrection Furniture and Found Objects Gallery.   The next art fair is on October 22 so if you love handmade and support handmade artisans, go check it out.)  

Wishcasting Wednesday: Which Path Do You Wish to Follow?

It was difficult to write today.

For the past few days I have been standing still, not moving, stuck.  I kept watching people move forward so I pretended to do the same.  The laugh is still there, the quick-witted replies that always make people chuckle are still there, and the time to encourage someone groping along in confusion was still there.  But I wasn’t really there.

I have been standing alone and confused in the middle of a road that I had thought was leading to something since that morning I woke up with the thought that maybe it wasn’t leading to anything.   

So I stood still. I’m still standing still. My feet and legs (and maybe my body up to my neck) are mired in thick, brown goo that unfortunately isn’t chocolate.  And even if it were chocolate, I just don’t seem to have the energy to want to eat it all up so I can get unstuck and move.

And I look down the long road that stretches ahead of me and I am instantly tired, like a runner who has been running for a full year non-stop.  My eyes scan the horizon for an end to this mucky road and I see none. 

There’s a part of me, the Frightened One, that tells me to get off this road.  It is rocky, she says, and sometimes the sharp stones cut through your feet and make them bleed.  But I think of those times when the stones turn into soft, cool grass drizzled in dew that is like a sweet balm to my wounds. And I tell the Frightened One that I am staying on this road.

The Frightened One warns me that there will be more times ahead where I will get stuck and I will stand there confused and alone and maybe even angry at myself for stepping right into the trap.  But I tell the Frightened One that when I am stuck, I see what lies along the road, things that I would never be able to appreciate if I were moving at a jaunty clip  – that bush with the blue flowers, the nest in that tree to my right where three baby birds have just hatched.  It is also when I am stuck and alone that I start talking to myself and the questions I ask and the answers I get are far more useful than those that come when I am moving forward swiftly.   I tell the Frightened One I am staying on this road.

She tries again (oh how fearful she can be!) and she tells me that the road is long and it winds steeply upward in places and then suddenly dips low – so low that it will feel like I have been buried alive.  I ask her if, after dipping low, it rises again.  She says: “Oh yes. Certainly.”  So I tell her I am staying on this road.

I wish to follow the path I chose long ago when I didn’t even know I was choosing.  It is long and sometimes difficult and there will be times, like now, when I will get stuck.  But there will also be times when there will be flowers strewn at my feet, when sweet rain falls gently on me to cool my fevered brow, when I will walk with someone who knows the words to the song I am singing, when daylight and brightness seem to go on forever, when I will laugh loudly and clap my hands in wonder at something I will find along the way, when I will move forward quickly and not be afraid.  I do not know where it will lead me or when the walking will end but I know it is a road worth travelling, it is a road that has a happy ending.  I know that because I chose it.   

Art Everyday: Making Friends with Watercolor

There are several things I'm afraid of: sharks, deep, dark water (and sharks!), earthquakes, snakes, rats, riding in a speeding car (or running alongside one especially one of those buses along EDSA) and watercolor.

There has always been something that scared me about watercolor.  I don't really know what but to me it seemed like a difficult monster to tame. So of course I set out to see if I could make friends with it.  It's a new month after all -- and I was scouting around for a brave thing to do this month.

What really motivated me to try it was watching my two year old niece slap watercolor on like it was the easiest thing in the world.  And while it's true that her artwork consisted mostly of squiggles of color (she insists they are paintings of Rio, her favorite parrot), I tried to see what it was that made her so fearless.

It was simple. She didn't care.

She simply slapped that paint down and dipped that brush into the pots of paint, not worried about how they would look like on paper.  She was painting for herself, enjoying the moment and not even bothered that her older sister taunted her about how "unbirdlike" her paintings were.  They were paintings of PARROTS. 'Nuff said.

I went back to being two years old and decided the best way to confront the beast was to play. And I did. The first try, done in between finishing up a custom order for brooches last week, did not go too well -- sort of like an awkward introduction at a party. A quick slap-dash piece that quickly ended up looking like - well, strange.  I recovered quickly.  I wasn't going to let this dismal failure get to me. Channeling my inner two year old, I tried again.  It worked and I was able to make a semi-decent face. It's the one on the left-hand side in case you couldn't tell LOL.

I was hooked.  I wanted to play some more.  I actually woke up at 3 AM this morning wanting to paint.  I came up with this -

My niece had it all figured out I guess.  Making friends with watercolor was no longer as daunting as it seemed.  I think we actually had a conversation in this last piece.

Now, about that fear of sharks ----

Second Life

Let’s pretend that we’re taking one of those logic tests.  Now, which of these words do not belong in the series:  REUSE, REDUCE, RECYCLE, WEAR.

a)      a) Reuse

b)      b) Recycle

c)       c) Reduce

d)      d) Wear

e)      e) None of the above

f)       f)  All of the above

g)      g) Next question please

I see furrowed brows. I see thought bubbles sprouting with a huge question mark right smack in the middle of it.  So who’s got the answer?  Give up?

If you are a denizen of our world it would most likely be (d) – Wear. But if you live in the world of Ros Flores  of Junkshop Abubot,  the answer would be (e)  - None of the above.

More furrowed brows.  More thought bubbles.  Wait – let me explain.

Ros is a firm believer in making use of every teeny-tiny bit of material she can lay her hands on.  Discarded bottle caps, old buttons that have seen better days,  scraps of metal,  keyboard keys, lengths of cable, electrical wire and other things that have been given up for dead are rescued from the trash pile and reborn into wearable pieces of art.

Don’t believe me?  Here’s proof:

 Those are actually used up colored pencil stubs turned into earrings.

And these are made from discarded aluminum soda cans.

Are these more your type?

For the geek - LAN cables turned glam

 Her early training under her mother (a great seamstress ), taught her to do fine needle work by hand and was, by the time she was in 5^th grade, her mother’s assistant tasked to do the beading on the gowns and dresses her mother made.  (At  5^th grade, I didn’t even know what a thimble was!).  Watching her mother sew and alter dresses and other clothing influenced Ros greatly .  Growing up with artistically inclined siblings also trained her eye and it was easy for her to put this and that color together, or experiment with different materials in her creative work.  Ros tells me her siblings are her mentors. 

She never sketches out her designs - she picks up her chosen material and plays with it until she comes up with something beautiful.  (The operative word here is PLAY – I told you making art is play!) In fact, she says she has often surprised herself by how a seemingly useless piece of plastic or metal can look so pretty sitting among other resurrected “jewels” like this button bracelet:

Ros confesses to not being past stooping down in the middle of a busy street to pick up an interesting piece and she has sourced her computer LAN cables from the office she used to work for, giving the cables a glamorous second life as necklaces, rings, and belts.  Even plastic bags are not spared. 

While she enjoys creating  art-to-wear pieces out of junk, Ros has a deeper motivation for doing what she does – she firmly believes in the benefits of recycling and the good it can do to a planet that is already straining under centuries of abuse, pollution and senseless waste.  Ros says every little bit helps and if doing our share means wearing such lovely, quirky accessories – then I don’t see why this is a bad idea.   

Her pieces are sold at handmade bazaars and you can catch Ros and Junkshop Abubot at the Triple Treat Tiangge in October (she told me that she’s working on new pieces for this event!).  If you can’t wait till then, visit her Facebook page or get in touch with her through cell number 0906-395-3061 or via email at  ros.rflores@gmail.com.

 (All photos courtesy of Junkshop Abubot)