simple serendipity: summer time

While summer brings on crazy heat (which in turn, can bring out the crazy in people..or the crazy in me at least), it does bring out the best in Mother Nature.

Trees fat with fruit and bursting with blooms. Green isn't just green, it's GREEN. Foliage of all shapes and textures and sizes pulse with life. My gulay, could I go on...

beautiful tree i see while walking out of the village 

 orchid snapped during a recent shoot

 fruit bearing trees in our garden

  awesome tree we kept on driving by in iloilo

 layers of green from a tree at the trappist abbey in guimaras

pretty pink blossoms from the trappist abbey in guimaras

manila's metropolitan museum

i've been wanting to revisit the metropolitan museum for the longest time. last time i was there was 1st year high school.

with my two sisters and my sister's friend, we piled into a car last saturday afternoon and made our way over to the BSP Complex along Roxas Boulevard. entrance fee was an affordable P100, and made even affordable thanks to the generosity of my sister :)

we spent about 2 hours slowly making our way around the small museum. a lot of the paintings i recognized having seen during my first trip there.. i guess the museum's private collection isn't that big? they had a few other exhibits that were "new", like BSP's permanent exhibition (not my kind of art), the collection by indian artists upstairs (this was disappointing, the quality of the reproductions were really bad), a smattering of sculptures (loved the wire work.. damn should've gotten the name of the artist) plus an additional room with touchable art. they also have a gold & pottery exhibition downstairs that is unfortunately (and weirdly) closed during the weekends.

they have one section with a few paintings by juan luna i think it was. there were 2-dimensional versions displayed infront with descriptions in braille. smart though i think it would've made more sense to do them for ALL the paintings and not just a handful as you always want to make the most of the time of your visitors right?

i do feel that the met museum ought to update their shop as i find it a little sad. and what is with being closed on sunday's?! i always thought it was a museum standard (and obviously so) to be open during the weekend and be closed on mondays?! i find it a little annoying that pictures can't be taken too (so yes.. the photos in this blog were stealthily taken. lol), i don't think they harm the photos if the flash is off right?

nonetheless, i do like the met very much. while its age is beginning to show, i do love the simplicity of the layout with it's crisp white walls and high ceilings. plus i like the mix of painting genre's they have, with a special focus on filipino artists. the size is no match for the likes of the louvre or nyc's met, but any bigger and i may not have paid as much attention to each piece. you get a better appreciation of the each work's individuality here i feel. with the bigger museums, i have a tendency to quickly make the rounds of the rooms i am not so interested in and skip on to the galleries with the work i enjoy more. bigger museums are obviously meant to be explored in more than 1 day and i unfortunately never have the liberty of time. and besides, anymore than 3 hours in a museum and I pretty much want to pull my hair out.

Art for Art's Sake

While more people may know more about my love affair with the theater and the stage, or the classical voice or piano lessons I took growing up, not that many people know about my affinity for visual arts. I think I've been painting, coloring, and visually creating longer than I've been involved in the performing arts actually!

I've been fortunate enough to have taken my share of art classes, both in school and as an extracurricular activity. Oil pastels, oil paints, water color, chalk & charcoal, pen & ink, working with plaster of paris, clay, lithography.. I don't think there was one medium I didn't like. The process of creating something in your mind then translating that into something tangible has always been, well, euphoric almost.
I used to have a growing stack of oil paintings back when I lived abroad. My biggest fan was (and still is) my mom, who wasted no opportunity in displaying my work all over the home. Lol. Unfortunately, I lost all of these pieces when the warehouse that was keeping our furniture while we were house hunting burned down.

Now a day, I'm an on and off dabbler. Sometimes I go a pretty long time without doing anything creative with my hands but I always find myself going back to it for a day, or week or two. I'll churn out half, or maybe even 2 pieces and then hibernate again for months, possibly years. Painting for me is therapeutic and very personal, which is probably the reason why many people don't know I do it. I do it mostly for myself and as a way for me to unwind and relax. My mind is so focused on whatever it is I am working on and so in the moment, that it's actually pretty much blank. Lol. I've seen the talent out there and am no where near calling myself an artist. I really just enjoy the creative process.

I think one of the best decisions I ever made in high school was dropping Economics (thank you for the C+ Mr. Jones, you know I love you regardless!) and taking up Art instead. Hehehe. It was at this time where I think I finally developed a style that kind of, well.. stuck. We had to come up with a theme and create a whole portfolio based off of this theme. I forgot what mine was verbatim but it was something like finding the human body in nature, or nature in the human body. Since then, I have also since confirmed that I still suck at free hand drawing but love love love nature and colors and patterns and textures. I think from the look of some of my work, I think it's rather obvious isn't it? Could be the earthy Taurus in me I suppose. Lol.

Uploaded are some of my favorite and/or recent pieces. Sharing for posterity's sake :)

Best Way to Unwind

This was my first bubble bath in YEARS and a great bath it was!

Warm bath water? Check.

Generous layer of orange smelling bath bubbles & home? Check.

Bath pillow to support my head and neck? Check.

Aromatic mug of tea by my side? Check.

I opted to chuck the book and go for candle light + music. So.. check and check (no.. not Enya unfortunately. LOL)

Too bad I'm no longer a smoker as a ciggy would've perfect too :)

There's a reason why some of these oldie feel good recipes are still considered goodies.

Movie in My Mind

I know this is kind of cheesy and very Hollywood but I can't help but feel warm and fuzzy inside every time I hear/see a saxaphone player lazily blues-ing away in the distance while walking around a cool city. Yes, you heard me, COOL city.. the air needs to be cool. Sax players and humidity don't seem to lock in my head. But feel free to prove me wrong. The closest thing I can think of that comes close (well.. it's not really close) to this experience are the blind musicians who sing along with the plucking of their electric guitars, in their sunglasses, usually sitting under an umbrella in rain or shine with passerbyers hurrying by. Ya ok... so it's not really the same kind of experience but I personally find it to be a lovely experience nonetheless. Though totally not the point of this entry!

Back to saxophone players in cool cities.. I think the first time I remember hearing was in Paris back in 2001. Since then, I've had the lovely pleasure of serendipitously coming by them in New York, Chicago and Boston.

I always feel like I'm part of some moving picture every time I hear it, part of a small movie with my own personal soundtrack. I guess the slinky sound of the saxophone, the brisk air and the beautiful surroundings combine to really tickle my senses and create an almost surreal experience for me.