DANDELION FIELDS: Lampara ni Lola Meding (Grandmother's Lamp)

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Lampara ni Lola Meding (Grandmother's Lamp)

My "Lola Meding" would have this burning all night on top of my grandfather's vintage travel trunk. I can still smell the flame burning, hear her AM radio program in my head, see the dancing shadows of the curtain along the length of the huge capiz windows (and must I add the faint sensation of the mosquito net against my arm). I miss those summer nights when my cousin and I would sleep on the spare bed in Lola's bedroom and whisper to each other for hours while Lola did her evening rituals --vanity rituals, basically!

Rendered with a Graphite Pencil on 9.5x6 in. Acid-Free & Lignin-Free medium weight drawing paper. I don't have to deal with ballpoint pens and scratch papers anymore!!! My friend Mo wanted it so bad I gave it to her. It's alright, she's pretty much gotten my breakfasts covered all the time! (Sausage and egg muffins at work) I'll just make another one soon.

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Your Artist In The Raw

I started drawing with my father as soon as I was old enough to hold a pencil (what is old enough for me? 12 months? *teehee*). In preschool, I felt a little awkward and embarassed because I was already sketching things in 3D, while my classmates were struggling to draw stick people. I can still vividly remember my rendition of the flame and the partially melted ice cube with a wet pool around it (thanks to Daddy -- whose idea of playtime and bonding time was the Drawing Guessing Game, way before Pictionary came out). I still do the drawing guessing game with little kids. I think we need to tap into their creative, inferential and expressive skills early on. It matters a lot to shaping one's character for later in life.

Sadly, all my sketchbooks and sketchpads of two decades (including those that were on exhibit for a time when I was in the university) were never returned to me -- even threatened to be burnt and are perhaps really ashes by now -- after a previous relationship has gone awry. I still don't know what came of them.

So I have nothing much to show now, only lessons learned. And a testimony of the truth that...LIFE GOES ON. Art prevails! And this site is a form of my commitment to find time to create works of art again inspite of my busy schedule.

Though I'm not the best in the world, I'm proud of my works because this hobby (and skill) is one of the most special things that connect me to my DADDY who still sketches wonderful drawings up to this day. Though he and I are geographically apart now, like a secret magic thread, this language ties our hearts together. Tightly.

Art is the only way to run away without leaving home. Twyla Tharp

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. Pablo Picasso

Fine art is that in which the hand, the head, and the heart of man go together. John Ruskin

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up. Pablo Picasso

If you hear a voice within you say "you cannot paint," then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. Vincent Van Gogh

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary. Pablo Picasso

The artist one day falls through a hole in the brambles, and from that moment he is following the dark rapids of an underground river which may sometimes flow so near to the surface that the laughing picnic parties are heard above. Cyril Connolly

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude. Friedrich Nietzsche

The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection. Michelangelo

The very essence of the creative is its novelty, and hence we have no standard by which to judge it. Carl Rogers

To send light into the darkness of men's hearts - such is the duty of the artist. Robert Schumann

When I work, and in my art, I hold hands with God. Robert Mapplethorpe