6/30/12

Eradicate, Repeal, Resolve, Refresh!








Why am I posting negative images? I am posting negative images because that has been the country's direction under this administration; and when you think it could not get any worse, it just did. Just like an overwhelming multi-drug resistant microorganism infection:

Pleisiomonas shigelloides, Stenotrophomona maltophilia, Leclercia adecarboxylata, Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, Pertillidium boydii, Ocrhrobactrum anthropi, Citrobacter eric holder, Burkholderia mallei, Edwardsiella, Erwinia carotovora sheila jackson lee, Kluveria ascorbata, Aeromonas hydrophila barack obama, Flavobacterium meningosepticum, Pantoae agglumerans, Clostridium difficile, Morganella morganii maxine waters, Pseudomonas aeruginosa harry reid, Pantoae agglumerans, Vancomycin Resistant Enterococcus, Staphylococcus aureus, Rasltonia solanecearum, Serratia marcescens, Budvicia aquatica, Klebseila pneumoniae, Cedecia, Escherichia coli, Enterobacter aerogenes, Acinetobacter baumanii, alcaligenes faecalis pelosi,  Proteus mirabilis, Chromobacterium violaceum, Povidencia alcalifaciens, Flavimonas oryzihabitans, Ewingella americana ginsburg, Chryseomonas luteola, Comamonas acidoverans. Absent: Hafnia Alvei


MDRO

Overwhelming, Opportunistic, Swarming
Lawless, Deceitful, Harmful, 
Arrogant Organisms.

Lurking
Waiting for the opportunity
They mimic and deceive
Then strike.

They devour everything you have
Rearrange your system
They do not follow rules and laws.
They will eat you alive!

Proud and arrogant bastards
They will take everything you have.
They will kill you.
Do not let them - do the right thing.


Eradicate
Repeal
Resolve
Refresh!



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6/28/12

The Day American Liberty Died












What Freedom?
Death Day.
What have they been snorting?
So heartbreaking.
I feel so sad for my children.





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6/27/12

The Secret Of Empty Spaces




Is not empty after all. 
Is it?
It's a matter of perspective.
Isn't it?






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6/26/12

How Do You Capture Rapture?







 Just Another Street Scene in Asheville, North Carolina
Click for ENLARGED view.

I can never capture the moment quite the way it happened. A lot of it has to do with my technical and artistic limitations as a photographer. heck, I should not even be calling myself that, but most of all it is because one can never capture time. I try. This photo looks just like a street downhill but that is not what it was to me. 

I was walking with my family to a restaurant somewhere in Asheville, North Carolina one summer day. We crossed the street, busily talking with one another when I saw something from the corner of my eye. I already noticed the silvery flecks of light reflected by the clouds from the parking lot earlier. What I did not notice was in another part of the city, the clouds were gathering and thickening. It is was difficult to appreciate the sky as they were obscured by buildings and trees. 

When we crossed the street where the intersection was sloping downhill, I saw the blanket of gray rolling. My daughter lovingly admonished me in a nurturing way for standing in the middle of the street as I captured this view. My my son stood guard beside me ready to grab me away from an oncoming vehicle.  My husband tolerates all of these and patiently waited. My family is used to my eccentricities. Photographing trees, clouds, leaves wherever we go and carrying a drawing board. It feels rather nice to be free to do these things and being accommodated by my company. Sometimes they call my attention; "Look Mom! Look at the clouds (or trees)!

Not quite the way I saw it but there it is. Just another street scene but it plays differently in my mind. Look around you. You might see something and keep it in your mind.



"Enlarged" - I love that term. My father had a photograph enlarger in his darkroom. I still remember the smell of acid fixers and how cold the whole room was, almost air-conditioned..



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6/25/12

Has This Ever Happened To You?



You look up and realize the ocean is above you!?




Blue Ridge Mountains near Asheville, North Carolina


Click on image to enlarge. You may see the dolphins!





6/24/12

I Think I Will Sharpen My Knives...




Storm clouds over an automobile plant in Alabama. Click to enlarge. Colored version below.






On second thought, I think I will take a nap after I post this. You know, I really have a kitchen knife collection. I have many kinds and styles; mezzaluna, ulu, santuko, binangon, machete...different types of cleavers and of course the regular sets by Henckels, Wustoff, and some F. Dick knives. I used to routinely sharpen my knives on Sundays but these days, I just sharpen each one with every use. I even sketched a self portrait on my Moleskine notebook many years ago -  sharpening knives. Seriously.






I am tired of drawing and painting, even though I am still drawing acorns and leaves just because I feel I have to continue. 

Last week I received a package. Inside the package was my 25th anniversary service award gift from my employer, a 16MP camera. Seriously, do I need a 16MP camera? No, but I did not care for the other choices of clock, crystal and jewelry. My second choice was a circular saw that I thought I'd keep in my office as a trophy but my best friend advised against doing that especially that I was under a lot of stress these past several weeks.

Anyway, where am I going with this post? Oh yes, I am tired of painting and drawing so I decided I will take up photography. Perhaps I will will use my Canon XSi camera which makes me feel like a paparazzi when I set the camera to 10 shots per click. See, I don't even know the lingo.

I am such a serial project starter.

Oh, I want to share my collection of cloud photographs. That's what I am going to do. These are originally colored digital photographs that I turned to black and white because I like black and white images. Have a wonderful week. I may or may not post tomorrow.

Tsup!



6/23/12

Underwhelmed









I am completely underwhelmed.
Art bores me...
until I find  another one that will hit me in the head
or make me laugh.
I think I will play in the dark room.
Oh wait, there are no more dark rooms, 
just computers and photo applications.
My father, the photographer, 
had a dark room.
Where he developed real photographs 
without computer manipulation.
He knew the camera.
I helped him 
rinse the acid 
fixers from the photographs.
Now I just 
click, 
click, 
click!
I admire
modern photographers
like 
Rick, 
Arija 
and 
Tammie Lee.







6/22/12

An Empty Space










How to fill an 8"x10" space in an 11"x14" area: I challenged myself to draw this image in two hours. I failed. It took me three hours. I was furiously squiggling by the third hour and was so tired that I had to continue drawing while lying on low Fowlers position on the couch. My daughter ran her fingers through my hair to soothe me and rubbed my shoulders and back while I filled the background with squiggles. The squiggles on the edges are rough but I had to stop because I had to cook dinner. That was fun. Honestly, the drawing is not finished. I still have to draw miniature pictures on the white floating boards. The following is a tribute to my beloved sister Leah. 






An Empty Space

Everyday, I go on a journey 
To an empty space filled with pain and longing
upon which I stumble in the daytime
and fall into at night with nothing to anchor me.
The sorrow slowly devours me
until the tears swell 
and the tightness of my heart becomes real.
My heart aches and I scream in quiet anguish
until a million floating flecks of lights come to rescue me.
Each flicker holds a memory of you -
smiling, laughing, gentle words, intense gaze
a flash of energy and steely courage.
Slowly I am buoyed until I land safely
back where I started,
yet different because you are no longer here.
I hope my memory does not fail me
But if so, I will blindly follow my my heart
with every beat that proclaims 
I love you.
I love you so much and I miss you.
I feel lost without you.
I know, I know, I must go on.
But once in a while let me make this journey
if only to remind me that my life is full
and the space is not empty after all
because you dwell in it.



I am told of one April night,
you loved watching the fireflies hover around the bamboo grove at night.
Tsup!







6/21/12

Nice Hips







 


The Middle Is The Beginning And The End
or 
A Sleepless Night
Pigment ink on 2.5"x3.5" Bristol Board


The middle of the year, for some people, is the beginning of summer vacation but the end of the fiscal year for me. This is the busiest time of the year for my husband's work and mine, as if it can get busier. It is a more stressful time as if it can get more stressful, but there it is. So while I am trying to figure out how I can spend summer vacation with my family, and time with my children, with not enough vacation hours from work, this time of the year is also the end of fiscal year. I have self evaluations, professional requirements, new goals, project closures, new projects, etcetera etcetera... This is also my birthday month and while it  may mean party and cake, it also means annual examinations, license renewals, medical appointments and grappling with aging. Today, the endocrinologist told me I have "nice hips" to which my husband who was in the room with me replied "I agree!" However, before you think they were admiring me physically, she was not, he may have, she was merely evaluating the appropriateness of a recommended drug therapy. Ah life! Hope you are all well.


May God bless you!







6/19/12

"We feel we are with you when we read it."












God! How I miss my sisters so much,
especially the one
whose face I can no longer kiss
and whose hands I can no longer hold.
In my mind I just hear her gentle voice and laughter
and I see her smiling.
But memories,
they are not enough
to unbreak a heart.















6/18/12

Secret Reading Room






8"x12" Pigment ink on 11"x14' Bristol board.


Do you sometimes wish nobody knows you in the blogs? That you can just paint and draw and share it, yet no one knows who you are. Wouldn’t that be wonderful? I like to be like that. I don’t know if it is possible to be unknown after getting into the blogs and making friends. I love my blog friends. I will be very sad and unhappy if I lose a few very special ones. Yet, sometimes I long to be anonymous and free with my art, then I sucker myself into creating online galleries and public pages. What the heck!? Sigh*

I have been thinking of that but I realize that it may be easy to spot my style. So I tried to paint in a different style. I wanted to draw in a primitive manner. I started drawing the animals and instead of making them look primitive, I ended up drawing them like weird creatures and totally juvenile. Then later, I went back to my old style of squiggling. Sigh*

I thought of starting a new blog and be anonymous, forget about this blog and my gallery blog but then my friends may wonder what happened to me. Well the secret is out. I have disappeared and now I am unknown.

If only.

Hahahaha!

6/9/12

do not delete

         

How I Spent My Summer Vacation






How My Brother Spent His Summer Vacation. Pigment ink 8"x10" on 11"x14" Bristol Board. Click on image to enlarge (this time I posted large) to illustrate the hidden wonders but only for those who see...do you see my brother?




For My Brother:



My brother, the electrical engineer, Mathematics professor, recorder of flora,
Went all over the volcano mountain island 
filled with wonders and came back with nary a souvenir,
not even a pebble.
I am very proud of you. 
I wonder if I could have restrained myself 
and risked smuggling a seed or branch...just kidding.
No oak. No quercus. No cyclobalanopsis.
Ah! But we have passiflora,
platycerium superbum and alocasia macrorhizzos to start with a few.
Thank you my dearest brother for sharing your summer vacation escapades,
of mountains, streams, rivers, waterfalls and seas,
of forests, parks, preserves and gardens,
rice fields, farms and jungles,
of cities old and new, large and small,
of roads paved, rugged, steep and dangerous,
as if the land and rocks are protecting something by avenging the invasion into
the inner sanctum,
react with vengeance, 
kill and maim those who dare to drive recklessly and naively
in their luxury cruiser.
I see views majestic, awesome, bothersome, wholesome,
Of gatherings with friends old and older and best, 
while I, 
stuck at my desk with a total of seven hours of vacation time
lived vicariously through you.
Thank you for your meticulous capture of plants rare and strange,
with names Latin, Ilonggo, English all equating
to one word and for my lack of eloquence
I filled your wall with - "Wow!"
Thank you for not banning me even though I complained about the technicalities
and for publicly fussing about you and your eyesight
which you continue to ignore.
You really should take care of yourself!
Thank you for reminding me that the island I dismissed long time ago
as boring, hot and dull
is full of wonder and awe.
Filled with trees pregnant with berries on their trunks,
With shape that define the horizon and make it so Ilonggo, Negros, so familiar
I have flashbacks in sepia tone and black and white
 and I am a young girl running, running, running with a stick in my hand,
Whacking the bushes, here and there and I stop,
 for once again I see the flowers and
LEAVES!
I close my eyes:
I climb a tree, 
cradled by its branches and have fallen asleep 
as I envision everything around me:
PRESERVED, 
UNTOUCHED, 
LET ALONE, 
FREE, 
NOT OWNED.
These are leaves,
gigantic and wide as the widest umbrellas or fans which
as kids we propped over our heads when there was a sudden downpour!
Ah yes, leaves so familiar,
caudate, crenate, cordate, dentate, lanceolate.
With surfaces so glabrous, this one glaucous
and that one farinose - is that even natural?
Yes it is! 
Of strange-shaped plants and flowers  
with ties and ribbons, bells, tails, fangs, fins and teeth,
thorns, warts, weeping wounds, 
dripping with sticky liquid trapping prey and invaders.
Of monocot and dicot,
Polymorphous.
Richly taunting our imaginations
of passion, cock's comb, cat's tail, jock strap, stag horn
until we ran out of words we simply called them
body parts that will make me blush.
So many flowers and plants I have, never before in my life, seen until now...
Because you clicked your camera...
while you prostrated yourself on the ground to capture the tiniest flower, the eyes can see.
Will you please stop the car once in a while so I can really see the details of that
mucronate one with intercalary veins along the canals?
Or that elliptical...
(Look out for leaves-of-three!)
Never mind, I see the plants and flowers so strange, so different, mysterious,
bulbous, umbelliferous, velutinous.
I should be happy.
I am happy.
Thank you.
Yet I feel an aching, nagging sensation
Of anxiety and sometimes fear and
my heart sinks...
We never saw them before because they were in the JUNGLE!
But now I see they paved the road and in the midst
a concrete swimming pool.
Maybe they will domesticate the wild flowers and plants
to please the vacationers
and those who come from abroad and buy the wild lands.
Perhaps they will think of some grande idea
and consider themselves worthy for doing something for humanity by
exploring the jungle and fencing it in then turn it into a "Preserve!"
"Fifty pesos admission fee please." (To help preserve the jungle)
 (We have airconditioned rooms and swimming pool)
How grande indeed is man's folly.
And thus begins a new taxonomy of plants:
This one will cost more than the others, we keep.
And cast some as more desirable than others
and label this "precious" and that one "weed' we kill.
I see these words so prominent throughout the island:
DEVELOPED
PARK
RESORT
No no no no no no no no no...
NO!
You and I long for
WILD
FREE
FOREST
JUNGLE
MOUNTAIN.
EARTH.
Let it be...
Thank you for taking me on your summer vacation.
I hope the plants and trees will still be there next year.
I love you.
Happy Birthday!!!
Ah wait a souvenir indeed - the revenge of the shy plants. :)
I hope you are feeling better.
Tsup!








Hehehehehe!
Did you find the rat, the dragonflies, the beetle, the ants, the bees, moths, snake, butterflies, catterpillars...whew!
Now you have poison ivy!




My brother's birthday is not until later this month but since he was the first one to greet me on my birthday (he is 12 hours ahead of our time here), I want to be the first one to greet him, weeks in advance!

6/8/12

Shine








9"x12" Watercolor on Arches paper




Aren't they gorgeous?



Notes from my Moleskine notebook.




6/6/12

Vector - Kissing Bug






Rhodnius prolixus. 8"x11" Pigment ink on 11"x14" Bristol board.


Please read about Chagas Disease. It sounds like a story out of a science fiction magazine but it's very real. You would not want to get kissed by this because of this. This kissing bug causes sleeping sickness and a host of other systemic problems. It may take up to 20 years to develop symptoms. Some people may not be aware they are carriers or have the disease until it is too late.

This exotic disease is no longer limited to South and Central America. This disease is now in the U.S. due to Poverty and immigration.



AABB-Chagas Map


Sarkar-Chagas map





6/4/12

Late!




Literally running seven years ago. Still running...
(Ballpen on Moleskine pocket notebook)


(I cannot believe this was selected for publication in a book. Don't some of your early works make you shudder?)


Thank you to all my friends for your birthday wishes. Tsup!!!


6/2/12

June 2, 2012






Happy Birthday Inday Frey! I love you. Tsup!!!


Check out my sisterfriend's Birthday Greeting here
I just love Bella Sinclair and her art!!! 
Thank you. 
Tsup!


Update: 
June 2, 2012

Saturday is laundry day, but I have been commanded not to do any laundry because it is my birthday. So I have to do it tomorrow when I am on call. Hah! Same difference. However, I have been requested to cook spaghetti. Hahahaha!

The other day I noticed some bruises on a fellow analyst's scalp. I asked him what happened and he told me that he bumped his head against the concrete wall while climbing the garage stairs. I asked him if he was okay making sure he did not have a concussion and to watch out for symptoms of blunt head injury. I told him that I fell in front of the corporate building last month and busted my knees. He thinks that because we work with computers so much that our visual perspectives are altered. Maybe.  I just think mine is due to old age. I draw and paint and it is important that I capture and create perspectives on my drawings. Like this for example. Do you think I demonstrated depth here? Does this look flat? This is a portrait of my brother. I know. You say they are all plants. He will be in the drawing after it is finished.



My son is gardening. He came in and showed this to me:





He says it one of the most cruel things in nature.


It is a deposit of wasp eggs on a caterpillar. When the eggs hatch, they will eat the caterpillar or butterfly.

Today is Saturday. How's your Saturday going?