Sunday, August 29, 2010
full days
It's a rarity for me to spend weekends in Manila. Even rarer for me not to take advantage of mondays declared as holidays (thus, a three day break) and not plan for a weekend further out into the beautiful Philippine countryside. But when thursday rolled around last week and I still couldn't decide on where to fly off to, I decided to fill my weekend with crafts I wanted to do, things I wanted to eat and people I needed to see within Metro Manila. So saturday took me from caloocan to pasig to makati to quezon city, meeting with new friends, college friends and even friends from high-school. Saturday felt like a long day that was still too short. If you get what I mean :) (sunday saw me nursing a hangover but that's beside the point. everyone needs a rest day)
Monday, August 23, 2010
art makes me happy
Growing up, I never had confidence in any of the drawings that I made in school. It was always not cute enough, or too real or tried to do/show too much. Needless to say, I didn't enjoy projects that involved a lot of drawing. Or the use of pens. My handwriting wasn't any better. I could not for the life of me write in cursive. I would literally sweat buckets and hurt my hands from gripping my pen too hard. I dis, however, enjoy crafts. In kindergarten, my hands were always rough with dried up glue and I always had weird paper cutouts stuck to different parts of my body (still happens to me now and it makes me very happy).
When I started studying Japanese, I was frustrated at how my handwriting looked nothing like the characters that appeared in the books. I felt like I was drawing the characters and forcing them to look right instead of them coming together naturally with every stroke that I add (which, I heard, was what it was supposed to feel like). My handwriting looked like a font. Comic sans in Japanese.
After a couple of years, my handwriting got better and I started appreciating how cute my drawings and characters looked like. I guess exposure to the Japanese culture made me look at "cute" in a whole different way. It also made me appreciate handwritten notes and hand drawn figures (which, I think, is a rarity in the Filipino culture. we don't write a lot of notes as a people). The fliers advertising organizations in ritsumeikan were always hand drawn and there was a certain soul to each of them that I couldn't "feel" in the other posters that were produced using computers. I guess hands just have some sort of magic for me.
About a week ago my boss handed me an envelope from an art university in Tokyo. Inside was a postcard made from recycled "bagasse" and a note from a group of senior students who were heading the art project. Bagasse is the pulp that remains after the juice is extracted from sugarcane. They made it into raw material for paper and sent these postcards to people living all over the world (I assume they sent one to every Japanese embassy). The letter says for the recipients to mark their locations on the map, draw whatever, and then send it back to them. The postcards will then be used in an art installation. I don't really know why my boss handed me the card to complete. I think I looked bored that day and he was sweet enough to give me something to do. I'm actually excited to send it back.
What do you think I should write on it?
When I started studying Japanese, I was frustrated at how my handwriting looked nothing like the characters that appeared in the books. I felt like I was drawing the characters and forcing them to look right instead of them coming together naturally with every stroke that I add (which, I heard, was what it was supposed to feel like). My handwriting looked like a font. Comic sans in Japanese.
After a couple of years, my handwriting got better and I started appreciating how cute my drawings and characters looked like. I guess exposure to the Japanese culture made me look at "cute" in a whole different way. It also made me appreciate handwritten notes and hand drawn figures (which, I think, is a rarity in the Filipino culture. we don't write a lot of notes as a people). The fliers advertising organizations in ritsumeikan were always hand drawn and there was a certain soul to each of them that I couldn't "feel" in the other posters that were produced using computers. I guess hands just have some sort of magic for me.
About a week ago my boss handed me an envelope from an art university in Tokyo. Inside was a postcard made from recycled "bagasse" and a note from a group of senior students who were heading the art project. Bagasse is the pulp that remains after the juice is extracted from sugarcane. They made it into raw material for paper and sent these postcards to people living all over the world (I assume they sent one to every Japanese embassy). The letter says for the recipients to mark their locations on the map, draw whatever, and then send it back to them. The postcards will then be used in an art installation. I don't really know why my boss handed me the card to complete. I think I looked bored that day and he was sweet enough to give me something to do. I'm actually excited to send it back.
What do you think I should write on it?
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