Lady Lazarus

53 x 32 in

mixed media

2015

Glass Parts

 

Her Mouth Was Hemlock

“When down her weedy trophies and herself

Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide;

And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up:

Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes;

As one incapable of her own distress,

Or like a creature native and indued

Unto that element: but long it could not be

Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,

Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay

To muddy death."

― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

"O"

epoxy resin, found objects

on steel frame mounted on reclaimed wood

Chiaroscuro

2013 in one vague post:

I.

I was once devastated. I still am, sometimes, but it's not just the devastation now. There are other things, like the heaviness lessened and the routine drifting to art induced deadpan euphoria. And the unfamiliar fatigue in the jaws.

I am not a marionette of wood anymore. Or so I'd like to think. (It's a good pun for my name too, and I'm not good with jokes.) Sometimes, it still aches to remember how I just took in everything and never had the fucking guts to do what I wanted to do. It feels so terrible when you're doing something and you're not really good at it even though your trying really hard, you lose so much self esteem, you question yourself if you're really a smart person, you wonder how existence and non existence can be so similar. Then everything goes down. 

But I quit dentistry school, and I have never been fine. Even if I stayed, I'd be a terrible dentist or I'd be dead. It's either of the two.

II.

Aside from the glorious feeling of liberation, there's always things i'm scared of, i.e. failure in what I have chosen to be. But fear is normal, I think. When you grew up in a house and have never stepped out of the door your whole life, once you go out as far as your front porch, you'll feel free and then you'll get scared. and it's a choice between coming back in the house or walking further to the unfamiliar. And I'm not gonna go back inside, hell, I'm gonna run like mad, the good kind of mad.

Corvus Mortis (1/3) Dec 3, two man show with P / Work in progress - FloraFaunaMachina series / Eddie Vedder, my love

Although, sometimes, it ticks me off when people keep asking me what I do now, and I tell them I drop out of school and I'm an artist (still feels weird to hear it coming from me) and I sculpt things, and then they'll express their disappointments and come the questions of whys and why nots. It's tiring and gives you the feeling of being judged naked. Sometimes when someone asks me if I have already graduated, I'll just shake my head no and make a disinterested face. Not answering is easier because not everyone will understand.

And you don't need to be understood by everyone.

III.

I feel ecstatic that art has been kind to me even though she drives me crazy and disoriented and sometimes she comes with deadlines and lack of sleep. And that I have someone whom I can share her with. I have never felt this fulfilled and all jumpy and shit. 

P.S. The way I'm saying I'm okay so far makes me want puke.

P.P.S. Happy New Year bitches.

Fault Undone

Blood on paper.

Dig me out of my grave, darling.

Little by little, out of the ground. Out of the ground now, dear. And you see no matter how I feel waist deep every time you doubt me that I start doubting my self again, I'll still try to crawl my way out because I'm not chicken shit anymore who's too afraid to disappoint. A wise man who's not really wise told me that disappointing myself is far more shameful. No matter how you see me, I know myself more. Call me names, bury me deep, I'm gonna find a way. I am getting closer and what once felt impossible is more tangible now. So it's pretty stupid to just lay on dirt.

This is a transition. I am a transition.

P.S. I'm back.

Never the daddy's girl

Self portrait upon knowing the enlargement (2013)

watercolor on paper

I'm the patron saint of never was

It has been almost two years since the disease have progressed and shown unwanted symptoms and it has been almost a year since I started therapy and I think I'm doing fine. But then I caught this new disease and it took over my blood stream and it took control of my breathing and it took shelter in my bones. It is sucking the life out of me. And I'm feeding it, I'm feeding it. And I am infatuated with it. It is that good of a disease.

  

They know how to break all the girls like you.

Blowjob Pornstar #1 carved on wax clay. I want to make her into a pipe or a keychain or something.

  

Coke Whore

1. I am currently reading Spending by Mary Gordon. It's about an artist and her he-muse. + Vintage   Henry Cottons sunglasses I found, which is with P for now because it's a little big for me.
2. I am trying to draw and draw every after midnight 'til  the sun rises. And I should get some good sleep because I look like death's sister.
3. Beer sign Sue got me on her New York trip, which we forgot on a restaurant, and luckily we got it back the morning after.
4. Mary Hopkin's Those Were The Days. I'd like it to be played in the background if I decided to go on a killing spree.

 

Regina

Hey love, I was bored so I tried to paint you from memory and it was quite not so good so I tried to make some changes and tried to refer to some photos. Merry Christmas!

Regina, watercolor on paper

Monday's child is fair of face.

I bought new brushes and now I'm broke. But it was a good deal, so. Yeah, I'm still broke. I said I was gonna do a (pseudo) realistic portrait but I ended up doing a cartoon of myself, which doesn't even look a bit like me. Oh well. And I got lazy but I like that it's unfinished. My head's floating. I really need some sleep, been awake for two days. Bye now.

Let the mad artist out.

This is a scheduled post. By the time this is published I would probably be walking along the crowded streets of Quiapo and it's really not hard to find me. Look for a girl with a long flowy skirt, strangling the line between tufts blue and steel blue, and a white shirt cut and with lots of holes with black bra straps showing, carrying a big brown bag as if it's light but it's really heavy, I tell you, from the Zenit-E camera and she would probably carry two books and a notebook and pencils and pens and a her denim jacket which she haven't washed for months now it reaks of cigarette smoke, and oh, she'd probably have that little sketchbook inside too, plus lots of things that she might probably not use. I don't think she'll be wearing boots, but I don't know, I'm assuming she'd be wearing her reliable gladiators for the long walk. Oh and yes, Don't forget the hair. If you see someone as described above and the hair is unruly, well imagine Yoko Ono, I'm probably that girl. But I may tie my hair in a messy bun if the weather gets so hot. 

An as you read this second paragraph I'd probably be heading for my favorite art supply store. I swear I'm broke but I really need a new sketchpad and a new set of watercolors. You see, I'm having this pseudo break from college and lately I haven't drawn a thing or wrote decent shit. It's just that things are really piling up and they're clouding my head and taking away any source of inspiration. It's depressing. But as you read this, I am currently fighting my ghosts - even temporarily - and I swear I will be obsessed to writing and making art because I don't have that much time. And I will cheat time. I will make more than what time expects me, you'll see. Fuck, I don't know if I'm like this because of the coffee.

And to inspire me more, here's a page from my notebook that P tore and put on a gallery's wall. But I don't have it anymore. And speaking of P, he's been urging me to paint lately and I feel so bad because I couldn't pick up a brush, because I just can't. But hopefully I will and we'll paint together.

Pen on paper.  July 2012