Full Season, and some fond old Mushroom Swiss

I wish the picture was sharper, but warm lighting tends to do that to you. However, this isn't the season to be a perfectionist. Some of us are more than willing to put 2009 to a close. I'm one of them. To say the least, 2009 was a hard year. And the school of hard-knocks teaches you many things- one, that there are more hard knocks to come, some, even harder. Two, be glad for the good food and the good moments, all the other blessings that come with it. Three, you could have it worse, and yes, you could have it better. You just gotta take what you got and run with it. Four, don't stop looking up. ever.

Not the cheeriest of posts, eh? Well, I've abandoned my camera for long enough. I've left the paint to harden in their half rusty tubes, and pencils to rest, deep beneath layers of papers. Bills, mostly.

It rained in today, but I got out, and walked about. I found my camera lens 3mm away from destruction, salvaged from being smashed in, I decided to use it. Just when you think that you've laid some things aside for a happier season, they come out at you, and demand your attention. You can't say no, and feel the better for it.

Lull

So I haven't been making anything remotely beautiful these days. Slowly, my life has yellowed, and over 3 months since my return, become an adult shade of mud. There hasn't been much of a fight. Just a gradual process of slow resignation. Before the stars in my twenty-something year old eyes completely fall out and die in quiet tragedy- mourned by only me, I resort to posting one of those pictures I took in better times. Hopefully, my bank of old photos will tide me through till the next image I make.

><

Tiger Mountain Peasant Song

I've been listening to this song alot by Fleet Foxes, First Aid Kit does a good version of it too on youtube. (link)

Oh yeah, I'm officially a working gal now, holed myself up in a budding interiors firm on a hill, in an old school building. I like the place. X3



Wanderers this morning came by
Where did they go
Graceful in the morning light
To banner fair
To follow you softly
In the cold mountain air

Through the forest
Down to your grave
Where the birds wait
And the tall grasses wave
They do not
Know you anymore

Dear shadow alive and well
How can the body die
You tell me everything
Anything true

What's the Buzz?

The Shopping Bee!

okay. *deep breath*

~SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION WARNING!~

I'm shopping again! But this time, professionally, as a part of a small entrepreneurial effort with a partner back in sunny Sporeville. ^_^

It's not anything artsy, but rather the opposite. It's more of something tailored to your evil and sometimes unabashedly consumerist desires. Make your guilty pleasures just a little less guilty. Let's undercut Takashimaya, or Isetan or whatchamacallit big shopping mall that proliferates on Orchard Road. What is The Shopping Bee? That's me, the bee. Busy doing all this buzzing.

http://theshoppingbee.blogspot.com/

Dusty Sketches

From Bored

I miss Europe!

Scarfman

From Bored

Honestly, there, it takes a month of advertising proper, to get rid of a used bunk bed. SOLD. Now this will have to suffice.

Nice Nice Things

YES! The bells are ringing for my old old friend, the new new bride!

It isn't real until you actually meet someone....

From "WHERE'S MY VOTE???"- Iranians all over the world

... who is actually your friend. And suddenly the middle-east isn't this place at the back of your head, and the violence or the unrest isn't so muted and far-away. The blinds of apathy that you once wore fall away. It is real.

You are Filthy but Fine

New York, I Love You
But you're bringing me down

New York, I Love You
But you're freaking me out

There's a ton of the twist
But we're fresh out of shout

But you're still the one pool
Where I'd happily drown

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe you're right.

Digital is Death

I'm still in this sorry habit of spending too much time in front of the computer. Thus explains the above experiment in the liquefy tool in photoshop. Ouf. I need to leave the comput

Itching

I've concluded that I'm the kinda person to do a million and one things at the same time. After i've graduated, i've been plunging myself in various little projects that pay me in nothing but fun and happiness.

Above is a painting (an experiment of sorts) i did the day before i left for Spain in 2007. It reminds me of that year out where i spent time in the woody attic extravagantly indulging in what i like doing best. I am itching to paint. but wait, what's this? I have a shirt in my head that's dying to be made. oooh. and what's this other thing? what? Oh. tons of photographs and a mini micro venture waiting to be fufilled.

Busy busy me.

Reconstruct

The Singapore Army issues these HUGE oversize grey cotton t-shirts that make for the perfect slouchy outfits. HUH?

I cut out the ARMY word emblazoned across it and add in my own peepkaboo organza window.

Look for my machinations at:
red komodo

Noir Morning

Call me eccentric.

Yes. Dawn is barely breaking. So. Clad in my pjs and a bathrobe to keep out the unending dismal drizzle, I grabbed my camera and snuck up to the rooftop, whereupon I wandered about freely outside the Terrace in the Sky, a rather stodgy old wannabe class act of a restaurant. I thought briefly that if i got caught, I'd pretend to be sleepwalking.

The full story:

2nd Fate

Homemade

If there's one thing me and my mum have always loved, it would be watches. However, thanks to having been given the one ultimate watch by my parents on my 21st birthday, I no longer have the means or need to buy another. Still, everytime I'm stuck in transit at an airport, I do my usual round and look at the watches they put out.

I digress. I really just want to feature Haruo Suekichi, a maker of steampunk watches (GET OUT, FOR REALS!) so I don't forget his work, his attitude, or his love for crafting everything by hand.

From Blogger Pictures

From Blogger Pictures

From Blogger Pictures

From Blogger Pictures

Somebody get me a watch like that last one! The article on PingMag, is such a fun read. so readit.

Lastly, since my graduation, I've been getting craftier than ever. I spent a day learning how to braid with 6-strands, and made my own mesh scarf. I'll prob spend another day figuring out how to integrate it into a shirt which I'll have to make myself too. To be continued.

From Blogger Pictures

ps> witness my first eye-bags borne from crafting and not (egads)drafting.

ROY the lobster

Meet Roy, recently murdered in a swift and humane manner. However handsome you were when you captivated me with your huge fanning tail and fierce feelers, our greed got the better of us. Your eyes told me a thousand tales under the sea. In death, you had me confounded about living. Yet, you were tasty.

Dream of the Ladybirds

Inspired by a great illustrator, daniel egnéus.
I pale, but I try.


ps>> EM, this is the painting i was messing up while talking to you on the phone. ;p

Interim

Here's why i hesitate to feature artists that i love. I find it completely difficult to bring myself to post my own work here anymore. Ah well. Here's an inked over painting of a photograph i printed. I probably love ink as much as i love... ice-cream. *slurp*

Lisa Yuskavage

~~~~~Day, Oil on Linen, 77 x 62 inches, 1994

Isn't the light amazing? The mood is perfect in each of her paintings. Whether it is a semblance of innocence or of eroded/ corrupted beauty, I won't say. Her work is just too loaded. There are many articles about femininity and the male gaze about her work, so i won't even talk about feminism, porn pin-ups, or her agenda. She appeals terribly to my penchant for confrontational sexuality. I'm helpless. She's admirable even more so with the fact that she's worked the paintings to the level of brilliance that the old masters like Rembrandt and Goya have.



~~~~~Biting the Red Thing, Oct 18, 2006

This last painting i could have caught in exhibition here a few weeks ago but i didn't. Imagine it standing at 1.2m, the pie in the painting looking so thick you could flick some off on your finger. I still kick myself when i think about it.


~~~~~ Pieface, Oil on linen, 48 x 40 1/4 x 2 inches, 2008

Break in Berlin

From Spring Break-Berlin!

sleepless on cinco de mayo when i should be out having some tequilas and wearing funny hats. it's been rainy these past days and i've been addicted to sleeping again. which probably explains why i'm sleepless at 2.30 in the morning. speaking of which, i am reminded of my underachieving days in Berlin *wink wink*, so before i update my blog with the work of another artist that i admire, i'll leave you with this.

funny how cemeteries and memorials tend to be some of my most favourite haunts. tho i'm not really a fan of peter's, here is eisenman's kickass holocaust memorial (love love love):

From Spring Break-Berlin!

Gerhard Richter

Abstraktes Bild 742-2, 1991


Abstraktes Bild, 1988

This guy is an inspiration. I like him because he doesn't subscribe to the development of a singular signature style in his development as an artist. Also, in some self-centered way, his artistic interests happen to coincide with mine (not that i am at that level yet).

No matter. His works are extremely diverse, moving from complete material expression, to the photo-real blurred paintings to painting on photographs, to his own pixellated minimalism, to... i don't know what, because i'm terribly unschooled in art criticism.

Alright. I've decided that i'm going to start posting works from artists that i find interesting. I'm finally done with my final studio review. (!!!) So in the complete freedom that i have for a month now, i'll be looking at ART. yes, finally, the time has come. can i be more serious or happier at the same time?

Cage Cartridge

graphic interpretation: collage. amplified noise. the minutia of sound. i'm caught somewhere between not giving a shit about this homework to actually warming up to john cage. >:P

Breeze

"Keeping your eyes gently closed, close your eyes tightly.
it will rain, it will rain.
and after having what she described as her most thrilling experience,
she climbed down from the tree
next day
a queen."

-Vogt Dig For Kloppervok, The Books


I have 12 days left to my studio final. That means, NO MORE STUDIO, no more being a tortured student of architecture FOREVER. I've been breezing through this semester and suddenly, at 5pm today, i realised i still care. I'm gonna make it count. ;>

LowFi

Sad little flurries spin around in a snow globe. I wonder if monet ever felt a kind of blue while painting the waterlilies.

pop

while waiting for somebody to get his hair cut in a trendy berlin neighbourhood, i sketched this outta a pic in the magazine. i think i will sketch more buxom nudes. ;P

(ps: tell me if u prefer the 'normal' version.)

it always looks better from above

Martin Kippenberger. When i get tired of new york city and dream of fleeing this hole, i look at art.

When there's nothing left to burn you have to set yourself on fire

Back,
from one of my more surreal adventures. I'm not sorry it's over. I'm returning to finish the end of this chapter.

Live through this, and you won't look back.

you light me up

one day, my hands won't be retarded. my drawings will grow and i'll have a garden full of hardy african violets. on that day, i won't be addicted to the computer, or feel the need to be an architect. i'll read books and sip tea on afternoons, and picnic with a basket full of babies.

or not.

ha.

Hello Spring Break

From Bored

Goodbye Midterms. Apologies for the shallow clothing blogs, and the following boast. I was feeling pretty pleased with myself today, when a photographer ambushed me for my outfit.

Madrid tomorrow!

Slovenly Bliss

I've been in a queer mood lately. Yes, the old-fashioned sense of queer.

we don't work here anymore.

The great thing about having a relaxed studio is that this is the only work i've done all week.

The great thing about brooklyn is that there are the sweetest little shops and the cutest brownstone houses, complete with black wrought iron gates and rickety tiny staircases. Also, it's the first time i've seen an old church being converted into an apartment dwelling. Let me have the bell tower! i want my home to be the lighthouse of warren street. But the best thing about brooklyn is the space to paint in. I feel like this piece is still incomplete (having grabbed a chanel ad from my friend's magazine as a subject), but it's invigorating to pick up the brushes again. I <3 brooklyn. And I <3 painting. ^___________^

*updated the painting, i know, not much diff!

Clean Spring

This semester has been a BLAST. I think my friend population has multiplied 10 times over and suddenly studio work seems to be the least important thing this side of the Atlantic.

Sad 3D programs lie sullen, unopened and unexplored on my desktop, the lust for formal complexity placated by the complacency of having seen through the cliche and the sick invigoration of a work done well after tea-soaked nights of obsession have become a fond memory, a love affair with a pretty goodbye.

Temperatures creep back into normalcy, as with life for now. A proverbial calm before the next tempest.

WERK IT

Gotta get my toosh in gear! I've been wishy washy about my school work for a while now, drifting in and out spells of domesticity, moaning about the boring studio project, trudging through snow to buy a rice cooker, learning to make rice, scheming to make bread at the lowest cost, and all together shunning the world of consumerism by means of some wicked money-saving devising. In effect, i've been neglecting my architecture.

No more! Today I will be motivated!

A Classical Winter

It is a season of hearts. A brave many little ones.


Happy Chinese New Year All! Studio has begun with the promise of an utterly European March in store. The school project deals with collective housing in Madrid, and so it seems I am quickly enough revisiting Spain. It seems that the week after we arrive in Madrid happens to be spring break, whereupon I will take the sinful opportunity of travelling to either Paris or Berlin, financial crisis or nay.

Classical music seems to be the order of the day this winter. I wish you could be listening to the first violin sonatas of both Camille Saint-Saens and Edward Elgar. You would then agree with my desire to breathe in the air of an old, old, old but romantic city.

Nothing like a good Sunday brunch on a rooftop. Nyum.

Good Morning, Morningside

I awoke to the silence of heavy snowfall. Maybe it's because slumbering mostly for the past 40 hours makes it feel a little like Christmas never left. Well, not quite, but it's a good sign, to start the semester to a blank white morning. Still, I miss the curry and prata for breakfast, and that darling white fluffy scuttling around the house when everybody's out. Chopper would be such a doll in this wintery wonderland.

the word on the streets

Amused, I couldn't resist the slogan, seeing as i couldn't fork out 18 dollars for the t-shirt. Signs in Singapore. Some, in bad english. When bored, I look for them unwittingly. Oh, and i fly for my final semester tomorrow at midnight. 890 km per hour, 15339 kilometers, 24 hours in suspension. 4 months of certainty, and then I won't know where, what or how, but only why.

The Adventures of 'Chloe and Violet' in Phi Phi-Phuket

Phuket 2009!

Hello friends, family, curious or bored ones. At the behest of some, here are the photographs of my first trip of the year. :) Pity I have not developed the ones on my Holga or the cheap underwater camera. Even more so that I have no snaps of the famed leopard shark that I stumbled upon. But here is what it looks like-