[*}

Refreshed, with golf-ruined shoulders

2010-10-19T09:27:00.000-04:00

Bali was a balm. I highly recommend anybody in dire need of a retreat to take a day or two from work over the weekend and just escape to a beautiful resort and live life at the pace of bebel gilberto's bossa nova for a stretch.

They say that geography changes everything. It's true. The mind mellows, grinds down to the stillness and the sublimity of an environment so completely tamed and dominated by nature. Perspectives are lost, gained, and castles rebuilt. The love of things and people is found. For a few precious days, the world is perfect. Then goodbye bali, goodbye bubble, hello real world.

God restores, things have shifted and the heart sees just a little more clearly. The process is slow, but no doubt radical at the root.

Beached

2010-06-30T16:24:00.003-04:00

From Mood

I've been exhausting myself in every way possible with work. Breaking point. I guess this is the part where the waves hit the shore. I'm insomniac at 4.30am, mind, body and heart given away to such a state that I can't go any further. Now if only there was a place to crash.

Wonderland

2010-04-06T10:33:00.002-04:00

The past week or two have been so so blessed. I don't know how else to describe it and it's a pretty long tale. Still, this was one of the best, who would have expected a day in winter in the midst of spring?

Always on the outside looking in

2010-03-27T11:05:00.001-04:00

"Remember the weight of the world, it's a sound we used to buy."

The only stars I've seen here were the splendid projected ones in the great planetarium dome at the museum of emerging sciences. And this one.

The Value of Hope

2010-03-21T11:19:00.008-04:00

From Friends

The thing about this profession is that it inflicts upon you little sense of value. I'm not about to start on my disgruntled rant about the kind of exploitation that goes on in the industry because it helps nothing. I am going to say this though, that in April, I'll be working for my dad. With this, I've come full circle, rather unexpectedly, but I'm hoping this will bring me forward, in becoming closer to the things that I hope to materialize. Perhaps dreams have shifted. But the heart is no less the same.

Nippon-jin arimasen desu. Shashin mo arimasen desu yo.

2010-03-02T10:13:00.003-05:00

From Blogger Pictures

That's why above is an old photo i made in new york, that kinda reminds me of japan.

Well, I'm here. I doubt the fact that I'm going to be working here for a month as a lowly unpaid intern will register until it actually happens on Thursday. I used to think doing this sorta thing was stupidity.

.
.
.

I still think so.

But that doesn't stop me from feeling super-excited, does it? ;p

El Egg

2010-02-16T02:18:00.003-05:00

From El Egg

Chinese new year means that i have daylight and some time to run out and grab some eggs, get some help frying them, then stick them to a canvas that always seemed incomplete without some food on it.

Focus

2010-02-08T09:51:00.002-05:00

From Phuket 2010

In the spirit of travelling light, I am trying to focus on what is essential. It gets easier. What is light, becomes all the more apparent in the darkness.

Taken on new year's eve, 2009 in phuket.

Note about Format

2010-02-04T04:17:00.003-05:00

From Krabi 2010

Most of you might not have realised this, in the off-chance that anybody did, I'm trying to change the format of my blog. Kinda like me breaking out a little, it's awkward now, but what I envision for it ultimately is to have large-format images that are totally in your face, sucking the viewer right into the picture, instead of the kind, conveniently-small, carefully-framed photographs that I used to put up here.

Krabi and the Blur

2010-02-04T04:06:00.002-05:00

From Krabi 2010

Mostly a trip of eating tons of pad thai, getting sun-burnt, being mosquito bait, and getting strangely invigorated by swimming long distances around and into some pretty sublime sea-caves.

By some strange virtue of a defect completely on the part of my poor camera skills, I have come to really like blurred subjects in my pictures, or blurred images. I think this penchant for blurred photographs came about from the mix of early noughties new york art exhibits and bad overtly feely architecture school montages.

However, if you want some idea of the beauty of the natural limestone beach landscapes in Krabi albeit through some grossly unthinking bad photography of mine, I've provided a link to my photo album below. It was a fun trip! ^_^

album link

Rendezvous in the City

2010-01-28T13:04:00.006-05:00

From Dana

You are one of a kind.

And ps: I <3 my new second-hand nikon 50mm 1.4 lens!

It's thursday night, but it feels like a friday. i'm meeting an old friend, and i just procured for myself a first- a new lens, and i am mighty excited. She seems to be the perfect muse, for a Wong-Kar-Wai-esque night out in the city.

You, again.

2010-01-25T11:55:00.002-05:00

From Macro

I guess i don't want to lose momentum. ^_^ Putting pictures up, no matter how insignificant always reminds me that there is stuff out there that have yet to be taken, sewn, edited, drawn, printed, painted, experimented on. I want to not be able to help myself but to make, make, and make again.

Anything but Mellow

2010-01-24T10:33:00.004-05:00

From Macro

Dying solo- a chrysanthemum.

Full Season, and some fond old Mushroom Swiss

2009-12-26T05:58:00.005-05:00

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

2009-10-25T13:15:00.002-04:00

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

2009-09-28T03:55:00.002-04:00

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?

2009-06-28T03:48:00.004-04:00

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

2009-06-23T15:31:00.003-04:00

From Bored

I miss Europe!

Scarfman

2009-06-23T15:23:00.003-04:00

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

2009-06-20T00:26:00.006-04:00

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

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

2009-06-18T13:24:00.000-04:00

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

2009-06-12T13:52:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-10T18:19:00.002-04:00

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

2009-06-09T00:16:00.003-04:00

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

2009-06-06T18:11:00.003-04:00

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

2009-06-05T05:58:00.007-04:00

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

2009-06-03T14:32:00.005-04:00

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

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

2009-05-23T21:58:00.002-04:00

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

2009-05-07T03:07:00.002-04:00

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

2009-05-07T03:02:00.002-04:00

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

2009-05-05T02:44:00.011-04:00

~~~~~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

2009-05-05T02:17:00.005-04:00

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

2009-04-28T01:51:00.005-04:00

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

2009-04-18T15:30:00.004-04:00

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

2009-04-16T02:30:00.003-04:00

"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

2009-04-14T01:44:00.000-04:00

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

pop

2009-03-28T00:20:00.003-04:00

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

2009-03-25T12:08:00.003-04:00

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

2009-03-21T22:52:00.002-04:00

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

2009-03-06T22:05:00.003-05:00

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

2009-03-06T21:03:00.006-05:00

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

2009-03-04T21:53:00.001-05:00

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

we don't work here anymore.

2009-02-22T00:52:00.005-05:00

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

2009-02-19T14:34:00.002-05:00

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

2009-02-05T12:46:00.002-05:00

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

2009-01-26T19:02:00.008-05:00

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

2009-01-19T03:11:00.002-05:00

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

2009-01-14T23:52:00.006-05:00

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

2009-01-10T07:44:00.003-05:00

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-

Non-sequitur

2008-12-30T10:06:00.003-05:00

Reasons for unrelated photograph: I'm in Singapore now, I have no idea when next I'll be home, the new year is imminent, and I feel guilty not updating the blog with another photograph. This was from Scotland this summer, and I've been meaning to post it up. Glen Etive, a deliciously sublime piece of mother nature.

idle clicks

2008-12-07T14:29:00.003-05:00

egads, it's hard to focus on school work. especially when one is trying to cultivate a mustache.

here's a shot of myself again, it's one of the few that were developed from my Holga... seeing as much of my study time is spent being my own subject. fairly narcissistic but don't complain, unless you wanna be my model!

Araki's Shadow

2008-11-29T14:30:00.003-05:00

Homage to a memory: Painted flowers. We were only 16 when we cut classes then and ambled into the new NAFA campus, curious to see what it had to offer. It was the only time, I think, Nobuyoshi Araki ever exhibited in Singapore.

Cut Woolies

2008-11-27T15:38:00.002-05:00

Been having a ball in seclusion from the cold cold weather outside, waking up with the scissor-urge to snip off the tops from my old thrift-shop sweaters and the desire to attach them to even older T-shirts.

10 minutes of leisure

2008-11-12T02:24:00.003-05:00

The only free time I have these days I spend sleeping. And then 10 mins before a bath, before I plop myself in front of the computer to work, I can take a photograph.

Maybe my life will suck less after this semester.

yawrrrrrrrrrrr

2008-11-01T18:35:00.000-04:00

i'm moving tomorrow.

bunnyfish

2008-10-30T13:40:00.004-04:00

if i could go to the halloween parties in a Bunnyfish outfit, i would.

Bunnyfish live on the wall of my bedroom, and feed on the drowned relics of steampunk junk. They were first conceived by Kozyndan, an artist-illustration collaboration. And i have half a mind to abscond with this awesome antique of a macro lens.

eat, swim, be rabbit

2008-10-09T23:43:00.005-04:00

*
a need for sleep. induces involuntary doodling. and the great appreciation for cool grass in the quasi warm 19 degrees sun.

*
the events of my life unfold in a small seamless array of lists. they also occur inconsequentially within the small confines of avery hall. prison, madhouse and laboratory for people who dream of being an idea of an architect.

oh yes, and i've gotten through september stepping on the toes of love, mostly by bulldozing through the squeamish matters of the heart by making lists- of things to be done, things done, things for the future, new things to buy, try, often involving a list of things to help me forget. listing is an easy way out- a default habit that immediately tells you what next. number, sequence, do. if in doubt, listen to jazz.

hello again

2008-09-20T14:58:00.003-04:00

Made it through another week! An epiphany came over me as I opened my eyes to the 2 o'clock afternoon sun and for once in a very long time, pride swelled in my rummy little heart. Living solo again for the past two weeks has proved to be tougher than living solo for the first time.

However. Small victories occur daily.

Sunday in the Park

2008-08-25T15:55:00.004-04:00

I got out my new flopsy hat and picnic dress for a crackers, pate and brie, buffalo wings (i know the wings don't match but they looked too tasty at zabar's ) picnic with Mr. Garcia. I've been in apartment-hunting hell for long enough to ball my fists and shake them at the heavens, so I think getting out for some sun might just be the thing to do right now.

:view album:

Homage to a particular wordsmith.

2008-08-07T13:27:00.003-04:00

I wandered lonely as a cloud,
and then i thought, "Sod it,
i'll have a pint instead."

I'm happily perched on the edge of my very wedgewood-esque queen bed, the tea not so far from arms reach, Beatrix Potter's home next door in the village of Hawkshead, somewhere in the Lake District. A typical english drizzle smothers the pastoral hills in light mists not too far from a lake. But the photograph is a lie. That's taken from our lodgings in a glen in Scotland- Glencoe, where an infamous massacre took place. Perhaps the erratic internet will permit me to upload more piccys. We shall see. Indeed Great Britain feels somewhat peculiar- arousing a mixed feeling of homecoming to a home we never had, but only lived through our imaginations concocted by the english childhood literature of our upbringing.

Girl

2008-07-16T06:40:00.003-04:00

It's alright though your garden's gray
I know all your graces
Someday will flower in a sweet sunshower
- Chris Cornell, Sunshower

Between learning yet another foreign language and getting up early in the morning, between the family and the food, the friends and the laughter, time has just slipped by oh too quickly and the wispy sleepy days of june have faded into the more demanding month of july. It is a season for me to wait, or rather, to learn to wait, because between the never-ending circles i could run around myself and the deep stillness, there isn't any better choice.

Love is in the Air

2008-06-13T14:11:00.002-04:00

So I tagged along for my brother's wedding photoshoot, and snapped some illegal photographs of them, much to the hired photographer's dismay. But I swear it's one of the sweetest things I've seen this year, and how could I not.

Happily Ever After...

...it does exist. Happened to my parents, happening now to my brother.
(:

Imitating Art

2008-05-14T00:00:00.005-04:00

A quick and dirty attempt to fill in the gaps of my time. I imitate Schiele out of respect and used artist Martina Nehrling's beautiful work as an attempt at some sorta collage. Hours bleed into days and post-end-of-semester-ennui has settled in comfortably, numbly. I seldom can tell what day of the week it is and what time of the day it is, it's a sleepy haze, creeping in on little cat's feet and sitting pretty on my eyelids after 10-12 hours of rest each night/morning.

The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991)

2008-05-10T20:10:00.006-04:00

New York, is a city i love to hate on a regular school day. But it's undeniable sometimes, that i love it. And that's precisely when i turn the corner in the Met and bump into a Damien Hirst.

Mountains of Mendoza

2008-05-08T23:18:00.002-04:00

Today I found this picture lying around my computer randomly, while looking for portfolio images. I liked the moment of it. The end of the semester is almost here, everybody feels it. So I'm pushing away the mountain of projects, bit by bit, morning comes smelling already like the freedom of a summer that awaits just around the bend.

Into the Woods

2008-04-21T21:52:00.004-04:00

Architecture and war are not incompatible. Architecture is war. War is architecture. I am at war with my time, with history, with all authority that resides in fixed and frightened forms. I am one of millions who do not fit in, who have no home, no family, no doctrine, no firm place to call my own, no known beginning or end, no "sacred and primordial site." I declare war on all icons and finalities, on all histories that would chain me with my own falseness, my own pitiful fears. I know only moments, and lifetimes that are as moments, and forms that appear with infinite strength, then "melt into air." I am an architect, a constructor of worlds, a sensualist who worships the flesh, the melody, a silhouette against the darkening sky. I cannot know your name. Nor you can know mine. Tomorrow, we begin together the construction of a city.

-Lebbeus Woods

Geared into the Finals Mode, I don't dream of the rising and falling of cities, the grand fantasies of men who once lived, chords of anthems sung, the ontology of ruination and creation... but only of the sweet rocking smell that takes me home. I miss all of you.

A Couple of Couples

2008-04-05T21:23:00.003-04:00

Spring arrived and so we trooped down to the brooklyn botanical gardens to Bask in the first rays of the season.

-edit-

some pics along the way!

Paint Withdrawal

2008-03-31T00:02:00.005-04:00

i've been re-reading these two epistolary novels by nick bantock (that is since i last bought them 3 years back), about Griffin and Sabine, a postcard artist and a postal stamp illustrator who write to each other from different ends of the world. In fact, so compelling is the art that the book itself is composed of the letters and postcards with these multifarious artworks that stun me into a shade of green. i have nothing new done on the art front- architecture having wormed its tyrannous tentacles around my palate of excuses- only this one oil painting* done in a fit of contagious anger that i caught off the streets of 105th and 107th.

~

*it was really done last semester and i promise i will post a picture of the rest of it once i take a decent photograph of it.

Nothing Much But Random Life So Far

2008-03-24T20:20:00.000-04:00

“Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh," he whispered.

"Yes, Piglet?"

"Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw, "I just wanted to be sure of you."”

-A.A.Milne

The Slumbering Spring

2008-03-22T14:17:00.002-04:00

I must have slept a good half of my spring break away, only to wake up to some giant juicy scallop dinner (tasty!)and bruising snowboarding the next day. Now I'm back in NYC, in front of the computer with a cold creeping into full blast. Watching the jasmine-orange-pekoe tea bundle slowly blossom, hot water in my glass cup.

Still White

2008-02-25T12:24:00.002-05:00

I must admit, there has been too much activity on the computer these days, what with taking a digital studio and picking up a character on WoW. It's my excuse for not blogging in a while. >.<

Grapefruit

2008-01-29T09:32:00.000-05:00

It's been a rough start to the semester. What with the onset of a terribly debilitating fever and the lack of proper sleep due to jetlag. I've been a bad artist. I'd rather take photographs than paint because I'm lazy.

Breakfast grapefruit instructions: cut along the equator, take spoon and eat parcels with as little squirting as possible. drink the leftover juice from hemisphere.

puppy's way of eating grapefruit. undoubtedly fun.

With a Little Help from My Friend

2008-01-09T10:11:00.000-05:00

i have yet to find the words to this picture. finally, i am my own model, having enlisted the help of the illustrious Aleka Drea.

Ducky Flies Home

2007-12-22T13:54:00.000-05:00

Homebound the day after tomorrow, I'll be spending christmas in a plane, toasting champagne. What a semester. Here's hoping things get easier with the new year. I must say, New York has been such a b****. One always struggles to find beauty in the harshness, pushes you to keep searching. Well enough of that for now. I have the comforts of home, wonderful sunshine, glad faces of family AND the time to enjoy it for 3 weeks. The happier girl is me. ^_~

Icicle Night

2007-12-14T02:36:00.000-05:00

First, I woke up to a great breakfast of warm toast, delicious scrambled eggs, and one of the best mushroom dishes I've had in quite a while.

Then, it started snowing. Beautifully.

I spent the entire day (and night) slaving away at my essay (it's now done!) while a light rain baked the fresh snow on the trees and everywhere in New York into icicles.

Lastly, in the euphoria of the essay off my list of finals, I ran out into the early morning streets with a camera and tripod, freezing but happy.

3 hours of Daylight

2007-12-10T22:51:00.000-05:00

Thanks to my studio hangover, I don't get sleepy till 4am and I don't wake up before 1pm the following day. After the final studio reviews, I happily deluded myself into thinking it was time for a break, until today, when I woke up to the sobering reality of the 3 more deadlines ahead of me, 2 of which are due in 5 days. 5 days to kick out an essay about the Italian Renaissance and to figure out animation in 3Ds Max. Wheeee.

With the approach of winter, the sun sets at 4pm, giving me an excuse to take yet another denial break and stare out my window contemplating the passing of autumn. Damn i wish i took more walks in central park.

Opera

2007-11-21T01:21:00.001-05:00

The Queen of the Night's Aria in the second act. (Note: This video is not the same as the performance i watched tonight though.)

So we decided to be bad students for one night and ran down to the Met Opera at 65th and Broadway to catch our last chance to watch Mozart's Die Zauberflöte this season. It was truly amazing. Props to the set and costume designers for this one... amazing designs, clean, oriental, futuristic, very strange but beautiful.

The highlight of the night though was discovering this lady who played Pamina's role, Genia Kühmeier. She has the most beautiful voice I've heard live, and me and diego completely preferred her singing the Queen of the Night's.

Just to throw in the irresistable tidbit, Die Zauberflöte was first performed in 1791, Vienna, and it struck me today that one of the things that I love about opera is the fact that we're watching the self-same performances that the people 200 years ago watched... kinda makes me wish that sound-recording devices existed then.

Angel of Pop and Time Relativity.

2007-11-10T00:53:00.000-05:00

I've just discovered this completely irresistable tool called the rasterbator. You plop photographs into it, it gives you the photograph- in circles. Me, I particularly like this Calvin Klein underwear angel. Xp

On other fronts, studio work is finally looking up, with 3.5 weeks left to the finish and about 5.5 weeks left to home. I can't believe this semester is almost over. Isn't it universally true that time speeds up when you get older? If months seem like days now, I wonder what a year might seem like when I'm 50.

Nature's Big Event

2007-11-05T19:39:00.000-05:00

Big Event Blog

Click the picture for the album. It was a really really great Christian retreat, in the midst of New York's finest season, Autumn.

The Parade that never was.

2007-11-01T01:42:00.000-04:00

so me and the make-shift Nick Fury went down to east village to watch the legendary New York Halloween Parade. suffice to say, all of the streets from 23rd to the 14th were blocked off because of the sheer volume of paraders. we never made it there. we did however get our feast of sights, i must confess that the ones shown here were merely the beginnings of the thickening crowd, and i fast ran out of photo space before we hit the real meat of costumed revellers.

Fisheye Freaks

2007-10-28T23:18:00.000-04:00

halloween happiness. ^x<

5 more weeks left before the final review (le gasp!) and my studio work is in tatters. (God help me) i'm hoping some miracle will find its way onto my lap soon enough. that said, i'm looking forward to a weekend at lake champion and nice big fat halloween parade on wednesday! diego's got his pirate wig out, complete with eye-patch and i'm going as a myself, oops, i mean a cat. *mreow*

sketchbook: anatomy

2007-10-03T21:48:00.000-04:00

it's something to keep in mind, that when i'm finally supposed to take a break, i can't seem to keep my hands still. i've been sorely neglecting to draw, and it struck me when during my italian renaissance class, there was that fascination about the body that i left behind.

nonetheless, here are some rather awkward re-beginnings.

another thing i've discovered over the lectures of the italian renaissance, was that the great guys like Leonardo and Michelangelo always begun things, projects, studies, and seldom ever completed them- mostly because they were starting too many things (due to overwhelming bright-eyed fascination, i expect). is it then a failure to start things, and leave them unfinished? it is no coincidence then, that the word renaissance, meaning re-birth, seems all the more poignant, even in a sentimentally ironic way.

*sigh*

Björk

2007-09-25T10:47:00.000-04:00

she only happens to be one of my favouritest artist. we went to see her in concert at madison square garden last night. stunning.

here's another video of hers, it's one of the best music videos out there (or not out there), it's not for the faint-hearted, though. (link)

Rally.

2007-09-23T23:22:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow, at 11.30am, the students of Columbia University will rally and show their dissatisfaction with visiting President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who will speak at an international conference here.

The school has been swamped over with posters all over campus and beyond for a week now with the man's (mis)deeds, showing his sense of what justice is. TV reporters have been camping outside the school gates, security has been tightened- and though all still largely remains peaceful- just today, the tension is palpable as my friends and I carry out our daily business of schoolwork. Our minds churning with the usual stresses of crazy deadlines, while trying to make sense of what is happening here in our hearts.

---------------

updated*

To be noted, here are some unforgettable points in the opening note, by Lee Bollinger, President of Columbia University:

“Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator,... you are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated... I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions.”

(article)

acrylic tryout

2007-08-29T16:07:00.000-04:00

"there's no space in the apartment for me to leave pieces of paintings lying about to dry."

that's my excuse to buy some acrylics and try them out for once. i guess i'm posting this incomplete piece up before i feel like my blog has become a tad too intimidating for myself to put my less than perfect pieces up in.

/spinning/

2007-08-13T00:09:00.000-04:00

in only the words that Murakami from Dance Dance Dance can make,

"When I was little, I had this science book. There was a section on 'What would happen to the world if there was no friction?' Answer: 'Everything on earth would fly into space from the centrifugal force of revolution.'" That is my mood.

black.eyed.barbie

2007-08-07T10:09:00.001-04:00

meet another one of my best friends, S.

she's just your regular Snow White.

gone renegade.

<3

25

2007-08-04T05:16:00.000-04:00

the year out ends in 10 days. and i turn 25 today. very happy indeed to come home from some morning yoga and find my first overseas bouquet sitting on my table, sprightly as a perky little puppy on a warm may day.

'twas a great day out to the old club, a family luncheon by the poolside where i've spent most of my childhood days. where papa dunked me in at 3 and got me my fins to swim. many a weekend spent in contests with the 3 brothers- who can cannonball the furthest, who can hold their breath the longest, who can retrieve the coin at the botton of the pool fastest... who can eat the most of mummy's noodles and chicken wings, some of this still happens, the same old brothers, except i can't fight with them anymore because i'm too tiny to throttle them in any skirmish. boo.

steamboat dinner with a handful of friends and family, chocolate cheesecake, and a good way to wrap up the year, and perhaps what seems to be the end of my singaporean days for now. and what with every closure, brings a new beginning.

{enter sinatra's new york, new york}

for kicks, the most girlfriendly pose i could muster-

for the boyfriend who brought me also a lively chorus of chilean feliz cumpleaños. te amo. ^_^

death, be a sport

2007-07-10T12:21:00.000-04:00

the horror, the honour,
the cruel, cruel honour.

the thrill, oh the thrill,
the sick metal thrill.

what extremes the spaniards go to live life on the edge seem unreasonable to the point of stupidity; irresistable, to the sharpest point of passion.

don't clown with my heart

2007-07-09T12:54:00.001-04:00

i interrupt this blog with a humorous little nugget.

~power to the clownfish.~

>;>

abstract sun contrast

2007-06-30T03:01:00.000-04:00

it's my biggest painting yet, 1.2m x 1.5m, and i think this has to be the most comfortable size to work with. ^_^ it was due to for an office project earlier this week, but my dad and i found ourselves growing so fond of it that we decided to keep it at home.

said office project has been mainly occupying the bulk of my time since we got back from our trip and i find myself visiting art supplies and canvas shops almost everytime i leave the house, only to return carting back more paint, frames, flammable liquids, aerosol sprays, ink, canvas rolls, feathers, plastic toy eyes and jars of goop and other random items that i can buy under that broad umbrella of art. yes, i'm looking at stronger arms with all that weight-lifting. muahahaha.

as with the closing of the month of june, i am reminded that i have a month and a half left here in singapore. which means that about next week, starting on the coming monday, i should really begin brushing the dust off the 3D programs that i've left behind.

inklings

2007-06-12T23:45:00.000-04:00

art is a series of destructive acts. (which makes me think of tschumi's "To really appreciate architecture, you may even need to commit a murder." huh!)

which really starts to make sense to me that everytime i encounter a perfectly beautiful and pristine piece of canvas or sheet of paper, i can barely bring myself to mar it... until i find a speck of impurity or macro-lens my way to the texture of the very fibres of the cloth itself... and find a start in a blemish.

it's a gamble, really. and when the painting sets me uneasy, something has to give in the risk of either improving the painting or completely destroying it. art starts with mistakes. there is no back-up and save to rely on. (hell, i wish there was)

so i tell myself recently. sod the wormholing behaviour. i've become more the demolition team than the architect these days. blackblack oils on blackbad ink. there is no canvas too sacred for me.

i'm listening

2007-06-10T03:58:00.000-04:00

for signs of life
in an ideological desert.

Magic Carpet Exhaustion

2007-06-06T06:40:00.000-04:00

she's so tired, of ala-kaazamming through the skies, legs cramped from sitting cross-legged, stiff back, crooked neck and aching joints... better to sleep a spell for a while now. maybe she'll get a broomstick sometime.

*

home again and i can finally working on these photoshoot pictures i've had lying around my compy. it's funny how i like doing these mindless things so much more than anything else, but gaudi's roofscapes and miro's compositions are fast moving into my head with a more lucrative agenda, so no more nudies for now. until the next round. ^_<

Hiatus

2007-05-14T02:48:00.000-04:00

lying flat out on nothing. months seem to get chopped up between travels. days acquire a half-lucid, half-languid tempo; sifting sands that fall through fingers, an immemorable gray.

we're heading out to spain on wednesday and my list of unaccomplished objectives grow ever insistently. perhaps i've been rewarding myself a little too much for too little effort expended. the lack of income as well as the lack of a proper schedule is beginning to more than add up. i need to devise a more practical way to live with art, seeing as i can't quite live on it quite yet.

*

(on the lighter side of life, it must be noted that nude studies are fun. i will offer my undying gratitude and friendship to sympathetic friends who support my home-spun artistic development efforts. so who's next? )

Onsen= Hot Spring Bath

2007-04-30T05:58:00.000-04:00

We whipped out our trusty ol' lonely planet guide. It said Shirahama had a Not To Be Missed Historic Onsen (mentioned in not just one, but a few great epic texts and classic literature of ancient japan). Could we resist that?

So we took a trip out to the Kansai region having hopes of spending a Spectacular Onsen Soak where past emperors such as Meiji himself (and others that i can't quite remember now) have soaked in before. We happily paid the 110 sgd bullet train tickets only to find a completely deserted beach town (it's slum period) and the said Onsen. True enough, it was buried among the ocean cliff rocks, where one could enjoy views of the spectacular pacific ocean. Yes, the crashing waves lap up to the brink of the rock-and-salt-formed onsen baths. Magnificent.

It wasn't until the 20th minute soaking in the hot natural spring waters with an assortment of other naked japanese women that i realised that my body could take no more than 45 mins in the scalding sulfuric waters. I begun to see how these royal baths do demand such a royal fee. I begun to see how enthusiasm got the better of foresight.

Oh well. Lesson learnt. Do not get carried away with lonely planet descriptions as irresistable as they sound. No matter how much one loves to hot bathe (there are few greater relaxations), there is only so much time in it a human body can possibly take.

We later bummed around and laughed ourselves silly for the expensive escapade and ended the night with some salsa at the train station waiting for what must be one of the last trains to pull up. Shirahama rocks.

Japan- Onsen Hunting

photos, (click above photograph-link) though none of the onsen itself, save one we managed to get after chatting up the owner.

Happiness is.

2007-04-20T14:50:00.000-04:00

an attic
an attic with a puppy
an attic with a puppy and paints
an attic with a puppy, paints and salsa.

happiness is,
having space
having space to breathe
having a year out and finally learning to enjoy it.

When Prada met Herzog

2007-04-20T06:00:00.000-04:00

night falls, and i finally meet the building that so inspired me to continue with architecture back in my undergrad years. seemed larger than life in all its ETFE glory, it does.

Prada building, Herzog & de Meuron

butter/my/fly

2007-04-16T22:33:00.000-04:00

"I like to pretend that my art has nothing to do with me."
- Roy Lichtenstein

it's true. i do too.

photograph off a lacoste showcase in harajuku at night.

here's the full suit.

back alas, from pink heaven.

2007-04-13T14:53:00.000-04:00

"i'm back!"

suffice to say, japan is AWESOME. there is no other country i've yet visited to score so high on the delight quotient. there is no other place i know better to Spring in than in the land of sakura blossoms. pink snow showers amid fresh grass. some sweet mochi in hand, warm tea or some sake in another and a camera slung ready around your neck. and so, i promise, i will upload more pictures along with brief rants and raves about that crazy island country that i so adore. ^_^