Sunday in the Park

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.

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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

“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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.