Art + Advocacy Projects Aug 2011-March 2012

I have been to focused on inner work that I haven't had the chance to share a lot of my art activities since I arrived from Switzerland in August. Here is a documentation of my beautiful co-created art actions for peace and emergency recovery over the last 8 months :-)

Open publication - Free publishing - More arts relief

Shining Out Our Lights for Peace

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Self Reflection on a Stretched Canvas

I have been staring at the fresh, white, primed, and stretched canvas sitting on my easel at the foot of my bed for the past few days. The last time I (tried to) paint was last year. It has been a challenge to paint after someone you cared for slashes through your painting with a knife. It is even harder to paint your face if you are still emerging from a body disorder that made you think you were ugly for the past 15 years. Many of you do not know this about me. But it is alright to talk about this now. I am healing.

I can paint other things, but my spirit is set on painting myself now. Perhaps there's this affirming conscious vanity that artists undertake in making a self-portrait. Perhaps there this healing transformation that takes place as one affirms one's existence by making a mark on the canvas.

I have doodled on self portraits in my journal and I've played around with photoshop with my picture before but I've never done a painting of myself.


(playing around with a picture of a beautiful nebula with Photoshop (2004))

(a doodled self portrait on my journal in 2005)

(playing around with the web cam one inspired morning playing with the sun behind me :-) with neil young and the buddha in the background (2007))

Now is the time for it. The universe is calling.

Doing a self-portrait is not easy. You go through lots of sh*t like self hate, self doubt, and just pure, in the core melancholy.

But there's this beautiful part of self-reflection in painting your portrait. I start affirming the beauty in myself, the dreams I am made up of, and the future self that I wish to project and manifest through my painting. Just like many motivational seminars and books say, a vision board with images of the future that you want will help manifest your dreams and aspirations.

In my journey through art, visioning is a very powerful way of healing and alchemy. There is this bridge I create with my art between my inner and outer self; my fears and my loves; my weaknesses and my strengths; my spirit and my body; my true self and my acquired self; my past, present, and my future; my realities and my dreams; ...
and the list goes on....

dreams, doodles, drawings: a visual journaling sampler

I have been journaling since I was 11 and started doing visual journaling 8-10 years ago. This is a private collection of drawings, doodles, dreams, therapy work up to 2009. Visual journaling is a very transformative experience :-)

(2010 images to follow).

Inner Space in Cyber Space

I am writing this after catching a feather that floated inside my room. 
I see this as an auspicious go signal.

Yesterday, after conducting an expressive arts and mandala workshop, I gave my first formal talk about visual journaling to a group of nuns in formation. For the first time, I shared my journal drawings and writings to people I did not know.

The truth is, I miss writing in my notebook. 

After recording for about 17 years, I stopped writing regularly two years ago. A painful life experience in fear and co-dependence led me to close my lips, my imagination, and my heart to my inner world. I could not move my hands to write properly. Disoriented like a dervish with no center, I was afraid to manifest and to speak out.

I am now breaking my silence and slowly writing again.

I am encouraging myself to express my life in words despite growing tired of reading and writing through the years, secretly wanting to converse telepathically or in the simplest of words and actions. Although most of my inner thoughts and wonders will still be in my journal, it would be beautiful to share light and be light as I converse with the universe this way.

It rained yesterday after months of intense heat. I smelled the salt of the sea intensely and in double decibels, I heard the drops of water from the broken garden faucet gravitating towards the bucket just as the sky was about to let go.

It poured for more than an hour and it blessed the parched lands and weary souls of Manila. 

It blessed me.

I am now undulating in this ocean of possibility as I dedicate this online journal to my journey of recovering my artistic path. Let's walk together.