Freya my mermaid friend

Shooting part 2 of our mermaid tests with one of my best girls I met in the Philippines.

Moalboal

This past weekend a few friends and I decided to go to Moalboal in the southern part of Cebu. We left Friday afternoon, rented motorbikes and GTA-styled our way through the city and into the country parts, the mountains and the darkness to get to the lovely little town of Moalboal. It took us 4 hours and I lugged 4 giant paint cans on the back of the bike the whole way there. It was exhausting, beautiful and worth it. 

We arrived close to 8pm, ate a nice little meal and wondered the little strip of bars, restaurants and beaches. We stayed at Pacitas Beach Resort, the nicest place at the end of the strip and one of the cheapest. 700PHP for a night, 25p for the beer fridges, 15p for coke and water. Amazing. The little mini homes led out into a grainy beach and down stone stairs directly into the where old coral made up the majority beneath the water.

 We didn't stay up too late as we had an early start the following day. Our main goal of the journey was to meet Aida. I had been trying to meet with her for a few months now, but sadly I kept missing her due to our schedules.

She started a day centre where children are fed and schooled who are underprivileged and malnourished. Our mission was to brighten up the kindergarten room and fill it with visual aids and other fun colourful paintings that the children could use as references. We had one of the teachers even come help us and another friend we met on our last adventure with Lets-Share.

We started around 8am on Saturday. Being the one that instigated this, I still had no clue as to what we should be painting. I had to wait to see the room. After circulating ideas in my head, I knew we would do the alphabet around the top of the room, as well as numbers and shapes and a fun mural. We thought that as a kid it was fun to measure how tall you werre, so we painted a ruler near the front door.

While we began the painting, not too far down the road at Basdiot Elementary School, Lets-Share and Aida along with a few very well-known people (including members of the Rotary Club in Cebu) had organized a dental care and eye care for the people in the school. Free. This on-going mission will be brought to many children through the Philippines in the coming months. We didn't get to see much of the event as we were busy painting, but we did catch up to Aida and Richard at lunch where we joined them in eating the lovely food made just for the volunteers.

Our painting took us to just about 3pm, where afterward we rewarded ourselves with a swim in the ocean, mango shakes, delicious sandwiches and for a few a nice, long sleep. The rest of them went out to the disco and stayed out til all hours of the night. Our plan for the next morning was to visit White Sands Beach, swim, hang out and then take the long motorbike home around noon. We did just that and while it poured rain on us a good portion of the bike ride, we were nevertheless happy and satisfied when we arrived safely in Lapu-Lapu.

Moalboal is a beautiful place. Many tourists visit for the diving, the scenery and the small-town vibe. For us it was a place to clear our minds, be creative, and appreciate everything we have in our lives.

White Sands Beach, Moalboal

My next series of art....

I am looking for something to paint, I said to myself today. I was checking out artwork from someone who inspires me - Positive Creations, he calls his work. He's so focused. His art is amazing. It brings the same vibes, the same style. Why can't I be that way? I thought to myself, well.. my artwork varies. I can't help but explore different ideas, different mediums. I am curious. I went through a whatever I want to paint stage in the beginning, to tropical sunset phase, to a buddhist phase, to a digital phase, back to a whatever I want to create phase... I have no direction with my art, and I don't mind. That's who I am.

"We are flowers of different colours" - Art

But with my art I like to create messages, provoke at least a feeling of love and transmute my inner demons so I can be a better person afterward. It's been a while since I've created. It's been a while since I've mused about a collection. The latest one is digital, with ART as my main character. He runs into all sorts of scenarios and comes out with a moral lesson. He is what reminds me to remember the lessons I've been taught. So there is he. 


But I thought to myself, what else? What haven't I explored. Simple. My culture. I am born in the Philippines, now living here and I have explored many parts of it and soaked up as much as it could visually offer me. So, why haven't I created it yet?
Well... I am now. My next series will be influenced by everything that influences the Philippines. Malay-Indo, Spanish, Chinese... 
Traditionally Filipino art involves weaving, wood, metalwork... a place I truly wished to visit was the 1000 Soil painting project of the Talaandig tribe. I missed it. However, I did get to see the wood art, where soil is melted and reshaped into beautiful jewelry.


As I googled "traditional filipino art" and searched through other filipino artists works, I notice.. there is nothing that particularly makes it filipino. The Fine Arts are everywhere. The same techniques and methods are taught, but we just express it differently. We express our experiences differently, just as we see them differently. 


So, I may say that my next series of art will be as close as I can get to the inspiration given to me by "traditional" art, but I have no idea where it will lead me or how it will look. Yet. 
I just need to close my eyes and think about the Philippines and become it as best as I can. 


It will be about the journey I took back into time, back into childhood, back into my roots where I came from and then coming out into the present.

model zone..

A new project I'm working on, with my girl Freya being the first. We may not be the stereotypical runway models, but we all face the highs and lows of the job. I want to find people that do it for the art, that respect themselves, their bodies and their morals.

the art of entertainment

I love cameras. You can capture just about any emotion through them and you can instill any emotion through their images. Within this past year my love for this medium has grown. Both photography and video are creative avenues that I recognize I want to explore for a long, long time. It's with all forms of creativity that I feel free. I have an opportunity to express myself by any means and by doing so I am completely limitless. I am lucky for this. I hope people know they too are limitless. There is a form of creativity in everyone screaming to come out. It's the perfect release and the perfect struggle, where the woes and joys of your day come out in one brush stroke, one click of the camera, one work of art. That is what I love about creativity. The fact that once it's completed, you can let it go. You never have to think about it again. And you can move forward.