Traversing Lairs

Over the past couple of months I've managed to toss myself here and there, to different places where some of my friends live and most of these friends are lesbians that I've met in the past.
I usually just have a few friends that I keep close but I'm also open to getting to know other people better.

I like having lesbian friends but then I get so tired of hearing them wanting to be in a relationship when they just got out from one. Lesbians can really talk about it for days on end. I think I'm the only person I know who don't really care much about these things. But I do understand why people are like that. It's because most people are afraid to be alone. So afraid of being alone that they would cling to anyone so soon. But I think this is also one of the great reasons why relationships fail, because most of them are motivated by fear and have accumulated enough anxieties to sabotage their relationships. Although I am put off by this kind of weakness, as a friend I will always be there to comfort them, even if I have to cross the oceans.
I'm pretty much content and happy with myself and I would never lower my standards just because I would like to settle down with someone.

I'm planning to go back to Taiwan because it's so much fun there and I'd also like to see friends. Though I just got back from Singapore a month ago, visiting a friend who just got out of a relationship and wanted someone to talk to. It was a nice trip and I was able to catch up with friends while being able to do a lot of things.

I used to always stay at a friend's condo in Boni, we would just hang out in her place have roast chicken for dinner(we were both vegetarian) and just talk or watch a movie for the rest of the night. We would sleep in a single bed that is too small for the both of us. Her room was so small you can only take 4 steps of walking space while the rest is occupied by the bed, table, and a small chest of drawers for clothes. She was one of those writer friends whom I enjoy talking about life and other things that most people couldn't even dream of thinking about. She was a pothead so she was always stoned and because I'm not exactly a person who likes going out for the sake of going out, we always just stayed in and have a mellow evening.
Well, she lives in Swiss now and we only get to hangout in Skype. I am also staying at different places with other people now since I always have to stay in Manila for many reasons.

I guess I've always been that transient visitor who is only passing through...

I Got in the First Tier. The Backlash of My Secret Life

I was included in an article about 10 New Filipino artists that deserve recognition.

The article is here by Spot.

Now, I've been living a quiet life recently and didn't know that this came out not until a friend sent me a message.

Still preferring a life of solitude right now. See you.

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New Veronica Laurel Website Up!

Finally took my site out of Wix.com, I found a better and easier way of getting an artist site that is simple and fast, that also has a functional mobile site.

www.veronicalaurel.com

I'm still yet to update the Solo Exhibition page because I don't have the official invite photo from the gallery and I'm a bit lazy to come up of my own. Though I am pretty excited about the show.

Happy to be updating the new site in an easier and faster way than the old one. Goodbye Flash and goodbye wix!

I Don't See Dead People

There is certain difficulty in organizing oneself to see another person at a specific location nowadays. 

Recently, friends I haven't seen in years, let alone heard from suddenly dropped lines and dared to say hello. Though the friendship is not dead, it just didn't occur to me to message them about anything. Life for each of us have separated, leading to different places.

These people have asked to meet or see each other over tea or  alcohol. I obliged, like the good friend I was. The thing is, these people would set the date and initiative to meet yet cancel on the day itself or the day before. Some ask to meet for some reason but would never really set the time to. How come friends don't even know how to keep their words anymore. Maybe that's why I don't see them anymore.

There was a friend of mine who contacted me out of the blue to borrow  money. She said that bills are piling up and that their electricity will get the cut, that they got short of cash because their grandma was taken to the hospital. 

This is a person who live with her girlfriend and both have work. I on the other hand, is an artist living as frugal as possible but I'm not squandering to get money to pay my bills. I have to thank our ancestral house for that. 

I have long decided to carefully select the friends to see. I realized I don't need a lot of friends but a few good quality ones are enough. 

I have also been picky with messages to respond to. I think I am too articulate that I couldn't find the words to respond to "Hey" or "Howdy". I think responding with how my week went is an overwhelming response. I decided to just leave messages like that alone and lonely. 

Also because these one word messages come from people who would respond to "Hello" after four days of sending the message. Maybe after a year we would have conversed a full sentence. It just defeats the convenience of instant messengers when responses aren't instant. Words become food left out to rot.

These people have died to me, they die when I no longer hear their voices or see even their shadows. And I too perhaps die to them. I should be summoned with a Ouija board if they wish to communicate.

I'm glad to have friends who are easy to talk to. Who fulfill their words, or calls to cancel a meeting. I'm glad to have those few friends who have kept their common decency. I love those friends who are never too busy to see me, or let me crash in their place. Who make time to just hang out despite busy schedules.

Art as Manifestation of a Struggle

Art has garnered so many definitions in the past and each artist has his or her own meaning which is in most cases, the very definition to live by. In my short years of living as an artist, transitioning from a full time writer to a full time artist, I have seen and met different types of artists along the way and I have realized that the most comfortable artist in life can’t create an artwork to save his or her life when it calls for it.

When an artist has tasted hunger that cannot be satiated there is a struggle that blooms within that artist and in that bloom is also the birth of creativity. Hunger and struggle are the key factors that transcend the comfortable and the mediocre.

SPOLARIVM by JUAN LUNA
Won the gold medal in Exposición Nacional de Bellas Artes held in
Madrid back in the 1884

Juan Luna may be an Illustrado, a Filipino aristocrat, but his struggle surpasses the material kind. He, among others like Jose Rizal, struggled and sacrificed their lives for a country that is not united in identity and wished that the suffering of the common Filipino will be lifted. That others may be treated with respect and equality, provided with education and human rights.

I was just in Paete almost a month ago and I went to a gallery there. The gallery that was owned by a cousin of my maestro, he spoke to me of the local art and how the San Cristobal painting in their church was mutilated by a person I shall not name, not for now. At that time, they were holding a painting workshop and a child was painting in a corner. A woman exclaimed that the child will be a great painter one day because his parents have everything, that money is everything.

I disagreed and told her most artists that have succeeded greatly were poor. She held her ground that money will make an artist great.

Thinking that money is everything is poison to the mind. We have been lied to by society to think that money will bring us success, greatness, and happiness. It is a lie so terrible that now it eats at the core of the people and is in fact the mentality that is destroying the planet and igniting war.

Drying out the wood oil in the sun

The owner of the gallery asked me to make them a guestbook and in a few days now I shall be delivering it. This is just part of my struggle, to make ends meet as I sell books and accept commissions. I have relinquished accepting wood projects even though they pay well because I have to choose if I just want to work as a person who does wood or try to live off my artworks. Despite not earning a lot, I contented that I am comfortable in this kind of lifestyle, although I may not be able to do a lot of things that requires money, I don't feel like I'm missing out.

Brené Brown said that vulnerability is the birthplace of creativity, that artists are often those who have laid down the armor and embraced the struggle and vulnerability that humans are always visited with. That artists can empathize through their works of art. It is the response to vulnerability, its manifestation.

My mentor, Jose Tence Ruiz mentioned to me once "It's easy to be a good artist, but you'll never be great if you don't become a part of a struggle in the social consciousness."

What does this say to the artists of today? Who are hungry, who toiled and struggled, and those who lived in the comfortable home never visited by famine?

Should there be a battle, the hungrier, always wins.

Truth in a Glance

I remember how a childhood friend of mine who was also an artist would talk about truths and lies. How I told him about truth always having time as its shadow. Where truths are elusive abstractions swimming in the sea of lies. It was one of those discussions over coffee that lasts until the next morning.

Artists have done so many artworks that deals with the truth or their versions of truth and it took bravery, skill, and talent to come up with a work about it and I believe that's what's most of us are doing.

I found this article very interesting and provides insights that are worth pondering upon. On how happiness is always followed by sadness, the lack of privacy through surveillance, love, and what is ego in isolation?

Stoicism of the Stars by Bobbi Lurie in Berfrois

The article discussed how even the greatest comedians who can create so much jokes and make people laugh are in fact the saddest people in the world. I've always known that people who make outlandish attempts to heighten their happiness are in fact carrying a heavier sadness. That people who like the simple things in life are ultimately happier than those who aren't satisfied with it.

Reading it made my brain stir for a while over lunch but I know I have to go back to work.

"To be real is an internal affair.
 To be imaginary is to believe one is loved by an "other"
 To be real is to love.
 To be real in love means "to love ins spite of," for then one knows love is not the imaginary story...
 love goes beyond any story... it exists within the bodily sense of being alive."

The first line is an echo of how the universe exists within us all.

"And one must face the fact that most comedians are truth-tellers and, in case one didn't notice, outside of dentists and architects, comedians are the most chronically depressed people on the planet. Still, they laugh. That doesn't mean they don't commit suicide; it means they make you laugh before doing it."

The article spoke of love and suicide and whether one is a comedian or not, if love lacks within oneself and can't be found from the outside, and or from others, suicide is often the result. No comedian, or anyone for that matter could ever laugh at that kind of joke, especially when it's on them.
The thing about people is that some will seek for the truth and in seeking they often get lost even if what they are looking for is in front of them. Seekers are sometimes, just people who just find it hard to accept that what they are looking for exists in everything and in anything. To seek for something in front of you is a waste of time.

Sunday Sweet Solitude

Second breakfast. Matcha Green Tea, Water, French Toast & Pandesal
and Suman

Sunday is my favorite day, it has that sort of tranquility that I can’t achieve anywhere else. Ever since I went back to Laguna I’ve always wanted to stay there on Sundays.

It’s just not the same when I spend it somewhere else.

I try to visit my grandmother on Sunday mornings, walking to her place and have a quick breakfast there around 6am. My grandmother wakes up at 2-3am and does her lifetime work of cooking, at 78 she seems rather strong.

Walking back makes me hungry again so I eat a second breakfast. Eating a lot in the morning makes me eat less in the evening.

There is bliss in staying at home on a Sunday, while opening a can of cat food for 6 meowing cats, washing clothes, and sweeping the front yard of dried fallen leaves to feeding the chickens roaming around the house.

 

The dried roses are looking good after a week of hanging.

If things go well and I feel like interacting with people I simply walk to friends’ houses and have coffee with them in the afternoon, to talk about things that makes sense and things that doesn't, otherwise I just call friends on the phone. If I don’t feel like seeing a living soul I watch the Hannibal TV series or Dexter or some movie or read a book. 

I've come to realize that as I grow old, routine seems very important and I tend to hate it when my schedule is a bit disturbed. Nonetheless, it's a good Sunday to do some house chores and to relax in the triumph when all of it were done in the afternoon.

Better this than Injured Dignity

Si Mynx! Ang munting kuting!

Over the weekend I injured my right wrist, it was due to the fact that I have been carrying too many heavy things and doing too many things. It doesn't hurt much but I know something is wrong and it's not going away... It doesn't hurt so bad maybe the pain is a 1.7 out of 10 which is practically nothing. Can't count how many times I've injured this hand... Football, carpentry, carrying things, etc.

I always say, better an injured body part than injured dignity.

It's a good thing I still know how to wrap my hand. Although it makes work a little bit difficult, it doesn't exactly prevent me from working. This week I shall focus on my articles then move on mid week to commissions and making more books to sell.

Ply Cover

The Mundane
Poetry and Short Story Collection
Ply Cover
6.5x4.5x0.5 Inches
Pre-Order Price P1000