Am I getting older? Or is time passing by faster? It just feels like I did a My 2023 in Art yesterday... wow. Well, I guess it is time for "My 2024 in Art" and sum up another year as an artist in this wild world.
Travel Pieces
One of the most wonderful things of 2024 is that I was able to travel, and connected with a lot of people across the art and non-art world. As a family we did get to experience some wonderful things and we were able to meet up with friends and enjoy cities like Amsterdam.
This one - Piggy in Holland - leaves little to the proverbial imagination of course. But I loved the idea of creating this image. If you have the chance to travel to Zaanse Schans, you will of course see the windmills. But you may also find the oversized clogs (klompen in Dutch) in front of the "klompen museum". Surely some of you have pictures like Piggy... standing in them big clogs...
Our other adventure led us to the South of Spain. A first for me, and oh wow! We spent a little bit of time exploring Granada, a day trip to Cordoba and a few days in Sevilla. All three cities are astonishingly beautiful and amazing places to visit (some would say live!).
Our time in the Netherlands was filled with playing tourist and like I said, being able to spend quality time with friends and family. It was an amazing stay.
I also did a business trip this year to my lovely home country and got to meet a number of fun and interesting people in the art scene on Negros. As part of this trip I got to meet with members of the artist community in the lovely city of Dumaguete. I met some amazing artists, including Kitty Taniguchi and her sister Amelia Duwenhoegger (here on Instagram).
I also got to leave a few paintings behind and this piggy found a new home in an amazing place, amongst a collection of other paintings.
I also got to experience Dumaguete city itself, and we saw these amazing VW Beetles touring around. Needless to say, I had to capture them in watercolor. And if you love these bugs, have a look at these ones in the store or you can get the one below as a print. The prints are a limited series (most are in a series of 2 or 3).
Then I did visit Orange Project gallery in Bacolod City, located in its thriving art district. The art district is truly amazing, it is a one of a kind destination for anyone interested in art. I loved the exhibit they had on (read more here and see the image below), and one day, maybe I can exhibit my work in my home town!
I really enjoyed seeing this show. I'm truly in awe of the amazing art talent that is present in the Philippines and on my native Negros island. I cannot wait to become a part of that creative energy flowing across the island and immersing myself in that creativity.
Learning and Practicing new Skills
As an artist, you always learn things while doing. It is just the nature of what we do. But this past year I did take some exciting and amazing classes. The Life Drawing class taught by Noah Buchanan at CSM was an enriching experience. I really learned a lot, both about what all the bones in your body are called and how to actually draw human beings anatomically correct.
And then I decided to jump into the deep and draw portraits of people based on the class I just took. For anyone doing any art, portraits are hard... because you are trying to capture a person and are trying not to insult them by drawing some sort of a caricature. You can see many more of them in my original summer project blog post here.
CSM is an amazing but somehow a bit undervalued resource for artists. There are so many interesting classes to take, and another class I did this year is in ceramics. The class is taught by Jeannie Ichimura. After my introduction to pottery, this class taught me that I really love the freedom of hand building pieces.
It is a lot more adventurous than working on the wheel when making pottery, and hand building enables me to craft statues, and much more unstructured pieces.
More Public Art
My good friend Terry pointed out an opportunity to create more public art in the Bay Area. I submitted my resume to the city of Sunnyvale and was awarded one of the 26 spots available.
These suns are going to be in Sunnyvale's parks, and the grand reveal will be in the new year. The above is a sneak peek of my sun turned into a sunflower, and its title "Growing Innovation"... hope you will all be able to see one of the suns in the parks soon. Read more here and stay tuned for more when the suns go into the parks.
And, oh, that piano... yes that is still in storage. However, some good news on that as well. After a few false starts, it is looking like it has found a home, and the grand reveal for that will also come in the next couple months. Likely in April or so. I'm very excited to see where the piano will find its home!
Citizen Joy - a Celebration of Democracy
When I saw the invite to submit art for this show hosted at Sachez Art in Pacficia at the end of September, I had just finished a deeply personal piece called "The Guiding Light of Hope" reflecting on the choice to be made in our upcoming Presidential election in the US.
This is a major event in 2024 and it really matters, so here is a bit more on this piece, and what is likely going to be a focus for me for a number of pieces in 2025.
“The Guiding Light of Hope” is a deeply personal piece that uses two of the most well known symbols representing American values: the Statue of Liberty and the American Flag.
The painting shows a teenage girl, born to immigrant parents, looking out into the gloomy darkness representing the despair many feel over the choices they have to make in this election and in life. She looks out to Lady Liberty for a glimmer of hope and embraces the flag identifying with America as the beacon of light and hoping for the right choice and a better future.
As a Filipino-Chinese immigrant, I have made a life altering choice of leaving my home behind and becoming an “American”. My choice allowed me to reap the benefits the American Flag represents and I personally experienced Lady Liberty’s "welcome" as an immigrant. As an artist I get to freely express myself and as a mom I get to see our daughter grow up into a world of opportunities and indeed of choices.
This one choice mattered, but I now see that the choices we all make in this country matter to our young people and increasingly to all the young people across the world. Are we embracing immigration and opportunity? Are we going into a dark place of isolationism and ignoring apocalyptic climate change?
What do our choices mean for people like me, who are Filipino-Chinese? What does this mean for our children and their opportunities? And how do those across the world, who have no voice, look at our choices? What will our choice mean for America’s beacon of light?
Ultimately this painting is me capturing that our young people are the Guiding Light of Hope in the darkness and that their enlightened and informed choices bring an optimistic future to all. They will choose diversity and opportunity over fear and embrace the huddled masses that are yearning to breathe free.
At the beginning of 2025, I just keep on hoping for less polarization and for all of us to learn to understand how to live together and make the world, well, a better place...
One last thing
On a personal note, as many of you know, we have a high school senior, who is graduating this year. So, for us as a family, this year will bring some major changes, as she will go an spread her wings. Somewhere...
And with the aptly titled "On her way", this post is also on its way. Here is to the wonders of 2024 and onwards to 2025.
Happy New Year!
Christine
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