Flying solo

I'm off to Buenos Aires today for the next three weeks. (Not looking forward to the flight, I have to say. I leave here at one pm and don't get to BA til the next day.) The last time I traveled outside of the country was back in 05, to Beijing, and I've been yearning for another international adventure ever since. But of course with the economy and my iffy work situation I've learned to play it safe.

Then my mother tells me my sister is coming back for a two week visit. And I start to panic. I won't go into details so let's just say I'm not eager for even a two week replay of my sister's visit this past fall.

So I start looking for travel deals. Where to go? I've always wanted to spend a month in Rome. Or the Italian countryside. Or Paris! And the French countryside. Where could I spend as much time painting and playing the tourist that my budget would allow? After looking at nearly every possibility, then thinking how much more comfortable I'd be just staying home...if only countdown to sister wasn't happening, then looking again, and realizing, with deep and utter frustration just how indecisive I can be. Anyway, long story short, I end up choosing Buenos Aires, the Paris of the south.

And, funny thing, as soon as I did, I stopped being mad at my sister. We will probably never be close again, but, so what? Moving on...

The thing with my family is that everyone thinks they know what's best for me, and they will get me to do whatever it is if it's the last thing they ever do. Because they care so much about me. And it's this!---this emotional manipulation I get from them that exhausts and enrages me so much. I hate them. I love them. I want to run away from them.

Unfortunately, since I'll be gone for three weeks there was no way to not tell my mother that I'll be gone. And she did not take it well. Oh. My. God. Why did I choose Buenos Aires? Don't I know how dangerous it is? And you're so small. Now I'll have to pray for you all the time. And I won't sleep a single second until you get back. Blah, blah, blah, so on and so forth.

But anywhere can be dangerous if you don't practice precautions. In London, where I was staying with family, I fell prey to one of those stupid ATM scams. Luckily that particular card was tapped out. Moreover, the worst thing that ever happened to me, getting attacked and nearly raped on my way home very late one night, happened right here in San Francisco. I still walk around there. Though, never in that neighborhood.

Still, her fear got to me. I felt guilty for causing her so much worry. I second guessed my choices. And I went overboard on the research.

But, the more I found out about Buenos Aires, the more excited I became about actually going there. It is scary to go to a new place all by yourself. I don't speak the language. I don't know the customs. And I especially don't know about eating dinner at bedtime and dancing when I'm usually asleep. But I'm going anyway. I feel good about that. And, at least through the wonders of the internet, I know three or four people there, so to cyberspeak. And the apartment I've rented (super cheap!) will have wi-fi so I can assure my mother I am still alive at least once a day. (And post here and on FB too! Though maybe not every day.)

My mother didn't give up though. She came by my place tonight to warn me of thieves who break into rooms. Then she texted me some other warning when she got home. Then she called, just to make sure I'd gotten that last warning and to tell me yet another one. By then I was pretty ticked off and cut the conversation short with only the slightest twinge of guilt afterwards.

Sigh...I don't know what'll happen down there but I trust that I can handle it and I trust that I've made the right decision to go.

Okay, gotta finish packing. Hello Buenos Aires!!!!!!

Marching right along

...because I posted this minutes before March 1.

Anyway, being a stubbornly optimistic kind of person, I have entered yet another contest. This time a movie poster competition for a film about a fur crazy fashion designer who gets kidnapped by animal rights activists. I want to win real bad. But, after seeing which image won in the last contest I entered (it sucked. It really did. And I know I'm putting that into internet space for all to see, but it really did suck) I won't take it personally if I don't. This illustration, which I put a tremendous amount of effort into, will look good in my portfolio, at least. That said, please look here, and vote for me!!! It'll make me feel better (and appreciate you all the more!!) even if I don't win. Though I really hope I do.

A contest and some new work

I've been entering every contest I can lately and one of them is a Talenthouse contest whose theme is love. Winner gets to photograph the rock group Maroon 5 during their US tour. S0 please!---please!!---please!!!---click here and vote for me :)

Some new work -

Above, my newest Etsy sketch. Below, a sketch I did in Golden Gate Park.

One of the character sketches I did recently for Dragon Pencil. This character isn't going to go anywhere but hopefully one of my other designs will.

After a week or so of doing nothing but characters, I felt the need for a landscape painting -

Happy Friday!!!

The mental health benefits of shoe shopping

One thing I was saving for last year was a much needed, super fast computer. Then I got one, a 3G iMac, almost brand new as well as free of charge, from my dad (Thanks dad, wherever you are.) So here was a nice chunk of change that I could have used towards rent, towards my house fund or towards a holiday trip. But instead I decided to help the American economy by going shopping. But first I have to say I don’t usually enjoy shopping. Loud, overcrowded malls and hours spent trying on things that don’t fit just exhaust me. And, like a guy, I have no problem wearing the same thing day after day (with a good wash and a change of underwear of course). I can go entire seasons without buying anything but food and art supplies. But this season, as they say, was different...

Anyway, I didn’t want to spend all my former computer money, and definitely not all at once. So I started the day after Christmas, braving the Union Square crowds, and came home with just one item, a jacket at sixty percent off that cost me a mere two twenties. On another day, I went to the boutiques on Haight Street where I found the shoes of my chic, bohemian artist’s dreams (Fluevog) but resisisted the immediate temptation to buy. Instead I spent days internet comparing, only to go back to Fluevogs where I bought two pairs, both on sale (but still costing more than I have ever paid for two pairs of shoes at once). Other day’s hauls were a three dollar cupcake, a twelve dollar scarf, a fifteen dollar pair of jeans, thirty dollars worth of hole free socks, and so on.

Like lots of sleep and homemade soup helped me recover from one heck of a cold, this prolonged shopping spree has helped me, in a way, through a rather blue period. With no crappy non art work to do (for now and forever more, please God), no kids to babysit and feeling disheartened about my art career (which I know is by no means unique to me, some unbelievably talented friends of mine, people who have worked for Lucas and so on, are in the same boat), on top of some unanswerable questions about life, death, family, forgiveness and the meaning of it all, it’s a simple pleasure, like a hot bath or a my favorite song on the radio, to have some vague object in mind that day, maybe a cute top in this particular shade of blue, or a dress in that style, for as little denaro as possible, and then to go out and actually find it.

It’s not just a distraction, something to do. I think, at certain times, it’s a way of making oneself feel safe. This other thing is still a puzzle and a problem but look! I have successfully hunted down this very practical item which will prevent hookworm or keep me warm. Something I and others will (hopefully) take pleasure in looking at. So I have not only ensured my physical survival, but perhaps my social survival as well. And it’s too bad a quick trip to the grocery store doesn’t do the trick but I think the change of routine, the sense of discovery, the hope that if I don’t find the exact item I want here I’ll find it somewhere else eventually—and having that hope validated time and again—are key here. It forces my brain to wake up, to feel excited for several hours, and then the triumphant moment of purchase followed by the primal sense that all is well (temporarily) in the world. It’s shopping sex. The closet of survival has been restocked.

(She shall Seychelle by the seachore.)

A few days ago, I was feeling unsettled about a possible upcoming job. I wanted it for the money but dreaded having to do this kind of promo work yet again. I found myself in an unfriendly mood and wishing things I am ashamed to admit to, like why couldn’t my father have left me a huge honking fortune so I could buy a true home of my own in some charming but reasonably priced place (unlike the bay area) instead of this unexpected little nest egg (which I really am grateful for). So, with my former computer money still not entirely spent, I went to this shoe boutique I’d stumbled upon the other day. And somewhere between first getting in my car and coming back home, cute new shoes in hand, it occured to me that I have to stop feeling bad about my work situation. What’s upsetting me is not the fact that I can’t afford a three bedroom, mortgage free house with a gorgeous view (for now, at least)—something I wasn’t even thinking about a year ago—but the fact that I’m a highly trained, highly capable artist who, at the moment, isn’t making a living doing what I love best. This hurts deeply. It’s like I’m being insulted by every art studio in the world (except Dragon Pencil but have they given me any assignments yet?!!!) But there it is. Reality. Suck it up.

But maybe, or at least I can pretend, the universe has conspired to give me this time to create whatever I want. Not only that but it’s like, in a weird way, my father has hired me, and paid me in advance, to finish that collection of illustrated short stories I began last year and put on hold during my sister’s visit. And he even gave me a nearly computer to work on. Now, I have no choice but to finish it.

Okay! Back to work...

A Happy New Year

(@ the De Young)

I hope so because 2010 just sucked. So much so that after trying to recap all its suckiness the other day in the first draft of this blog post I needed chocolate bad which I tore into before leaving the store. Going back for seconds, I just had to look at the ingredients list. Of course there was soy in it, my favorite chocolate bar, as well as every chocolate bar there. (I have sworn off soy in all its nefarious and increasingly ubiquitous forms because it’s one of the reasons why 2010 sucked so much.) So I settled for a comforting cup of soy free (so far) hot chocolate back home...only to forget the milk. My apartment stunk of microwave burned chocolate for days.

Oh well. I put it down to last year’s lingering suckiness. Health issues (bronchitus, soy, a heart murmer I have to stay on top of, a monster of a cold I just got over), lots of personal drama, heartbreak, way too much family time, near constant financial worries, boring, occasionally 12 hour back to back exhausting, occasionally demoralizing crappy non art work (product promotions), death, et cetera and so on. Basically every area of my life has shifted or changed. 2010 was an intense year emotionally and physically and right now I feel dazed, depleted and a little lost.

Which is why I’ve taken a rest from blogging lately. Either I was too exhausted to write or I just didn’t know what to say. After my last post, my family was adamant I not speak at all. I made the mistake of telling them how I wanted to respond to some of the people who’d known my father, people whose comments were, here and there, on the judgemental side. I’m sorry, I wanted to say, he may have been your friend and all that but he was my father and blah bi-di-blah, not nice things, misplaced anger and resentment.

2011, I think, will be about making choices. Thanks to some parting gifts from my dad, I have the breathing space to figure things out and more freedom to do what I want. I haven’t taken another crappy non art job since mid December. Instead I’ve been sleeping a lot, trying new recipes, window shopping, getting back in touch with friends and, of course, practicing, learning about and looking at lots of art, which feels more like therapy right now. I mean, standing in front of Sargent’s La Carmencita, I forget any fears of ending up like Lily Bart. (Why didn’t she just take the money and run, for god’s sake? Idiot.) An astrologer friend of mine (her link here), who recently gave me a reading, told me this year I would ‘come into my own.’ And that last year was about clearing away so I could start over on a blank canvas. That’s for damn sure. Time to break out the paints...

(marker & gouache)

(gouache)

(left-marker, right -marker & photoshop)

(photoshop)

(marker)

(marker)

My father passed away last Saturday. I'd finally gotten home after a long, long day when my brother called and said to come over because our dad might be dead. That simply could not be, I thought. My brother hadn't checked him properly. How often had we joked how our dad was like Mr Burns, no matter how old and decrepit he became he was just too mean to ever die? He would keep going on forever. So I pulled on my coat and shoes and rushed out the door hanging onto that word might.

But at the house a fireman told me he was gone before I entered. Inside I found my brother leaning against the stove in total shock, a policeman gently questioning him, and my father on the floor covered with a blue blanket. I sat beside him trying to accept the fact that the familiar person lying in front of me was now just an empty shell. I wondered if his spirit was there somewhere coming to terms with the same thing. I hoped, prayed he'd gone in his sleep. But why was he on the floor then? Had he been trying to go for help? "Because he was an alcoholic, remember?" my brother later said, something the paramedics could tell, he informed me, without his having to saying a word.

Yes but...

I wanted to run my hand over his hair in apology for not getting there earlier when I could have actually spoken to him. And might have if only he'd looked a lot more asleep and a little less dead. He didn't have the peaceful look of someone who'd known it was his time. He looked like he'd accidentally vacated his body which only made me picture, again and again, what his last days and hours might have been like.

When my sister arrived we discussed what to do. Whether burial or cremation, a cemetery here or the Philippines, a funeral mass or a simple memorial service. I suggested we each speak and invite friends and family to do the same but my sister shook her head. "I know you feel guilty, Cheryl, but I don't think that's necessary." I resisted the urge to say that if any of us felt guilty it was her for not speaking to our father in over two years, for having been here since August yet failing to patch things up, for bringing three of his grandchildren over here yet never letting him see them even once. But what would be the point? Besides, our mother was in the next room. And I knew this was my sister's way of dealing with overwhelming feelings. Moreover, tired of being their go between, I'd stopped trying to make peace between them ages ago. I could have brought the girls over to see him myself, in spite of how my sister would have reacted, or at least told him she and the girls where here just blocks away from him...but I never did. So, a few hours later in a noisy all night diner, between sniffles and tears, I reminded her of all the funny stories everyone told at our grandfather's funeral and how nice it would be if dad had something similar. "Not everyone hated him," I added. "Okay," she sighed.

Monday, my mother and I made arrangements at the funeral home. Afterwards, she told me how, when they'd asked about him, and I'd talked about how he loved opera, fishing, fine art, fine food and travel and hoped I'd have a funny, touching enough story to tell at his memorial, she'd remembered the days when she was working two jobs and just before she was about to pay off a bill she found out my father had already used the money on something completely useless. When she'd confronted him about it, he'd replied, "So? Sue me!"

"Oh, so that's why you didn't say anything," I said. "I thought you were too sad to talk."

"No! It was because when she asked us that all I could think was the words, so sue me!"

It's been four days. His home is being cleared, his bills and accounts settled, obituary written (by me) and sent in to be printed, friends and family informed. Not the way I thought we'd be spending my sister's last week here before she and the girls returned to Fiji. She was right. I do feel a lot of regret. Out of the three of us I was the one who got along with him, who'd put the past behind us and found a way to let all the horrible things he sometimes said go in one ear and out the other. I've jokingly called him asshole dad here on my blog. But he was just my dad, I loved him and I regret not being there for him towards the end.

My sister and brother, on the other hand, have their own list of regrets. And my mother, who has known our father since high school, who hasn't slept in days, is going through her own grieving process.

His memorial service is this Saturday and I'm still not sure what to say. Then, sometime next year, I'll have to go to the Philippines for the first time in my life, along with my father's remains, so he can be placed beside his mother and twin brother. That, I'm guessing, will be a strange, emotional trip. More on that later.

New painting and my first Etsy shop listing

and my first Etsy shop listing :)