An Afternoon at Logos Hope

Arcade Parade

Backyard of the Universe

Being an avid fan of Valerie Chua, I’ve been dying  to attend her first exhibit called Backyard of the Universe since its opening. Sadly, I can’t seem to do it. So when I found out that she was giving a talk together with other artists last week, I knew my chance finally came. 

The day came and I finally met Valerie in person and asked her if I could take a photo of her and she agreed. I really want to have a picture with her. But at the time, there was no one around and I don’t want to risk taking our photo the selca way because I’m not good with it. Anyway, she is really nice and approachable. I even asked her where the exact location of her exhibit (it was inside Heima) but she wasn’t sure if it was open. 

I finally reached Heima but I got disappointed because it was closed. Well, not entirely closed. When I got there, there was a close sign on the door but there were two ladies inside: a customer and a cashier. I tried to get their attention but I didn’t think they saw or hear me. After several seconds another lady went inside (apparently, I didn’t check if the door was really locked, that’s stupid of me I know) and asked her if I could enter, she nodded. Whew! That’s a relief. So, I started taking photos. The paintings are really wonderful in real life rather than seeing them online. If I only had the money, I would really buy one. There were fourteen paintings in total. The one I super like is the piece called The Fall is Short on Higher Ground. I hate the fact that my photos didn’t give justice at all. Oh, if you want to see her other paintings in larger view, kindly go to her blog. 

After some time, the two ladies went outside and when I turned around the cashier was waiting for me outside because she would lock the door. So I hurried taking photos, it would be embarrassing on my part if I kept her waiting. Besides, Valerie’s talk was about to start and I didn’t want to miss that. Thus, that explains why I only got few photos (yet this entry is quite long, haha). But that’s okay. I still got what I want even though I saw the exhibit very briefly. 

Apparently, it was a roller coaster ride for me that day. But it was all worth it. I’ve learned from the talk, saw Valerie in person and saw her lovely works. What would you say? Hitting three birds with one stone eh. Having said that, I'm ending this post with my favorite piece from the exhibit. 

P.S. I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about Heima. I often see features about them on magazines, blogs and television and I really like their furniture, analog and paper stuff. It’s my first time being there and I discovered that they offer a lot of products ranging from stationeries, cute lampshades, some artworks, even vinyl records and a lot of awesome stuff. Btw, Heima’s scent was so refreshing. It smelled like fresh-cut wood in Spring. And lastly, Happy Holidays! ♥♥♥

Heima’s Design Discussions 2 x MT Launch

How’s everyone? I apologize for the long absence. Actually, I intended to attend a handful of events since November and blog about them but there were things that always got in the way. It’s either I suddenly became lazy, unpredictable weather, lack of companion, venues themselves and time constraints. But hey, I still managed to attend one last week, which is probably the last event I’ll be attending this year. I’m talking about Heima’s Design Discussions 2 which I accidentally stumbled upon the net.

The second installment of HDD2 features talks from guest artists: Kat Encanto on Design and Innovation, Dan Matutina on Graphic Design, Fozzy Dayrit on Calligraphy, Valerie Chua on Illustration, and Diego Mapa on Music and Tarsius (his new band). I always like attending talks regarding art in general but what I’m really excited about this is that Valerie Chua would come. Valerie is one of my local favorite illustrators. Also, at the time, her first exhibit was still running on the same venue. So, it’s obligatory for me to go to the talk, see her exhibit and ultimately, see her in person. The first photo below was a slide from Dan Matutina's lecture.  The actual  slide had a dog hanging from one of the letters and a man trying to save it. But that detail was lost when I post-process the photo. :( The second one was when Fozzy Dayrit was demonstrating her craft.

The event also coincided with Heima’s launching of its new product which is MT Washi masking tapes. Basically, they are masking tapes available in various colors and patterns. But there’s more to it than that. MT has a lot of uses ranging from sticking notes and photos, giving oomph to ordinary things, even making an actual artwork out of it. MT’s patterns are way too cute. I’m certainly going to buy some next time.  

During the first hour of the talk, there were also other guest artists who were doing some artworks using MT. Valerie also participated on that one. After they were done, their works were displayed for people to see (you can see some of the artworks below). Artists: 1) Andrea Cervantes, 2) Nic Lim, 3) Irene Sy, 4) MJ and Rian Of Heima, 5) Valerie Chua.

 Also, here are other photos from the event.

By the way, I didn’t include photos of Valerie’s exhibit on this post because I decided to make a separate post about it right after this. Speaking of Valerie, I’ll end this post with her advice on aspiring artists. This was also taken from her slides during her talk. So that’s it folks. :)

Japan: Kingdom of Characters Exhibit

You had probably know by now how fascinated I am in the Japanese culture that’s why every time I had the chance to attend an event (exhibit, anime and cosplay conventions, seminars, workshops and the likes) that has something to do with it, I always attend it. So last week, I went to the last day of Japan: Kingdom of Characters, a travelling mini-exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum and brought by Japan Foundation. More info here.

I know beforehand that taking photos is not allowed that's why I didn't bring Zephyr, my camera and it's really disappointing. So to compensate, I googled some photos of the exhibit to share with you guys so that you have an idea what the exhibit looked like.  

The exhibit was composed of a timeline of famous anime and Japanese characters as well as significant events in Japan during the past decades. 

I want to have every Hello Kitty item on this one. 

There were life-size displays of Ultraman, Neon Genesis Evengelion, Mobile Suit Gundam, Hello Kitty which I seriously want to take home! There were also short anime videos of the new forms of animations which I'm not really familiar with. There were also mini-figures from Tenjou Tenge. Moreover, there were pictures of how these characters affect the Japanese on their daily lives. 

Random:

After an hour or so after I arrived, I heard a lot of noises and when I turned my back, I was surprised that the exhibit was filled with people, most of them students. It turned out that there was a field trip going on. They even have mistaken me as someone from it. Haha.

The photos above were taken during the exhibit's opening night. I didn’t see this Doraemon mascot (?) when I went to the exhibit. What happened? 

Since it’s a travelling exhibit, I also found some photos of the exhibit on other countries. This first one was taken from an Autrallian Museum. I also learned that because of the anime characters’ prominence, they were also used by the Japanese government for some of their projects.  Some of the famous ones were Sentokun, Namisuke and Hikonyan. There were life size displays of Sentokun and Namisuke in the exhibit but Hikonyan was missing.  The second to the last photo is Sentokun and the last one is a close up of Hello Kitty life-size display with Namisuke at the back. I’m not sure where the last two photos were from though I provided their links which are found below. 

I did enjoy the exhibit because it takes you back to your childhood. For a time, I became nostalgic and asked myself, “Has it been that long already?.” On the other hand, I felt that it's an almost but not quite enjoyment because it lacks some other famous characters like Dragonball, Naruto, Sailormoon etc. that leaves a special room for the hearts of Filipinos, especially those who practically grew up with them. The timeline is also not updated. As you can see from the timeline photos, it ended in 2000s and a decade had already passed. Apparently new anime had became famous such as Bleach, Death Note, K-On, One Piece among others.

Nonetheless I still enjoyed it. It’s worth the time and effort. I also checked some exhibits inside Met and I really enjoyed looking to all of them to the point that I was the last visitor who left. Haha. :) Until my next Japanese related event adventure. Sorejā.

Photo credits:     1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

Cirque du Soliel

Went to the last day of Cirque du Soliel but I'm not there to watch it. Just dropped by to get some flyers that I will keep as souvenirs but they ran out of it. To compensate, I just took pictures of the Circus itself, only to find out that I didn't bring my wide angle lens. Ugh, but these will do. :)

Cinemalaya 2011 (2)

These were the films that I've watched last Cinemalaya Film Festival and I must say I enjoyed every minute of them ♥.

I've been attending various film festivals these days. I know I should stop before I totally get broke but I'm still thinking of watching Cine Europa though. We'll see.

Cinemalaya 2011 (1)

Here’s a picture from Cinemalaya yesterday. That’s me, my good friend Naj and Rei, her friend. The original photo is quite harsh so I toned it down and gave it that lomo-ish feel.

Photo Credit: Naj

Eiga Sai 2011

So sis and I attended the second to the last day of Eiga Sai at Shangri-La Plaza and as expected, it was read: JAM-PACKED with people. This is my fourth year of attending this highly-anticipated event and believe me I know how it works especially during weekends. We intended to watch the first (Dapartures) and last (Villon’s Wife) film. As a general rule, tickets will be given an hour before the movie starts. But still, you should be earlier, like at least two hours or so before the movie starts. But let us just say that shit happens, we arrived there past 12pm so we just planned to fall in line in the chance seat wherein you can watch the movie 15 minutes after it starts. From the word itself, chance seats mean that your chance of watching the movie depends on the VIPs and people with tickets who will watch it since they are the priority. Unfortunately, when we got there, there were like thirty-plus people there.  Most of the time, chance seats can only accommodate 10-15 people, so from the moment I saw it, I already knew our fate, nonetheless we still joined the line. Who knows? A miracle might happen. My sister also invited a friend who also invited a friend, what? Lol. Even they were an hour ahead of us they still suffered the same fate. I advised them to just wait for the second film which I watched last Wednesday. But they didn’t want it because they were also after Departures. So they just joined our line. But as expected, few people were accommodated. After it, they just went home due to errands and school work. It was their first time to watch Eiga Sai but their effort just went nil. Really feel bad for them. Enough ranting. 

Crappy camera-phone photos coming your way yes because I didn’t bring Zephyr.

You can’t unsee that three-floor-high tarpaulin. Probably one of the reasons why the event became very viral.

Would you believe that it took us more than five hours to get these? And waited for another hour for the screening. So, that’s more than six hours in all. It’s a good thing we don’t get bored easily and yes, we were very patient.

Just to give you an idea how jam-packed Eiga Sai is during weekends.

Due to insistent public demand, there’s a last full show for Departures at 9:30 pm. And that’s the last chance to see it because there is no screening for it at UP Diliman.

But we can no longer afford that due to safety reasons. Nearest resort: watch it in Cebu and Davao…I’m kidding of course. Man, I really wanted to see Departures the moment I saw its trailer. It’s a good thing my friend downloaded it from torrent in high definition and with GOOD English subtitles. So I guess I’ll just improvise a home theater system for it to have that movie house atmosphere. Haha. Will keep you posted about it.

Villon’s Wife is the only PG-13 among the movies this year. I really like Villon’s Wife even though only three people (including me and sis) I think clapped when it ended. Perhaps, it’s just a matter of personal tastes. The film is about a wife who stood by her husband no matter what. It reminds me of indie films. Speaking of which, I can smell Cinemalaya days from now.

Just imagine how jam-packed this line guide (or whatever it is called) that Saturday.

Even the line for the chance seats of Departure’s last full show is still long.

Despite being jam-packed and waiting for long hours, I still enjoyed watching Eiga Sai. I hope you enjoy it as well. Anyway, see you again next year.  ♥