​A friend once asked me how come I was always so stressed whenever I was prepping for a show. (Come to think of it, I used to get that question a lot, lol.)

I told her it was because of the deadline and she said something to the effect of, ‘Oh, I kinda thought you just made things and you had a show whenever you were done.’

My dear Kathy (wherever you are now), if all artists did it like that ain’t none of us would finish jack spit or ever even have shows, LOL.

I write this now at a time when I want to sort of break away from what I used to *fondly* refer to as ‘painting factory mode’ ~ I want to just, take my time and, come to think of it, do it just like that friend of mine thought how things went with folks like me.

I sort of have this idea now, that if I wasn’t so fixated on getting things done as quickly as I could, maybe the work would turn out better, I don’t know.

​I have a vague memory of reading somewhere that being a ‘starving artist’ is no longer a thing ~ unfortunately, it is, still for me LOL. And that’s something that’s been brought home to me this year more vividly than it ever has been in my long and uneventful life.

Honestly, if it hadn’t been for God, my dad, and my brother, I wouldn’t be writing this jillablog post now (or even have a website to post it on) at my desk in the lavish (for me) comfort of the jillahouse.

God willing, things will work out somehow, steadily, and soon ~ until I get all four feet back under me again.

But for now, I couldn’t help taking a quick and humorous look at what being a penniless painter has led me to do ~ even during the times I could actually afford to throw insane (for me) amounts of moolers away on paint and things. I guess I don’t have an Ilocano dad for nothing.

To be clear, I am grateful for having such a father because his prudence not only made it possible for me and my six siblings (and then some) to go to good schools, go on holidays overseas, take up music and martial arts and basically never have to work a day in our lives until we graduated.

It also gave us (or well most of us, anyway) the insane work ethic that made it possible for me to do what I’m doing now ~ which is basically work my hindquarters off so I can continue to create.

Anyway so you’ll understand (I hope) why I end up doing these weird things because where I come from, pesos (and paint) don’t grow on trees. (Doesn’t make these any less weird, though ^^)
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I sometimes wonder how painters from way back felt when photography was invented. They probably thought they’d be out of a job! Kind of like how a lot of us *creative* folks feel about AI, lol. Or wheelwrights when they invented cars or film camera humans when they made camera phones.

It’s just how it is, I guess. I mean if things like that didn’t happen we’d all still be digging holes whenever we needed to go to the jon or hitting the jungle for lunch (or something to wear).

That said, I’d like to say a few things about painting for memory. This does involve painting from memory, but I wanted to go into painting or drawing something to save it for a time when maybe our memory cells don’t work so well anymore. Or to save it for when things change so drastically that the thingy you’re saving isn’t likely to ever for never no matter what forever happen again.

So that when you look at the painting, you remember ~ and maybe even relive it.

So I saw this basketball movie while I was sick in bed a week ago, and in it I saw this coach tell the baller he was training that he had to learn to deal with trash talk. More specifically, he had to learn how to not let trash talk get to him and still be able to play the game.
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It wasn’t easy, to say the least ~ you wouldn’t believe what the poor guy had to listen to. Of course he gave it to the trash talker, and of course everyone shook their heads and said tsk, tsk, couldn’t handle it. Poor guy got ejected from the game and of course the trash talker had a huge stupid grin.

You might think this was weird, but I’ve always been able to draw some sort of parallel between art and sports ~ but never more than about a week ago when I found myself watching this film.

Because there is a lot of trash talk aimed at artists ~ or well at least, I’ve heard my share. And the sad thing is, sometimes it’s from your fellow artists ~ just like how the basketball players in the movie were trash talking their colleagues.

But see, like that baller in the movie, we really just need to learn to ignore those j**k ****s and focus on our practice.

Buuut I guess we’re only mortal (if not human), so I guess we (or okay fine, I) can’t help but vent sometimes. And I guess I’m sharing this to let you know that if you’ve ever been on the receiving end of trash along the lines of the following, you’re not alone and ~ here’s my nail-studded baseball bat. (Just. Kidding.)
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You know how you have bad hair days sometimes? Me, sometimes I have “bad drawing days” ~ I can’t draw a bloody thing x nothing I draw looks right x everything I draw looks like a bad tattoo or one of those “delusional artist” pieces.

What do you do when you’re in a slump? 

I’m writing about this now because well, I’m kind of in the middle of one, so I guess I couldn’t help noticing a couple of other artists I know who’ve been in a slump recently, too.

So in this post I thought I’d go into what a slump is, exactly, for artists ~ what happens during a slump, what causes it to happen, and more importantly, what to do if and when you’re in one.
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​Not too long ago, I’d been getting enquiries about my work on paper ~ not the first of their kind in my somewhat long and modest practice.

Reminds me of when a famous artist back here once told me that if I wanted to be ‘taken seriously’ by collectors, I shouldn’t do work on paper. This was back in 2021, so I had already been practising for some time (and the funny thing was, I wasn’t even asking for his advice lol).

Throughout the years, I’ve understood how many collectors ~ in my corner of the planet, at least ~ tend to avoid works on paper. Many collectors regard art as an investment, and if diamonds are forever, so is a marble statue or say, an oil painting on canvas.

And because these collectors are pretty much the hand that feeds for many artists, if the collectors don’t want art on paper, then…  Anyway I’m not going to go down that rabbit hole; a Jedi’s gotta do what a Jedi’s gotta do to pay the bills.

But I would like to spend this month’s post on putting my insignificant word in for works on paper ~ and not just because a hefty chunk of my own work is. It’s just, if you’re a buyer or collector or, maybe have a certain opinion about work on paper (that you may not even know you have), I’m hoping to maybe get you to start thinking differently.

Here are the usual five main gripes I hear about work on paper and corresponding ‘counter-reasons’ for each of them.

I know I’m not the best artist, so to me it makes sense to ask for a little help every time I make something. Every time I do, I’m reminded of how Salieri (in that Wolfie movie, anyway) used to beg God to help him compose. Well, we all know what Salieri was ‘patron saint’ of, lol ~ so for me to do pretty much the same thing makes sense, too.

In any case, with Holy Week coming up as I write this, I thought I might share the patron saints I pray to for help as a sort of tiny x lame expression of thanks. Left on my own I doubt I would ever have been able to make anything good. If I mess things up x the work’s not up to scratch, that’s on me (I confess I can’t say I pray very attentively to them like 100% of the time) ^^;

Since I’m lazy, much of the information here comes from our good (albeit not entirely reliable) friend Wikipedia and my own memory (which is arguably even more unreliable ^o^) unless otherwise stated.

If I had a nickel for every time I ever heard someone mention storytelling vis-à-vis marketing (or leadership or business, education or whatever), I’d be the Count of Monte Cristo (or well Elon Musk I guess in this reality, lol).

Yet there’s something to be said for storytelling in art; personally I’ve always believed that every piece of art, regardless of format ~ painting or sculpture, music or whatever ~ says something ~ even if the artist didn’t really mean to.

Lately I’ve been hearing quite a bit about this or that artist having the potential to “grow”. What does that even mean, anyway? That said, it made me wonder whether I’ve grown as an artist myself.

Take the case of this one artist, who I don’t know personally. (Forgive me if you’ve heard this one.) I was speaking to a certain gallery manager (who was also an artist) not too long ago, and this manager was telling me about how this particular artist seemed to be fixated on a certain insect.
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​I don’t know about you, but 2023 was a real banner year for me ~ not. Just when you think things couldn’t get any worse, life kicks you in the sleeping bag and finds another way to make you remember your place in the universe, i.e. an insignificant, infinitesimal speck.

But while it’s easier to see inkblots on a clean page, it’s just as easy to see stars against the deep blackness of space. That’s what the Potatostars above are all about ~ finding even the smallest points of light in the darkness all around us (and even within ourselves) ~ and being able to draw even a little happiness from them.

As the year draws to a close, I’m going to focus on the latter and pick out just 10 (because there were more!) of the good things I can be thankful for from this past year, specifically those relating to my art practice.