Brought to you by Kai

Yes, a four-year-old child took this shot with a point and shoot adjusted to do closeups. Yes, you can!

A little blurry, as she would say, she being the best judge of her own work. But proud lola says they make for nice abstract patterns.

Side view of a poinsettia, an angle I wouldn't have thought of, but she did because she was just slightly taller than the flower bush. The flower stood right by her side.

With the setting set to infinity, the photographer is able to capture the morning sun falling on her Baguio landscape, including the twin radars on Mt. Santo Tomas in the distance. These shots are the products of a short morning walk in Green Valley, Baguio. All photos by Kai Fernandez

Returning to ourselves

"Almost Christmas," acrylic on canvas by the blogger. It measures 11" x 14".

"I love painting. It's where I return to myself." The quote is from the group Artwell Art Therapy. It captures what I feel when I'm in the midst of playing with colors and images.

The other day, friend Toottee Chanco Pacis and I shared a table in her Happy Homes home. There was just a pot of poinsettias given to her by another friend, Becky Luyk, between us. She worked on her handmade, one-of-a-kind Christmas cards in watercolor on Optima white paper while I did the painting called "Almost Christmas," a poinsettia set against a lemon yellow background (too plain, my husband's verdict on the background's color, but that is his opinion, and he's entitled to it).

We both knew that if we didn't get together, we wouldn't get anything done. The way Toottee put it in her SMS: "I need someone to paint with or I get waylaid by so many little things, I end up not even bringing out my brushes."

We worked quietly, we conversed, too, paused for coffee and some of her squash cake (Happy Thanksgiving to those who observe it). By the end of the afternoon when the light was dimming, Toottee had finished making four cards, I was done with two small paintings (meaning, no retouches or touch-ups needed, no matter someone's opinion).

I got home early evening but even with November's darkness outside and with the lights from the Christmas inside to light my two works, I felt good inside. I couldn't wait for the next occasion when my painting pal and I would get together again. She also shared with me a Mexican custom of saying goodbye to a hostess, something passed on to her by our late friend, Carol Brady.

"I shall come again for I like myself when I am with you."

'Ambo' & the Missing Family of Spiders

"Two S. Koreans swept away in Philippine river" 
 "Three dead, six missing as typhoon passes Philippines"

--Headlines from www.ph.msn.com, June 6, 2012

we in our isolation thought

the fog & ceaseless rains

merely meant summer's end

& the start of the monsoon

that meant laundry would take longer to dry

although others said typhoon "ambo"

didn't quite hit land

& dissipated in the seas

& what we were feeling were

its weak formation

the nuisance of a weather kept us indoors

where we waited for word when power would resume

where we couldn't stop fumbling

in the dark for matches or batteries

for the one & only flashlight in a rattling house

when "ambo" exited the country

the shy sun rose slowly over the bamboo grove

& cast light on corners of the balcony's iron bars

where we usually arrange the laundry

on dozens of individual clothes hangers

there on a corner of every bar

clung deceptively frail spiders' cobwebs

i wondered where the mama spiders

evacuated their babies at the height of the storm?

their homes were intact

glittering in the morning mist

& once again in my middle age
with two daughters all grown up

i cried over beauty & frailty

just as intact were the last red blossoms

of the 'ber months' poinsettia 

huddled in pots

intact in the sense that the pots

didn't tumble & spill out their contents

at the height of the lashing rains

a day later i read about people swept away,

fisher folks most probably,

but it was so like me

to worry about the family

of spiders who were my family's counterparts

in the world of fauna & wondered if they were

also washed away by the year's first storm

--Babeth Lolarga

 June 9, 2012

 11: 27 a.m.

Photos by Babeth Lolarga

Posy of Poinsettias

The petals of the Christmas flowers are falling at a fast rate. But when they were at their reddest, they silently compelled me to paint them. And paint I did late last year and the year before. A number of works in acrylic had been given away as presents. I still have a stash, and my painting teacher Norman Chow and partner Rolly Fernandez selected the ones fit for a solo exhibition, mainly still lifes, at the Cafe by the Ruins. I also did a series on cats. Hence, the title "Cats in My Fruit Salad."

So here's a sneak peak. Show opens on March 16 at 5:30 p.m. and runs for a month. Puwede bang bumati? Thank you, Fifi Perez and Jenny Carino, for your help. Photo by ELMER KRISTIAN DAUIGOY