A Holy Tuesday prayer: To rest in you

Unveiled view from a restaurant cabana in Baguio

I subscribe to an e-newsletter called The Unveiled Wife. From the author Jennifer Smith I learn some new prayers that she has composed. She reaches out to all wives out there trying to cope with everyday and extraordinary problems.

Not that I've turned "preachy" all of a sudden. The week's solemnity dictates something of this sort.

"Thank You for today. Thank You for my heart and thank You for my family. Lately, the days have been running together and I am starting to run on empty. I need time to rest in You. I know I need to prioritize this time, but I need Your help. Please guide me each day as I seek to rest in You. I pray for peace to cover my mind and I pray for strength to fill my body and I pray for understanding and joy in Jesus’ name AMEN!"


Photo by Babeth Lolarga

Feedback

Artists and would-be artists don't just live on the occasional sales alone. We also like to receive feedback from the audience. I was able to get some--naturally they're from friends who dropped by the ongoing exhibition "Sampayan Blues" at the Sanctuary Gallery of Maryknoll Ecological Sanctuary in Campo Sioco, Baguio. The show is still up until Nov. 14.

Some other friends couldn't make it up (that's too much of an imposition on them), but I shared my photos of the works. Feedback they were generous with. It was enough to keep my going until I decide to return to my paints and brushes and paint for a future show and cause.

Thank you, Universe, especially for the gift of friendship that includes the virtue of encouragement.

"Kai's Magical Day," acrylic on canvas paper, collection of Robert Abaño.

Hello Babeth,

Saw your exhibit yesterday at Maryknoll. Your works are very original and different, never boring and very witty!

Congratulations! My favorite is the one with a vase and a sun on the upper right corner. Parang playful na van Gogh. :-)

Keep on painting and have a beautiful day ahead!

Lingling Maranan-Claver

"Poured My Heart Out and This Is What I Get," mixed media on canvas paper

Hi Babeth we really enjoyed your exhibit even if Dan and I were the last-comers. Ang ganda talaga! Remember nung nasa fine arts pa tayo, you used to tell me, pano ba gagawin ko sa drawing ko, walang depth. Sabi ko sa yo nun, ano ka, maganda nga e, parang folk art. Ngayon, hindi ka lang folk art, a la Picasso ka na! Gusto ni Dan yung geisha, at ako gusto ko nung Poured my heart...

Mina Rimando

Top: "Finding My Sea Legs"; bottom: "Fish for Dinner," acrylic on paper, collaborations with Kai Fernandez

Thank for sharing the fotos of the paintings in your exhibit, and the sentiments that went with the preparations for the exhibit, with your usual exquisite writing.

Your paintings are wonderful, with a wonderland look and feel about them, and yet with social messages that can't be missed.

Cora Patarata

"Light as a Kite My Angel Feels," acrylic on canvas paper

Babeth,

Congratulations on your current solo exhibit!! Too bad I couldn't make it to Baguio to see those works first-hand. I was left pondering and anticipating with trepidation, Lando's would-be handiwork as it wound its way across my own part of the north. I was also wondering how it would affect your scheduled opening. But thank God our place was spared the worst, and your exhibit too, went on as announced!

You make it so easy and uncomplicated, talking about the process of creation in your statement. I am sure a great deal of thought and planning went into it. And the seeming uncomplicatedness is what endears those works to us, your readers. I personally like the honesty and the child-like touch that infuse those pieces.

Here's to more works in the offing!

Al Vicente

Congratulations, Babeth! How your imagination flies (taking us with it)!

Hugs,
Princess Nemenzo

Days like these...

...you wish you have your own fishbowl. Of course one that can fit you and me. The heat is on!

These are photos from my first, and in all probability my last, trip to Batanes in March 1998, the Centennial Year of the Philippine Republic. I was with a group of scholars (Del Tolentino, Ben Tapang, Weng Boquiren, Nela Florendo, and Rolly Fernandez when he was still actively teaching and not gardening).

I did get around to having these panoramic photos printed to illustrate an article in Chato Garcellano's Travel page in the Inquirer. It's among the selected essays included in my collection Catholic and Emancipated (UST Publishing House). Call that previous sentence an outright plug. (Copies are still available at better bookstores.)

The next time the pictures were printed was when old friend Jerry Araos, who founded the artists' guild Salakai, organized "Alay sa Kawani," simultaneous exhibitions of the members, including this wanna-be photog, at the GSIS Museum on Roxas Blvd.

I called my photo show that included poetry "Lost in Batanes." Jerry wanted to do an on-the-spot translation of my poem with the same title in Filipino while he was choosing the photos that would be enlarged by a friend of his who lived in Forbes Park, Makati. But we were in the thick of preparations. I even had to frame my photos with help from Jerry and Melen's daughter Roja who did the matting. How's that for hands-on training?

Call these the pinagpilian or the outtakes. Some I have also been given away as mementos to friends who were interested in them.

Okay, since my blog has had over 230,000 views, I'm giving the rest of these pictures away to the readers who happen by. Just write to me in the comments section, leave your email, and I shall find a way to reach you and mail the pics. These are my thank-you gifts to you, dearest reader, for sticking with Brookside Baby. The first eight who comment receive a photo each.

These are the only prints left. The negatives are lost to Forever and a Day.

Game!

All photos by Babeth Lolarga