Announcement

Press Release
Art Workshops at Art Informal


THE POWER TO CREATE
(A Creativity Workshop)


All of us have a strong desire to follow our creative impulses, and at the same time, find personal meaning and fulfillment through our creative work. However, real life concerns often make us postpone our creative efforts and lead us to bouts of frustration, uncertainty and apathy. A creativity workshop empowers us to realize our potential to create, providing a sacred space where our creative selves and ideas can break through.

Through the Creativity Development Program at Art Informal, a creativity workshop has been established. Called THE POWER TO CREATE, it is an eight-session program, the foundation of which is creative collaboration. The first four sessions will deal with the nature of creativity and how blocks arise, and what tools we have at our disposal to overcome them. The last four sessions will focus specifically on the rudiments of the creative process, and how this can be applied to our personal goals, work and life. Activities include journal writing, morning pages, guided visualizations, meditation, Zen watercolor painting, collaborative projects and experiential exercises. Anyone who seeks to live more creatively, and anyone engaged in a creative field (visual artists, writers, musicians, performers, entrepreneurs, designers, etc.) will benefit hugely from this workshop.

There is also a special workshop for children, called Creativity Workshop for Kids (ages 7-12), which will feature activities such as storytelling, show-and-tell, meditation, automatic drawing and freeform writing. The kids’ workshop is seen as a supplement to their school-based activities, and will feature intuitive, right-brain exercises and approaches.

Visual artist and writer Jojo Ballo will facilitate the workshops on creativity utilizing a multi-disciplinary approach. Ballo has exhibited his artworks in Pinto Art Gallery in Antipolo and Boston Gallery in Cubao, and has a background in Architecture from U.P. Diliman. He is also a researcher, designer, illustrator, ceramic painter, body artist, poet and guitarist, and draws on these multiple disciplines in distilling a comprehensive and holistic approach to the practice of creativity.


Schedule:


The Power to Create

August 27 – October 15, 2005
Saturdays, 2 – 5 pm

October 22 – December 10, 2005
Saturdays, 2 – 5 pm


Creativity Workshop for Kids

September 4 – October 23, 2005
Saturdays, 10 am – 12 noon


For more information, please call telefax 725-8518 or text 0920-2132972 and 0918-8261253. Art Informal is located at 277 Connecticut St., Greenhills East, Mandaluyong City.


***
Art Informal, the artist-run learning center for art and creativity, was established by a group of contemporary Filipino artists with the thrust of offering lessons in art to the public in short courses that are comprehensive, intensive and hands-on.


The classes being offered include the ff:

For adults (15 years old and above):

Introductory Drawing
Drawing Techniques
Drawing from Life
Figure Drawing
Oil Painting (beginner to advanced)
Watercolors (beginner to advanced)
Acrylic Painting
Basic Sculpture (Terracotta)
Portrait Bust Sculpture
Photography (basic to intermediate, film and digital)
Creativity (creativity coaching and consulting)
Printmaking
Pottery (handbuilt and wheel-thrown, in terracotta and stoneware)
Traditional Wood Carving
Reproducing the Masters (Painting)
Art Appreciation and Art Studies


Workshops for children:

Painting Explorations
Arts and Crafts
Creativity Workshop for Kids
Introduction to Drawing
Watercolors
Acrylics
Basic Printmaking
Basic Sculpture


Finally, Art Informal offers seminars on career pathing for artists, arts collections management, arts investment, art theory and discourse. It is also offering advanced-level programs where the student can work on a series of artworks in preparation for a major project or solo exhibition.

For inquiries and information on class schedules and workshop fees, please call telefax 725-8518 or text 0920-2132972 and 0918-8261253. Art Informal is located at 277 Connecticut St., Greenhills East, Mandaluyong City.

UnTime

"Love and art do not embrace what is beautiful but what is made beautiful by this embrace." (Karl Kraus, 1874-1936)

"Time has been transformed and we have changed; it has advanced and set us in motion; it has unveiled its face, inspiring us with bewilderment and exhiliration." (Kahlil Gibran)


I just realized I didn't know anything. Absolutely nothing at all. I could read all the books in the world and still come no closer to life itself. I could strive to be all that I could become and it wouldn't mean anything.

So I just stopped... and everything came...


How still can one hope to be in a world of absolute chaos?

Who can know?...


"I wanna dance with you
I see a world where people live and die with grace
the karmic ocean dried up and leave no trace
I wanna dance with you
I see a sky full of the stars that change our minds
and lead us back to a world we would not face

In this altered state
full of so much pain and rage
you know we got to find a way to let it go"

(Live, "Dance With You", The Distance To Here, 1999)

The Empty Canvas

Major anxiety attack.

It should be easy. I can do it in my sleep. I've done three of them. But who am I fooling? This show is the hardest ever and (heaven forbid that you read this Mr. Hilario hehehe) I have yet to finish a coherent piece for an exhibit in October.

Major downpour. Ayos lang, it's only water. Needing some space, I had to leave my studio (if you can call it that - four walls and a bed and some books and some art materials and stuff.)

And where do I end up but a net cafe? Irony of ironies. Arrgh how many times in a day will I check my email? And how often will I have to carry around this darn book? Props, props, props. My painting's still waiting...


But major surprise.

What are you doing here?

I didn't count on all this. I didn't realize it could feel this good. I feel like I'm floating at sea and I could just float forever...


Why do you make me feel this way?

Seeing Stars

"Obsession" - Cathy's hands and artwork



Seeing Stars
(a song-in-progress)
for Cathy


I didn't know if it was the alcohol
or the feeling of rushing headlong
down a ravine I haven't seen
in a long long while

It could have been your eyes
the way you bring them to a stare
with one eyebrow raised, you say:
"Monsieur,
and why do you look at me that way?"

Mademoiselle,
I want to dance with you

This sunday morning,
I'm lost,
happy, dreaming,
floating in seas

I like the way you held that guitar
and how you practiced on your piece
and how we talked about music,
the piano, and learning to let go

If I teach you strings,
will you teach me dancing?

I like the way you do things,
how everything seems to flow
into a mystery of stars
falling on earth
in an aftermath of atoms singing
of art and birth

Yesterday I was walking,
looking down watching
my steps, not wanting to stumble
on some unforeseen obstacle
in this path of what-do-i-know

Today I looked up,
and there you were

Today I looked up,
and there you were.


Jojo
2005

Updates

Moomoo.

Takot talaga ako sa mga multo. Kaya kapag may nagsimula ng ghost stories, I become a scaredy cat. Hahahaha

A friend of mine told me that there's an org in UP that can open one's third eye. An intriguing precept. Since (1) it presumes that there is such a thing as a 'third eye', and that apparently, (2) everybody has it (in varying degrees of 'openness').

Personally, I think that everything can be explained scientifically. It's just that science has yet to catch up with its tools of measurement, especially in phenomena that cannot be observed through the five senses.

Kaya lang pag binuksan mo raw ang third eye mo, hindi mo na ito pwedeng isara ulit. Nyahaha!
At minsan daw, hindi mo malalaman kung totoong tao yung nakikita mo or moomoo na.


*****
Body Art

Maraming salamat sa mga nagtext re Art Informal's segment in Magandang Umaga Pilipinas. I hope I didn't embarass myself too much :P

Yda Manzano has one of the most beautiful faces I've ever seen. But obviously, that wasn't why I looked nervous and tense. Hahahaha!


*****
Thanks for visiting this blog. Hope your day turns out as unpredictable and surreal as mine. :)