VIVID III

mix media on canvas
30" x 40"

Nov 2009 artwork submitted for Art for Aids (AFA)
Theme "Fighting Aids with Art"

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I received this letter last week, one day before Valentine's Day. While reading it, this images comes to my head. I whispered to myself, thought provoking!!! For the sender and me, the receiver. Guess what?! When 'The Sender' saw this piece, no question, no word, nothing came out, no comment, nada... Didn't say anything about it then until the very next morning when i received sms from The Sender and exact word for what The Sender think of my artwork is Thought Provoking! I'm so surprise. We shared the same exact sentiments towards each other stuff. Interpretation of The Sender words from me and my artwork from what The Sender wrote... And this artwork based on words below... Thank you for this letter and I hope you don't mind I post and share it here in my entry.

Desire is first and foremost a wound.
and i looked at her and the part of my chest over my heart I punched.
and i have been thinking about this idea since it left my head..
and entered my wondering mind.

i've been so quiet today. when there are moments for things to be said, i feel i have nothing to say. I am blank currently after what had happened and I don’t really know if that is good or bad but I told myself again about the manifesto I am planning to write very soon. How I want to write about love, somehow capturing within words the poisoning effect the representation of romance in society has had on me, and everyone else that I know, struggling to feel complete. I have always believed in love, always believed in romance too and a couple of days ago, like a heat wave I felt something huge release from inside of me and what was left only made me sad. what was left was a feeling of abandonment because a couple of days ago I realized in one moment that I was slowly losing grip on an ideal I have believed in since I first started learning what it was for two people to be in love and I first learned that when I was very small. so now, all grown up and still a child of some faraway place, when the thought enters my mind that maybe all these years I was wrong about love, I feel like I’ve lost myself all over again. Like the way I would watch my bruises develop for 12 years, that kind of loss. Except this time I am finding that what was there wasn't something at all, it was the illusion of something that never existed. Really?

I wanted the paintings of love, the bowls of fruit full of love, the charcoal drawings of love, the clay, and the hands. I wanted to grow up so I could fit like a puzzle piece with someone and what I mean by all this is, I wanted someone to love me, as I love them. i remember the day when the motivational speaker in the auditorium had said, "you can be anything when you grow up, so, what do YOU want to be?" and I would sit in my room alone and thinking so hard about what I wanted. What did I want? What was I, first of all? And how was I supposed to figure out why I might want anything at all? And I got lost in all of my questions. The biggest was me and the only answer I could ever find, even as someone still too short to get the bowls down from the cabinet for my morning cereal was that I knew I could love, and that was all I knew. Truly.

And now I know, some of us are meant to love. Meant for it, and it meant for them. I’m one of those kinds, I think maybe you are too and I think maybe we should all forget about everything else we've ever learned, stop worrying about whatever it is we worry about and just love. Just get back to just loving, then the world can take a deep breath, kiss with its eyes closed and we can begin to live like artwork again. Instead of all of this confusion we have nowadays...

and anyway, I’ve been waiting for you.

and as always, I’m always writing to a you and the you that I write to is always unattainable, just like the illusion of all those perfectly happy couples in the movies because I don’t know anyone personally whose parents are exemplary. Even my own. And I have never had a relationship last. I don't think I’ve ever been taught to trust that love does last in so many forms. It dwindles away when time takes the breath out of bodies, takes our life away slowly. It torments when the time becomes a waiting line, when the you that I write to can’t find the words to love, find the movement to love, find the hands, the lips, the confidence. It disappears when I can’t stop growing. The more I learn about all the ways people are marked by their bodies and divided into compartmentalized categories which language constructs around difference, I see how hard it is to actually feel connected to the things and people around us. We all see differently. you see differently too, even though you don't know how to tell about it and I am here and you are there, somewhere, believing in love so much that you would stop it from happening altogether just to keep it safe. And I think the whole world isn't safe. And I think love, the way I’ve learned it, isn't safe. And I think maybe someday I can love everything in a way that is safe, but that everyday I get closer to having absolutely nothing to say.

So every time I close my eyes I will thank god for the space without pain that comes from behind closed eyes because the instant I awaken, the love I have for you wants to crawl from my chest and speak out loud to tell you of its presence. It wants to come out of my eyes, from the tips of my fingertips. It wants to move my feet, my arms. When I open my eyes, the world does not make any sense. The way we have learned to believe in straight lines. The way we think we know how progression should happen. The terms we've become accustomed to living by. I need to do this and I need to do this and I need to do this and I need... I need... I need... before love could ever happen. I need. Confidence, check. Independence, check. Eloquence, check. My own apartment, check. College degree, check. Money in the back account, check. Friends, who aren’t a waste of time, check. Self love, check. Courage.... courage, check. Checks check check. You want to be somebody, forgetting that you already are. And I want to be somebody to you, somebody close. Somebody every morning. Somebody right now.

And now I am simply in love. And I am in love with you. I want the world to know that too. That you already have my heart. You are beginning to have my soul. And somehow despite the multitude of courage I got scared.