Name a new species of marine life: a game!

Glazed and Painted Ceramic

8"H x 8.5"W x 16"L

Paluman Niyok

Acrylic on Canvas 23"x26"

Free Art Lesson #1

The Funky Fresh
You don't have to KEEP it funky and fresh all the time, you just have to do it once in a while. Let's say you've been practicing a new skill like drawing human figures or playing a blues progression on the guitar, or even learning how to brew your own beer. Things that take some practice but the practice sometimes just gets too boring that you never see the the goal of accomplishments.
So do something FUNKY (something you don't usually do) and FRESH (something you haven't done before). Try drawing your human figures with tails on their foreheads, or play the guitar with a pick duct-taped to your pinky. The next time you make a batch of beer you can't get quite right like the recipe tells you, throw something in there like a klondike bar or some papaya.
This exercise should not be repeated unless you unexpectedly acheived some fantastic result that is worth duplicating. If you do the FUNKY FRESH exercise right you'll have spent a very brief amount of time in the experiment compared to what you have been originally practicing at. Most importantly you'll find that it was kind of FUN even if it didn't work out the way you thought it would.

The FUNKY FRESH method is closely related to increasing the Zone of Proximal Development.

Acrylic on Paper 11" x 12.5"

If you flip this one 180 degrees you'll see another face.

Here are some examples of works that I do in the FUNKY FRESH category.

Acrylic on Cardboard 12" x 13.5"

Acrylic on Cardboard 24" x 36"

I am also trying to figure out how to take better pictures of these paintings because they come out blurry when you click on them.

Respect your Elders

This is a depiction of a scene in the village of the ancient Chamorros of the Marianas Islands. The indigenous Marianas people have this custom of "fangengi'" (spelling?). Its a show of respect to elders or anyone who is above you in the kinship system like your uncle who is only 5 years older than you. But mostly its for the Man'Amko' (elders). If you notice this picture, which was probably representative of the period of first contact by Europeans, the man standing with an upright posture is obviously a high-ranking individual. The crouching individual is practically on his knees, maybe asking permission for something. The figure in the background is probably just passing by in the presence of a high-ranking person and crouches as he walks by so that he is "lower" than him. It depicts a society that was once socially stratified by rank, endowed by what? I don't know. Ask Noel Quitugua at the CNMI Museum.

Today this practice has nearly dissappeared. Perhaps many of the high-ranking persons of the ancient Marianas have all been decimated as they would have been the primary targets of Spanish colonists and missionaries who wished to assert their power among the larger indigenous population.

However, it is still common for youngsters to bow in front of an elder and kiss or "sniff" their hand and say "nyot" for elder males or "nyora" for elder women (the "ny" part should have been spelled with one N with the tilda ~ on top, but I have no idea how to type it). It is a sign of respect. The man'amko' would then reply "Dios ta ayudi" or "God help us" (I think).

My grandfather was my "alpha elder". Everytime I would go with him to a rosary, novena, or anywhere for that matter, he made sure I fangengi all the man'amko'. If I encountered someone who wasn't that old, maybe younger than my Dad but it was determined that he or she was an uncle or auntie then fangengi was in order.

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I fangengi older folks here in Seattle. They would probably take a swing at me, if all of a sudden I bent down to grab their hand, put my head on it and fangengi. Unless of course they are already from the Marianas then the gesture would be welcome.

Crouching around elders is still somewhat practiced in Micronesia. In Chuuk, for example, when two people are talking to each other and you have to get from point A to point B and the only path is between them, you must lower yourself when you pass between them. However, you might notice that they will crouch out of view while they walk around you when you are conversing with someone. But I don't know if people in Saipan or Guam do that? I just remember it because my grandfather lived in Chuuk for decades and I have many relatives from there so maybe it just figured into habit.

I made this little ceramic sculpture while I was thinking about my grandfather, Tun Juan "Obo" Pangelinan. I made a little hanger with some baling wire so I could hang it in my room. The rosary beads were given to me by my beautiful girlfriend Katie, after she returned from her travels through Italy. It was made in Venice with glass beads!

Glazed Ceramic 7" x 9" x 6"

Analog Eclipse

If you were awake late enough early this morning (hmmm) you would have seen this. The total lunar eclipse of August 28, 2007. The moon turns red because of refracting light wavelengths... spectrum... atmosphere... ask Mr. Eclipse, I'm no expert.








This event reminded of an early painting I did. A still life of an old Minolta 35mm film camera, film, canister, lens, and a travel watch, under the light of the photographer's darkroom. All have been eclipse by the digital revolution. The darkrooms are gone, no more films to fool with, and who has time anymore to "watch" time go by the glacial speeds of a clock hand. This is a long overdue farewell to the old days of analog technology.





I was at the thrift store today looking for a tripod for my digital camera. Thank God they haven't changed how they fit onto cameras with that little screw-hole on the bottom. I found a nice one for $5 and then took a picture of a painting of a camera. Enjoy.

Acrylic on Paper 24" x 18"

Codex Oceania

Turtler Gnarley Dude!

Glazed Ceramic: 19"L x 15"W x 12"H

For a brief period, on and off between courses in Art history and Anthropology, I took great interest in the artifactual record left behind by the ancient Mayans. As one of the great American civilizations to leave behind a written record, the Mayan alphabet has some aesthetic qualities similar to Egyptian heiroglyphics. These include the pictoral representations of animals, plants, and people. The Mayans also incorporated these "glyphs" into the architectural elements such as reliefs. Round organic shapes are a dominant feature of the code signs and other 2-dimensional representations. The preceding civilization, the Olmecs, may have influenced the design of linguistic markers with the megalithic sculptures of stylized head figures. They look like eggs or nuggets, its value contained within a set parameter. But there are hundreds of glyphs like these and each of them are different. I wish our coinage would look more like these guys, I would collect them.

So here is my tribute to a lost civilization. The head of a sea turtle. I will admit, I have eaten turtle before, I was in Chuuk, it was bbq'd, it was delicious. My father had a couple of sea turtle shells in his house. I know many people who own jewelry made out of turtle shells. Although capturing and eating sea turtles are forbidden in many places, we keep all these artifacts of these animals who helped nourish many. Many islanders who have bracelets, combs, and plates made of turtle shells have been passed down through generations after environmental protections. Perhaps these policies have made these heirlooms even more valuable and sentimental. I heard somewhere (don't ask me where, but please ask someone who might know) that when you kill a sea turtle, when they cry out loud, they sound like humans.

Glazed Ceramic: 19"L x 15"W x 12"H

Sea turtles are awesome. Greens, hawksbills, etc. They are like the diving dragons of the Galapagos, natures resilient inhabitants living such a rare life in long journeys, solitude at times, and sometimes live longer than the average human being. They are like diamonds in the rough. A sign of good luck for many who encounter them on ocean voyages. Perhaps thats why they have been driven near unsustainable levels, because their power has been coveted carelessly.

Maybe, the wealth of islands can be measured by how many of these guys can be given safe harbor in the lagoons, beaches, and waterways that surround us.

The Battle of Peleliu

In the Battle

Acrylic on Canvas 45"x63"

I visited Belau (Republic of Palau) to meet my brother's wife's family during the summer of 2004. One of the people who hosted me was a guy named Su. He was a master diver who's livelihood was taking tourists out around Belau on the boat for snorkeling and diving. He told me this story about a group of American WW2 veterans who had come to visit Peleliu for the 60th anniversary of the Battle of Peleliu.

And this is how the story goes as I remember it...

Su was taking a group of WW2 veterans to visit Peleliu for the 60th Anniversary. They were all elderly gentlemen as WW2 vets would be in their 80s nowadays. When they got off the boat, Su was leading them onto the island when he noticed that someone was missing from the group. One of the men was found making his way through the jungle, clearing a path with his walking cane through the vegetation. When he dissapeared from view, Su became worried and decided to track him down in case he had fallen somewhere. He went into the jungle to search for the old man. He heard crying and found the veteran sobbing and holding onto a huge rock. Su decided to let him be for a moment as he was having an emotional experience. When the vet was done he called Su and told him, "You see this rock? This rock saved my life." The veteran then went on to tell him that during the invasion, when they came up from the shore, he had run out of bullets and hid right behind this rock, just big enough to shield one person. He could hear bullets whizzing right above his head and around the rock. He could not move from his spot or he would have been killed since he could not fire back. The vet then started to get down on his hands to clear the vegetation around the rock and told Su "Make sure no one moves this rock and always keep it clean around it, so that the jungle doesn't overtake it."

I don't know how long that guy was hiding behind the rock. I don't know who he was. I don't know how he was able to survive, I think he stayed there until reinforcements came in. It was certainly long enough for him to find the same rock that saved his life 60 years earlier. I thought that story was so awesome, I had to paint it.