HAPPY BIRTHDAY STACEY! I LOVE YOU SIS!
15 x 18
Acrylic on Wood
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
New Series of 7 works: "Seven Gates to Perfection"
As much as I am a spoiled bastard who are in awe of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride, I continuously search for what I've been missing this whole time, me. How many time will I have to run away from my self so that I could lie to myself over and over? How many times have I turned my face away from God? Why must I feel this emptiness within me when I'm alone when I know I have a family and closest friends? As I began on my new series of art works last week, I have begun a journey to look for my self as individual and to find true happiness within my self.
Ever since the beginning of August, I realized that I've depended on my happiness with others and never understood how to be happy with myself.
As I struggled with my identity, a good friend shared this passage with me last Sunday.
Psalms 139:
1. O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
and you know me.
2. You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3. You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4. Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.
5. You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
6. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
7. Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8. If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9. If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10. even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11. If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"
12. even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13. For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15. My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16. your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18. Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.
19. If only you would slay the wicked, O God!
Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!
20. They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
21. Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD,
and abhor those who rise up against you?
22. I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.
23. Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24. See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
I looked closely and meditated and realized that everything that I've done was a plan written by God. And why? This plan of mine to become an artist and an art teacher, was it my plan to start and change it? Or was it God who wrote my destiny to begin with? Or is it he to use me to find the purpose of other's through his supernatural powers?
Although I was able to find the direction of the road that will lead me to become an artist and an art teacher through words of ancient texts, the conflict between me and my happiness was still in distress. The concept of my happiness and happiness through other's was continued to be questioned, "What does it mean for me to be happy? Is it through others or can I enjoy the fruit of life alone?" As I questioned myself in the midst of identity crisis, my dearest friend replied, "you can't be happy unless you are happy with your self."
As I reasoned my self against my unjust lifestyle, I came to a conclusion that I must face the seven conflicts within my self and relieve my self from it.
Each of the seven conflicts I must face will soon be represented in a form of art as one series: fear, guilt, shame, grief, lies, illusion, and earthly bound.
The journey of finding my self starts by holding my paint brush high and uncover the secrets and decease my seven conflicts with every brush stroke starting by knocking on the gates of my conflicts:
- First, how can I let go of my fears to be secure?
- Second, how can I relieve my guilt to be pleased?
- Third, how can I surrender my shame to find strength?
- Fourth, how can I relinquish my grief to love?
- Fifth, how can I recede my lies to become truthful?
- Sixth, how can I diminish away from illusions to see?
- Most importantly the seventh, how will I be able to detach my self from the earthly bound to be pure?
After then, will I be able to find my happiness of individuality? And most importantly are you, the readers happy with your self?
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