More on: after thirty

Artistic desire led me back to the world I thought I’d escaped—computation.

I have learned that time is a gift, and never to waste it. Sit in silence every day. Trust you inner voice. Lean into what you do not know. Cultivate curiosity, love learning. Never trust fear. Ask questions, and through making, try and make sense of things. Art-making is an unknowable, untamable, wild form of inquiry. You never know where it will take you.

The accumulation of my diverse life experiences coalesced at middle age into conceptual themes of memory, community, and place-making—groups of stars forming imaginary patterns in my mind.

It has been rewarding but also difficult to reclaim the childhood that I left in the Philippines. I left when I was three years old, taking only sensory memories and the memories I carried in my blood.

As my artistic life grows, my spiritual life also matures; as I practice listening to the Spirit, I become a better artist. In who I am and in my work, I am striving towards creating a space where divinity meet the ordinary world.

I began to paint still lifes of what was readily available, such as fruits and flowers from the garden. It gave me a new appreciation for the vast amount of information and beauty that you can only observe in person—all that the camera doesn’t capture. I became enamored with painting from life once again, seduced by its truth.

What has changed me since turning thirty is a result of my Christian conversion. What I wanted as a painter was always there, but when I met God, he told me, “You can paint anything you want.”