Ways of Seeing (Living)
I’m not sure if that time of the month is around the corner for me or if it really just comes with living alone (which obviously shows I’m not as “at home” as I thought I would be all this time), but I often catch myself dipping into these puddles of loneliness and feeling paralyzed by it sometimes.
Until I remember what a friend once told me about being lonely during moments like these: that once you power through something alone, you can easily survive just about anything. So I’ve noticed that trying, discovering, and allowing myself to encounter something new has always been my way of coping and it almost always does the trick of redirecting my attention (which really helps, haha).
It’s as if being surrounded by and exposed to these things already feels like having someone to talk to. Or maybe knowing that someone created them takes away the feeling that you’re actually alone. Honestly, I think that’s one of the reasons why being a creative has done so much for me and has saved me in many ways.
I tend to overshare and post a lot about things I find interesting and what I like or encounter, as if it’s second nature. But I think it’s mostly out of the hope that it might also help someone who’s going through something and sees the value in it the same way I do.
While I’m still finding the courage to upload these on Instagram (and have people see it permanently), here are some diptychs I’m proud of recently. I’m just happy to have my own corner practicing photography as a hobby, eventually finding my style and improving more as the days go by!
Self /respect/ care on a Sunday
Listening to my friend’s “your time and attention is valuable, use it wisely” and turning a bad date into a self care and soothing excursion to start the year. To remember this day and how I handled it, see below proof of how it turned out:
Left: Sakura post its I scored from National Bookstore; Right: This wasn’t my outfit, but I wore these new shoes I bought and honestly felt indulgent (in a good way) about feeling all dolled up for a failed date. Actually felt relieved to eat lunch alone at my favorite bánh mì place surrounded by a bunch of old people too.
Left: I tried so hard not to give into these umbrellas with duck beaks from the department store; Right: Since 2020, I got used to not buying brand new books and just take pictures of titles I like and thrift them on FB Marketplace or Carousell.
Still really unsure how this space will take shape, but I want to take more time this year to observe how I observe and find meaning between what I find interesting. Making sense of these things altogether. That’s why I’m gathering a selection of things and making use of a ‘theme’ that encapsulates them as a whole. Weaving together encounters and emphemera like a researcher out on fieldwork.
Field Notes 01; Prescriptions
Left: Ivy Stewart photographed by lengua for AnOther magazine, styled by Isabelle Sayer; Right: Molly Brodak’s ‘Do or Don’t: Everyday Genius Baking Tips’
Gaea Nayo’s TAO Tall Bowl 2; Wide bowl perfect for noodles and soupy dishes. Can be used decoratively or domestically. Food-safe.
Still from the 1969 film The Woman with the Knife (La Femme au couteau)
I was today years old when I found out about Yoshitomo Nara’s photography work and I think it speaks so much about how he intended this part of this practice to be. I can’t help but resonate with how he approaches taking photos (as a way to sharpen his sensibilities) and the synchronicity of my rekindled frustration to practice it more this year too. As a way to simply record the days that go by and people in my life, but to also have something to look back on that won’t get lost in cameraroll purgatory.
An exercept from an exhibit at Taka Ishii Gallery:
“When I graduated university, and started to think that I was going to keep painting, When I moved by myself to Germany and felt kind of lonely, When I felt like I had become all alone,
I had that old familiar camera in my hands again. I had that camera I got in middle school in my hands again.(…) Being alone is what makes me pick up my camera.”
Yoshitomo Nara, 2017
Excerpted from the artist statement written for the exhibition “Will the Circle Be Unbroken”
From Yoshitomo Nara’s “Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone—Take your time, it won’t be long now”
Laying out my second print title for my day job, so I brought home a few old WSJ magazines from the office to study them and use them as references. Flipping through them made me think about my old boss from my previous job, who taught me so much about publishing and a deep appreciation for the printed world I still carry with me to this day (and honestly made me really love what I do). We used to go on Google Meet syncs in the middle of the pandemic to geek out on editorials and titles she’d introduce me to, and would often lend me copies from her own archive, almost like a shared library of all the good stuff.
I often wish for people to have some version of her at some point in their lives who, in my case, taught me the real value of ‘seeing’ and the countless turns of phrases that stay with you forever like ‘notice what you’re noticing.’ I mark the passage of that time in my life as feeling more awake since then.