Postcards to Olympia

Almost Done, Almost Midnight.

I guess I am never completely happy/satisfied with my works. And it’s probably the same for a lot of artists. I came to Spokane not even knowing what I really could do here. We were just gonna move for transition: until my husband figures school out and maybe I until I get a random job to pay the bills.

I was not fortunate in finding jobs. I thought, with a couple of legitimate Filipino and international film projects under my IMDB belt, I could get into the Spokane industry somehow, even just as a production assistant. It was after a couple months that I learned the sad reality that if I don’t have the connections, it wouldn’t be possible. I checked the other options: maybe it’s time for me to try out food service or retail jobs, I have no experience in those areas after all. But childcare was not affordable, and getting a minimum wage job to pay childcare didn’t exactly add up to being sustainable.

So I figured, maybe getting some credentials from school could work. So I looked into the whole Financial Aid system, researched on the colleges nearby, and was able to inquire about Spokane Falls Community College’s Digital Media Program.

Fast forward after two years, I am now having this mixed up feelings about finally finishing up something on time: graduating on schedule. I’ve been in and out of college since 2004 and have been in different programs. I fell in love with photography and filmmaking in film school, and I probably still have hang-ups dropping out and not marching with my batch mates that became my life friends.

The irony is that I am also technically not completely done, just almost. I am transferring to Eastern Washington University in fall to finally push through with Film program and complete Bachelors. I guess will never feel complete until I do. Or maybe I will never feel complete even if I do.

I’m writing this post on graduation day; the words may sound to be ramblings of my mixed-up emotional thoughts. Here’s the final short film I made recently for my film production class, a culmination of the two fruitful and memorable years I spent at SFCC Photography/Digital Media program. It’s also a love letter to those random but significant people we meet, in the different intersections of our lives, that we may or may not see again, and whether those encounters are brief or long. I hope that we keep these transient experiences, no matter how fleeting.

Tarocchi (In)appropriati

This project aims to play around the concept of fortune-telling as form of time travel, with focus on Tarot Card Reading as a prophetic way for visions of the future, evolving through history until the modern times. Two cards from the known Tarot card deck will be re-imagined and re-interpreted – The Lovers and The Death cards – by creating conceptual portraits of women, depicting elements of both past (history) and the future (visions), and breaking out of the conventions of women roles and the representations commonly shown in the cards themselves.

Tarot card reading originated not as prophetic telling of the future, but as a game, believed to have started from the Italian game, Tarocchi Appropriati. “This game developed into a purely literary phenomenon, in which the author creatively assigned the trump cards from the tarot pack to a series of related individuals (related by profession, location or status), groups of cards to several people, the entire series of trumps to one person, or in some cases even to a group religious buildings or a subject (e.g. Love), based on qualities shared by the cards and the subjects of the composition.” (source: http://trionfi.com/0/p/28/)

The Lovers

For my interpretation, I plan to take a diptych of women couples, both breaking away from the usual heterosexual representation as depicted in the majority of the versions of The Lovers card. Each imagery will contrast to one another, in terms of time (the past and the future), and the look (low key and high key) but will attempt to interpret both timelines sharing the same human fears and desire for justice (World War 2 vs Dystopian Future).

The first image’s look will be referencing the 1940s, late World War 2, when wearing pants became a trend for women, initially as working clothes for filling in jobs while the men are getting deployed. Celebrities like Katharine Hepburn also influenced this trend by being one of the first actresses to casually wear pants in and out of set productions.

The second image of the diptych will be set in a dystopian future, “an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic.” (https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/dystopia). I would like to use an imagery of two women in a bath tub.

It was challenging to achieve the late World War 2 look accurately, but here’s the outcome of the diptych:

Mortel_Shootout)_TheLovers_Diptych.jpg

The Death/La Muerte

Instead of the dark representations, I want to re-create this rare Death card that simulates the vibe of the Mexican holiday, Dia de los Muertos (The Day of the Dead). Mexico and the Philippines have shared histories and cultures, both colonized by the Spanish for three centuries. Languages and culture were therefore shared to, as documented in the Acapulco-Manila Galleon Trade (http://www.amplifiedartnetwork.com/synergy-from-manila-to-acapulco-call-for-artists/?fbclid=IwAR28a_HuHNwDPvfCOoC3AtX3RSxXc-UofK7gUK6H5jOMEJSv8uFXN8pBZ4o)

I want to give emphasis to the irony of celebrating the lost loved ones instead of the sadness that the concept of death typically brings. Dia de los Muertos as a tradition, “…reflects the belief that death is a natural part of the human experience, a continuum of birth, childhood, and growing up. The dead are not lost forever but instead continue to exist much as they did in their lives and return to visit the living every year.” (https://www.dyingmatters.org/page/historyofDayoftheDead). I therefore challenges the natural laws of time – it go against the practical idea that death is the end – because somehow, somewhere, the dead continues to exist.

Here’s the final image:

The Power of Persistence: Being a woman artist of color

I was honored to get a scholarship and be able to attend WA State NOW (National Organization for Women) Conference , hosted by the Spokane NOW chapter at the Downtown Library last April 27th. This year’s theme was “The Power of Persistence,” and discourses were exchanged mainly on intersectional feminism, misogyny and white nationalism, and womanism. It was the kind of space that I needed to be able to get to learn more and understand the context of women and social issues in the Pacific Northwest. Here are a couple of the documentation I took during the conference:

SpokaneNOW_WAStateConference (2 of 42)

Later that day, I was also able to participate at the Femfest Spokane Feminist Art Festival as part of the exhibiting women artists. Here are the pieces I submitted for display:

By the River Pend Oreille I Sat Down and Wept_Sample Diptych layout — By the River Pend Oreille I Sat Down and Wept

Being surrounded by women artists and cultural workers in the region definitely sparked my heart to create more and be more involved in the community-building; I am now more committed into creating a thriving, sustainable, and safe space to practice art and serve the the ones that need support.

Saturating Spokane

Being born and raised in big, gritty, and dynamic city, I have always sought for diversity. Moving to Spokane has been kind of challenging, as an immigrant and as an artist. Raising a biracial family, my husband and I want to surround our son in a community that is inclusive. We want to expose him to diverse cultures and traditions.

So when I learned about Spokane Arts’ Saturate project, I applied to try out to be part of a community that promotes artists of color in Spokane. I got accepted and was able to exhibit with two other artists at the Spokane Public Library Downtown. Here are a couple of the pieces that were on display for the whole month of April:

Mortel_FrancesGrace_KingsOfSaigon Mortel_FrancesGrace_DowntownMinistry Mortel_FrancesGrace_Burg_diptych Mortel_FrancesGrace_1 Mortel_FrancesGrace_2 Mortel_FrancesGrace_5

Interwoven, Interwomen (2018)

Model: Irie Bristol

Assisting photographer: Paul Ramer

Interwoven, Interwomen is a series of images which explores women complexity by highlighting the different hairstyles that go with different women of different backgrounds and lifestyles.

For this initial set, I took photos of the wonderful dreadymomma (mom with dreadlocks), Irie Bristol.