TWO LANDSCAPES, TWO CHILDHOODS

When I was young I had the luxury and freedom to walk or run around our yard and our neighbors' yard, climb trees and play with my siblings and friends.

In our province the surrounding farms and marshlands offer marvelous landscapes that blend with the horizon in the morning or afternoon sun. These memories of childhood days when we have all those energies of youth are gone with it all those wonderful natural landscapes and its ecosystem, complete with insects, toads and mushrooms, are fast vanishing or completely a thing of the past.

Nowadays as globalization and materialism, enhanced and sped-up by the digital age, spread to the far reaches of remaining farmlands the seemingly inevitable urban expansion threatens to change landscapes from natural to manmade. And as shopping malls and airports sprouted all around the country like mushrooms those wonderful natural habitats are fast disappearing.

It is said that as we grow older we will eventually experience our second childhood especially when we approach the time where we once again act in a childlike fashion...no wonder why there are diapers for adults available in our supermarkets now. When that time comes to my life a different landscape awaits me and all those memorable natural scenery of my childhood will, sadly, only be a mirage.

A look at this large painting from far distance will show the childhood image of a landscape I cherish. But slowly moving closer towards it will gradually reveal a different reality that my next childhood has to face. Inversely, as I try to distance myself from the powerful allure but empty promises of this fragile digital age and patiently approach my old age each and every day, I will be daydreaming about those magnificent landscapes of old long gone.

If God the Father Almighty wills it, it is my plan to go back and paint landscapes and seascapes again when I grow old. Alas! What inspiration is there left for me now? Well, maybe a good memory of those beautiful sceneries would help. (Joel E. Ferraris)

ASIAN MOUSETRAP

Gone are the days, most probably, when kids had the chance to produce their own handmade toys. The process of making these things are fun in itself plus the pleasure of enjoying a sense of success and satisfaction after completing one toy made from scraps and found objects. That was my childhood. In those times of youth when the mind is ready for more creative challenges that are vital for growth the brain sends signals to the hands to do something creative. To me, the chance to build my own toy allows my mind to wander within the realm of imagination and creativity. These childhood privileges also protected me from becoming destructive.

I have proven that art has that alluring effect even to school bullies of my time when they always befriended me especially when they ask me to help them with their art requirements or whenever we build our toys together.

Nowadays, with the advent of digital toys mass-produced by big companies, kids and parents alike have the tendency to rely on these things to achieve a state of enjoyment and fun for both parent and kid. But the question is, did they miss something? Did we miss everything?

Back home in Hong Kong we have boxes and boxes of used and broken toys accumulated through the years. The funny thing is my kids played and enjoyed the packaging box more than the expensive toy we bought for them. It later dawned on us parents that kids who hunger for creativity will find their way, and by all means, to express that inborn gift. Let's hope that no amount of Mickey's ready-made attractions will distract their youthful motivation for imagination and self-expression. (Joel E. Ferraris)

MORNING PAPER

Despite the Internet's offer of delivering information and news quickly, still people are excited each morning to read the newspapers. And reading while turning its many pages is not complete sometimes without a cup of hot coffee. The paper, recycled several times, has an extra use as cover on our face once the need for a short nap comes.

This habit of reading the news everyday creates a situation wherein becoming so engrossed in those stories sometimes makes me oblivious of what is happening around me. Who's not affected by news anyway when money, money and money are the major causes of all anxiety?

YES PLS! These words are actually the Yen or Yuan, Euro, Dollar, Peso, and Pound whose symbols are arranged to form these words of request…or command. Money is what people in need ask for. It is what job hunters look for and what lottery addicts hope for. That's why we are so eager to grab the morning paper and read the news.

With those layers upon layers of good and bad news headlines printed on paper are being read while real life occurrences of these true stories behind each news fleeting all around us, the slight warmth of sunshine on our nape gives us that soothing feeling each morning. (Joel E. Ferraris)

JOB VACANCY series

Painted on top of layers of newspaper daily headlines and stories that I directly transferred from old newspaper to the canvas surface are bits and pieces of images that represent the Christian religion. These antique-looking remnants symbolize the gradual weakening and continued decline of religion and spirituality as they float in the midst of fleeting stories of social, political, economic and even religious turmoil. These juxtapositions of strong currents of life's pressure are real threats that could even shake the strongly faithful at times.

As drug addiction, among other abuses and tools of decadence, threatens not only the youth but even professionals in my country and elsewhere, with divorce taking its toll on family values and morality and where terrorism tops the list of all human excesses there seem to be no end to these sources of fear, frustration, despair and anxiety. The uncertain future now looks grim to the spiritually blind even more especially when global warming comes into the picture and makes these concerns more heated. And, in the course of people's struggle for survival, they tend to bring that feeling of hatred against their fellowmen into their graves as fear about the renewed nuclear arms race are fueled by distrust among powerful countries.

But humanity in general and individuals in particular is not without any hope and bright future. Created by Almighty God the Father and equipped with a manual on how to live in righteousness, people have a chance to walk a straight path. Deprived of genuine peace from a world under the control of the evil one, the faithful is guaranteed with the real peace that Lord Jesus Christ has promised. The question that confronts us, however, is how do we achieve that and who will teach us?

(read full text at SPIRITUAL JOURNEY...)

HIGH-RISE, HIGH PRICE

As families were forced by circumstances to flock to materially promising crowded cities, the need to cope-up with its lifestyle has put pressure on people especially parents.

The high cost of living plus the desire to maintain a family is a tricky predicament. For working parents, without longer and quality family time for children, there is the tendency to use substitutes to parental care by pumping more material entertainment that will eventually prove ineffective. And the need for a nanny to care for babies and toddlers or the option to enrol children to nursery schools at a very young age allows both parents to have time to work and support the growing family.

The very small "box", not ideally enough as a family dwelling, has the tendency to be filled with things to make it look and feel like an ideal home. Sadly, home is not at all measured by how much material objects are being pumped inside it. To raise the young cannot be perfected by the volume of expensive toys that their parents could afford. And to leave the kids to people they do not know very well give parents an uneasy feeling sometimes.

The image presented here is somewhat like those high-rise buildings or storage cabinets and boxes where objects inside them are almost visible as if they are seen through an x-ray machine. And having the chance to live in this place and adapt to its culture of moving from one flat to another, as dictated by the rise and fall of rental prices, or the proximity of children's school, made me realize that the more of these material possessions we have accumulated each year the more it becomes a burden to us.

So the Holy Bible is right – we cannot bring these things with us into the afterlife. Besides, it's pretty expensive to pay those movers. (Joel E. Ferraris)

STORIES IN STOREYS

Living in high-rise buildings means that being confined in those box-like dwellings placed one on top of the other gives one a feeling of claustrophobia. With entrance doors closed to "seal" occupants away from their immediate neighbors just across the lift lobby means that the surrounding windows inside these flats are the only source of semi-polluted air and sunlight, depending on the day of each year. In effect, windows serve as our connection to the outside world.

It's funny how most people nowadays are hooked on computers using recent Windows versions to peek into the virtual world while the surrounding real windows reveal the real world. Maybe the virtual world helps them to widen their view to cure or forget about claustrophobia.

Try to take time to look outside at those neighboring and distant high-rise buildings. The windows of all sizes and shapes dotting their facade, glowing in the night like Christmas lights, tell various unique stories of people and families, including pets, who are likewise busily hooked into their computers or plasma TV most of the time. And even those wallpapers, furniture and furnishings visible from a certain distance reveal their economic status.

All these sights we see in densely populated cities where the vertical development allows us to witness these stories in storeys where sometimes you see people party or fell out of their window.

I used acrylic paints and fabric of all kinds in this new series of art pieces to portray those many windows I see in the city. From a certain, distance the whole picture that these new painting series projects also seem to look like pixels floating over bar codes - popular icons of this age. (Joel E. Ferraris)