Decided to take a little break from the studio this Thanksgiving long weekend after an unusually social and thankful Friday. Me and a couple of old colleagues met up for an early lunch on Friday near the studio, the last time the three of us met up was years ago. After lunch, one of the friends went back to the studio with me. I first took him to see an exhibition on site that opened last weekend where I revisited the art installation of what looked like an eerie abandoned swimming pool. As much as I enjoyed seeing the exhibition and soak in the inspirations that it brings, I openly admitted to my friend that I still didn’t quite understand the value of art. We went next door to the Artist Material Fund after and I picked up a couple of glass plates which will come in handy when I do printmaking. After the brief visit to AMF, I invited my friend back to the studio to show him the plaque prototypes I helped design for his late brother’s unconventional urn. To our surprise, the plaque design and measurements fitted almost perfectly on the urn my friend brought in! Satisfied with the design and progress, we went next door for some matcha and caught up further on some of our recent happenings.
Encountered quite a number of my studio colleagues after the matcha with my friend, this is a bit unusual maybe because I normally go back in late afternoons and work till whenever I felt like it, sometimes even spontaneously pulling all-nighters when I undergo moments of flow. I first bumped into my landlord and her dog while walking back to studio in the parking lot. It was a little difficult to hear her when her dog was constantly barking at the back of her car, eventually I make it that she just wished to greet me Happy Thanksgiving before the long weekend. I had almost forgotten it was Thanksgiving long weekend prior to her greeting. Another colleague visited my studio bearing gifts of a big box of new papertubes she and the landlord knew I had been looking for since they interviewed me for leasing the studio space! Later that afternoon, a young student volunteer whom I just met at the on site exhibition hours ago visited the studio with a friend. I happily showed the young artists my studio space and some of my recent projects and design philosophy. Young aspiring artists as they are seemed very optimistic and hopeful in pursuing creative arts as a career while I probably sounded a lot more pessimistic and realistic and mentioned many times how difficult it might be to make enough money just to pay for rent albeit at an affordable rate. At the end of their visit, I finally remembered that the friend the student volunteer brought was actually a colleague of mine whom I met very briefly at the communal kitchen. I was a little ashamed for not remembering her and apologized while saying goodbye and wishing them Happy Thanksgiving.
Watched a K-drama series about a terminally ill actress who fell in love with a director who met, auditioned, and enrolled her as the lead of his film about a terminally ill woman. I can’t really say that I liked the drama, but watching the series really got me thinking more about life and its purpose. It also brought me to a prolonged contemplative state of melancholy, which may be the reason why this post is unusually long.
Instead of trying to escape the melancholy state, I decided to let it drag on for this Thanksgiving long weekend. Besides Sunday service at church, I’m spending most of the time alone at home watching more K-dramas and thinking about life. I may not be “Happy” per se, but I definitely have lots to be thankful for Thanksgiving this year. But instead of counting my blessings, I prefer to be a little selfish and indulge myself with laziness and get drunk with melancholy before resuming living a thankful life on Tuesday.
