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Personal blog of Jessica Zafra, author of The Collected Stories and the Twisted series
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Archive for the ‘Art’

The Weekly LitWit Challenge 7.5: What is going on here? (Read the entries)

November 07, 2011 By: jessicazafra Category: Art, Books, Contest 9 Comments →

Oops, we got the date of the deadline wrong. Submit your entries by 11.59 pm tonight, November 7, 2011.

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Here’s one of the etchings from Picasso’s Suite Vollard, on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila at the Central Bank complex on Roxas Boulevard, Manila, starting 10 November.

What is going on here? Make up a story in 1,000 words or less and post it in Comments on or before Monday, 7 November 2011, at 11.59 pm. The winner will receive these three books:


An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin, The Magicians by Lev Grossman, and Why I Am So Wise (Ecce Homo) by Friedrich Nietzche.

The Weekly LitWit Challenge is brought to you by our friends at National Bookstore.

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The winners of the Weekly LitWit Challenge 7.5: Spy Story are juned and strange attractor313. We didn’t get many entries—the espionage tale is a demanding genre—but we are very pleased with these two. strangeattractor313, you get a bonus for spinning off an episode in the Smiley books. Apart from the fresh copy of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, you will receive Spymistress: The Life of Vera Atkins, The Greatest Female Secret Agent of World War II by William Stevenson.

Congratulations! Please post your full names in Comments (They won’t be published) and we’ll alert you when you can pick up your prizes at National Bookstore, Power Plant Mall, Rockwell, Makati. Or you can claim them at the 5th anniversary cocktails on November 10—let us know if you can make it.

Long weekend to-do list

November 05, 2011 By: jessicazafra Category: Art, Books, History, Movies, Places, Television 9 Comments →

1. Watch three seasons of Breaking Bad.

Said to be the best American TV series since The Wire. Just finished the first season. It’s not as Shakespeare as The Wire and not as ambitious, but we love a very black comedy. Funnily enough it is referred to as a drama. Breaking Bad is about a man who only starts living when he finds out he is dying. Why are the best TV series about drugs? The hero of this one is a man who cooks shabu. We watch him go from a good law-abiding citizen to a…he’s not quite bad yet, but we can see where he’s headed. This series has given us a new respect for the periodic table.

2. Read The Known World by Edward P. Jones, who is coming to Manila next week. The Pulitzer-winning novelist will give talks at several schools. He will also be a panelist at the Manila International Literary Festival of the Unfortunate Acronym.

3. Buy the wine for the 5th anniversary party on Thursday November 10.

So now you have a real reason to go.

4. Watch Michael Fassbender as Rochester in Jane Eyre.

We never cared for Jane Eyre, but if anyone can make us it is he.

5. Pick up the Reading Group copies of The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes, which arrived yesterday.

6. View the group exhibition Ciento Cincuenta at Pinto Art Museum in Antipolo.

7. Attend Ambeth Ocampo’s talk on Jose Rizal on Sunday, 3pm at Pinto Art Museum.

“Would you like to see my etchings?” Picasso at the Met, Manila

October 30, 2011 By: jessicazafra Category: Art 9 Comments →


Picasso, Blind Minotaur Led by a Girl through the Night, Vollard Suite

Pablo Picasso created 100 copper etchings between September 1930 and March 1937. These pieces commissioned by the art dealer and editor Ambroise Vollard have come to be known as the Suite Vollard.

In 1938, the set of 100 prints appeared in two different formats, one large and one small. Today the small-format prints are scattered among different private and public collections, and only some of these sets, such as the Fundacion Mapfre’s, are preserved in their entirety.

The Suite Vollard is coming to Manila.

The Metropolitan Museum of Manila will host Pablo Picasso’s famous etchings from 10 November 2011 to 8 January 2012.

The Met is located at the Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas Complex, Roxas Boulevard, Manila. For more details please call 5211517 or visit their website at www.metmuseum.ph.

In the realm of the senses

October 22, 2011 By: jessicazafra Category: Art No Comments →

This is a tongue sticking out of the wall.

(L-R) Two oil paintings, Binabawal, Binabanal No. 1 and Binabawal, Binabanal No. 2. Then Looking Glass, a resin breast inside an ornate bronze mirror, with a velvet ribbon.


Dama Naranja, a bronze sculpture with nipples on her scalp and a flotation device around her neck.


Mebuyan Scapulars: Marble scapulars with resin nipples and velvet ribbons.


Sense, Sate: A wall of ears, tongues, noses and nipples multiplied to infinity by a mirror (not in photo). Those are casts of our ears; we don’t know who the other appendages belong to.

Before we could process the visual information we got a walloping headache that we’re going to blame on sensory overload. So we’ll get back to you.

Leo Abaya’s Sense, Sate runs until 12 November 2011 at Tin-Aw Art Gallery, upper ground floor, Somerset Olympia, Makati Avenue, Makati City. (The gallery is across the hall from Old Swiss Inn, in the building beside the Pen.) Open Mondays through Saturdays from 10 am to 6 pm. Telephone 892 7522.

Sense, Sate by Leo Abaya opens Oct 21 (We’re on exhibit)

October 15, 2011 By: jessicazafra Category: Art No Comments →

Join us at the launch, we’re doing a video blog.

Ciento Cincuenta, celebrating Rizal’s 150th birthday at Pinto Art Museum

October 15, 2011 By: jessicazafra Category: Art, Places No Comments →

by Rene Guatlo

Jose Rizal was born in Calamba, Laguna on the 19th of June 1861. It was an age of heroes: Juan Luna, Andres Bonifacio, Emilio Aguinaldo, Marcelo H. del Pilar, to name a few, were born within a few years of Rizal. The mutiny of 1872 was but a decade away. The execution of the martyr-priests Gomez, Burgos and Zamora was the death knell of a despotic colonial administration that these heroes would bring to an end at the close of the 19th century.

There are many heroes of the revolution against Spain, but Jose Rizal’s life, character, and writings have made him the preeminent figure in the fight for independence. Today every town plaza has a monument to the national hero.

Our appreciation of Rizal as hero and symbol of national unity is due in large measure to the efforts of another nationalist, the late Senator Claro M. Recto, who incurred the ire of the Roman Catholic hierarchy for proposing that the study of Rizal’s novels be made compulsory in all colleges and universities.

One hundred fifty years after his birth, Rizal continues to be relevant to this generation. His characters Simoun, Ibarra, Maria Clara, Sisa, Dona Victorina, Padre Damaso, Kapitan Tiago and others have etched their presence in the national psyche. With his appreciation of the past, and understanding of contemporary realities, Rizal continues to talk to the ‘hope of the nation’—the generations of Filipino youth who are his natural audience.

In honor of the hero’s birth, more than seventy contemporary Filipino artists including Salingpusa stalwarts Elmer Borlongan, Manny Garibay, Mark Justiniani, Antonio Leano, Neil Manalo, Joy Mallari, Ferdie Montemayor, Jose John Santos III, and Pam Yan-Santos; Leo Abaya, Sandra Fabie-Gfeller, Riel Hilario, Erwin Leano, Lotsu Manes, Andy Orencio, Jim Orencio, Wire Tuazon, Olan Ventura, Manok Ventura, Cris Villanueva; and the younger group of Demetrio de la Cruz, Winner Jumalon, Stephanie Lopez, Leeroy New, Ian Quirante, Elmer Roslin, Kirby Roxas, Jaypee Samson, Jerson Samson, Marina and Rodel Tapaya, Tatong Torres and Cos Zicarelli have come together for CIENTO CINCUENTA, a celebration of Rizal’s life, work, and writings through drawings, sculpture and other media.

The show will open at 3 o’clock in the afternoon tomorrow, Sunday, 16 October 2011, at the Pinto Art Museum in Antipolo City. Writer and cultural worker Gemma Cruz-Araneta will grace the opening, together with art patron Dr. Joven R. Cuanang. A new bust of the national hero by sculptor Salvador Alonday will be unveiled at the Silangan Gardens.

On 6 November 2011, Dr. Ambeth Ocampo will deliver a commemorative Rizal lecture in the function room of the Pinto Art Museum.

Pinto Art Museum is at 1 Sierra Madre, Grand Heights, Antipolo City, Rizal Province.