Friday, March 16, 2007

SON#1- YOU'RE WORK OF ART

OH, SAN FRANCISCO! My husband and I met at a Halloween party in Sta. Monica, California. Our love affair didn't start on top of the famous Empire State Building in New York, the setting of many romantic movies. Ours, started in San Francisco, the beautiful city by the bay. No wonder, we left our hearts in San Francisco.Here's my favorite old family photo taken near the Golden Gate Bridge, a famous San Francisco landmark. Over the years, we made hundreds of trips to San Francisco, but we never get tired of this beautiful city.
IT'S A BOY!!!!!! My husband and I wished to have a boy for our first child. Gratefully, God granted our wish and gave us a boy. We named him RODNEY. On March 19th, will be another birthday in our family. I am dedicating this blog space to him. Hopefully this will make him appreciate his artistic heritage more. Thanks also to him, for designing my art blog.
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY RODNEY!"

ART LESSONS When our four children were younger, we let them took art lessons. During birthdays and Christmases, we gave them lots of toys like woodblocks, tinkertoys, legos, play-dohs and transformers, to start their creativity and imagination early. I believed that since art is in our blood, it will come out naturally even if I didn't have lots of time to teach them how to paint. When Rodney was a kid, he liked to play with woodblocks for many hours. He was never bored. Thank God! This photo was a living proof. LEGOS!LEGOS! LEGOS! LEGOS! LEGOS! LEGOS! LEGOS! LEGOS!
LEGOS! LEGOS! LEGOS! LEGOS! LEGOS! LEGOS! LEGOS! LEGOS! He was excellent in creating many figures out of legos. It was amazing how many things he could create with plain legos. Being a busy mother, I let him spent hours playing with legos instead of watching more TV's. Legos were good babysitters.As always, Rodney was the leader among our children in designing and creating figures out of legos. These three brothers got along pretty well when playing with legos. They were busy with legos, so there were no fights.
LEGOS! AND MORE LEGOS!
Everybody smile! Here's all our children, displaying their lego masterpieces. WOW! They were all artistic and creative, while still very young.
JUNIOR HIGH Rodney was a good student, during junior high. Although he didn't excell in academic subjects, he was good in other thing like getting a certificate for perfect attendance. While many called in sick, he liked school and had a perfect attendance for a year. Good work!
In our family every award no matter how small, was always appreciated.
It helped boost self-esteem.
AWARD AND REWARD? When Rodney was in junior high, one day we received an invitation to an award night. My husband and I were smiling but wondering what kind of award he would get. We could hardly wait for the award night.
AWARD NIGHT The award night came. The principal first called names who excelled in Math, English, Social Studies, Science. We didn't hear Rodney's name. We wondered WHY? What a surprised, when his name finally came up. He received an award for Industrial Arts. WOW!
Remember? When he was a kid, he liked to play with woodblocks. It paidoff at last. We were so happy and proud of him.
In the past he made beautiful wooden lamp, glass, tool box, and cutting board, which he gave to me. He made me happy. I knew Rodney was destined to become an artist. He received for Industrial Arts."CONGRATULATIONS!"
COLLEGE DAYS After graduating from junior college in College of the Canyon, Rodney moved to San Francisco to start a new life and to pursue an art degree at the Academy of Art. Later, he transferred to San Francisco State University. While still in art school, he worked for Butterfield and Butterfield and designed their auction catalogues. He did a good job. Later, he also worked for E-Bay and Action Watch. At the same time, he was juggling work, school, family and home improvement. He matured so fast. How he could achieve so much with his life and busy schedule was amazing. It's unbelieve to have a son who's a clone of SUPERMAN.
"HAPPY GRADUATION DAY AND CONGRATULATIONS!"
Finally, Rodney graduated from the University of Phoenix with a Bachelor's degree in Information Technology. At present he's very sucessful and doing well in his present job at VENDIO.
He's also doing some sculpture art during his leisure. Last week, he e-mailed me about his latest art work. I was very excited to see his new sculptures via Internet.
He said: I've been working on a new art project. My work throws away computer hard drives when they no longer function. I've recently come into possession of 100 or so drives. Since the mirrored platters are very visually appealing, I decided to make some sculptures out of them. They are inspired by Alexander Calder. You can see my creations here:
GOLDEN PAINTING I did this beautiful oil painting ( 16" x 20") of the "GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE," many years ago. I gave this painting to Rodney. It's now on display in their house
in Pacifica. I painted this bridge twice. When I was taking some art classes at the Senior Center, there was an elderly lady who always visited me every Wednesday. She admired this painting. One day, she asked me if I could paint it again for her. She was so nice, I couldn't say NO. Our art teacher told me, "This lady couldn't afford to pay you." Well, I finished the painting and charged her only $150.00 (without frame). I let her pay in installment. I wanted to make her happy by owning an original art work. I thought, lack of money shouldn't keep her from enjoying art.