JENNIFER REBECCA ORTUOSTE

I make books. Heart those books. And, usually, I develop a manuscript and then, if there's a publisher, look for an image(s) for its front cover. Well, I just received "Puñeta" by Jennifer Rebecca Ortuoste, and it is the first image for which I plan someday to create a manuscript. I love it so much I want to put it on the front of a book!

I not only love its colors but I love how Jenny subverted the art of embroidery to create such an edgy work! Y'all know what puñeta means!

I first saw  "Puñeta" through its appearance in the "Chromatext II" exhibition in Manila (Dec 2015-Jan. 2016).  I immediately ordered it, with the help of Philippine poet-novelist Krip Yuson (thanks Krip!). Anyway, I'm so happy to welcome it into la casa!  Had I done this work, by the way, I would have leaked blood drops all over it -- but La Doctora obviously is the like the rest of humanity: better than I at the domestic arts...

CHRIS OLIVERA

Chris Olivera. We live with four of his works, including two paintings:

We also have two pages from his notebook/sketchbook which I'm delighted to have -- they deepen the experience of engaging with his more finished paintings. It's like reading a poem, and then reading the poetics underlying such a poem. Except for jokey TMI references, I can't recall ever concluding about anything that knowledge is not a good thing. My son glommed onto those sketchbook pages when he first got to the house -- even a child can discern the liveliness of the work -- and they now hang in his bedroom.

JON D'ORAZIO

I begin this post with a detail from Jon D'Orazio's painting because the detail shows exactly what one sees at eye level. Contrast that with the second image, the painting itself whose photo I had to go to the other side of the room to take. That's why we sometimes joke that Jon must have painted this painting with a very long brush -- it's amazing how he painted the abstraction at close quarters for the image from afar. I believe this says something, not just about D'Orazio's painterly mastery but, also how he's so taken into heart all of his lessons from and training in Buddhism. Kudos, Jon!

We've lived with this painting for decades and it remains fresh.

It's ever so lovely to bear witness to someone else's lucidity and how such generates art.

FERNANDO BOTERO

My "Botero" is an inexpensive tourist tchotchke from the gift store of the Museo Botero in Bogota. But I treasure it because I love its image of plump books. Botero, of course, is known for plumping up his figures -- and while I love the book in all of its forms, I have a special fondness for PLUMP as in THICK books. I make them, too, like the book nicknamed BRICK with its 504 pages in a genre known more for less-than-a-hundred pages. Merely 504 pages? I shall have to work on exceeding that...!