LA - MNL

This is it.

Oh goodness me, you know I've been waiting for a quadrillion years just for this.

To Dana, Shanice, and everyone else who's probably reading this, this might come on as awfully new to you. But worry not, for I shall totally explain everything in less-than-elaborate detail so my fangirlish tendencies won't be made so obvious it'd confuse the flipping geese out of you.

Allow us to rewind to about two years ago. Two years ago, I was in Second Year, homeschooled, 14 years of age, naive, excited, and obsessed with the work of James Jean.

Actually the whole James Jean thing started way back in sixth grade, especially after coming across pieces such as THIS

and THIS

and most especially, this.

Yep.

JJ & I go a long way back, so you could say. Back in the sixth grade days, I'd stare at his work for hours and copy each piece and follow the way he drew hair, how he gave curves and waves to branches and how he painstakingly etched detail and love in every thing he drew.

He really won me over with how he was able to project surrealism into pieces which were extraordinary and almost supernatural somehow. His work held this kind of magic that was so gripping and absolutely striking, I started to see the world and everything else with what he had made. I fell in love with the stories his pieces told and really, they changed my life. The way I look at things has never been the same.

And so I finally met him on November the 23rd, 2009 (now we're finally back to "two years ago"). I attended his talk at the College of Saint Benilde with my mom, all smiles and failing knees. I was so wrapped up in my excitement I couldn't even speak the moment he entered the Green Room, and practically squeaked when I tried to say, "Hello," to him.

But it was really one of the highlights in my life as an artist and pretty much life in general. I learned the entire story of his life from his early years in Taipei to his developing years in SVA. I learned the process procedures behind every piece he's ever done. I understood why he left comics, why he averted from illustration work, why he chose to be a complete full-time artist, and why he does what he does.

In the end I did get more than a signed PR3 & Jack of Fables and the gleeful memory of getting to hug James Jean. I felt this great awakening inside my chest, as if I were about to burst into a puddle of paint. Something about that talk completely set me free. The boundary between the art world and my soul finally reached combustion.

It was James Jean who ignited the fuse.

(Do check out Parts 1 and 2 of the entry I made prior to this particular event in history. 


But then days, weeks, months passed after that particular day in history, and almost everyday I couldn't get over how little I got out of that talk--so few pictures, not even a specially dedicated autograph, and much insignificant conversation on my part.

I've just got to do everything right this time.

You can do it, Ally.