VZ and Cranes Blogs

Yup they exist, I think. What prompted me to add this entry here, is that I just watched a program, Myterious Journeys - Episode: Alien Hotspots, and they showed Chicago as the newest city to witness UFOs.

Like I said, I did massage for a while, I’m not doing it anymore and I will not register to be in the grandfather clause. I’m more into my art and writing now. I am now living in the Northside (still in Chicago) a little north of Wrigleyville (Cubs).

In 1999, I moved to downtown Chicago to be near the hotels. The thing about massage, you will get a call in the wee hours, even at 3 a.m. The time is unpredictable. It’s not like a 9-5 job. What I would do is take a taxi, even if the hotel was just less than 5 blocks away.

The Hyatt hotel at McCormick Place is located at what I consider the southern “edge” of downtown. McCormick Place is a convention center. It is one of the country’s biggest, if not the biggest, convention center. I like the place, I consider it a magical place, because if the Book Expo was held in Chicago, it would be there. There is also an annual Restaurant Show, Boat Show and Auto Show held there, which a lot of people, including myself, look forward to attending. If a convention was held there, the hotel got busy or full, and I in turn got calls for massage.

The hotel is about 10 minutes from the Loop (the business district) and Magnificent Mile (The Michigan Ave. section with a lot of expensive shops), and is kind of solitary in its location. Most of the hotels are in or around the Loop and the Mag Mile, and there is nothing much to see for tourists, travelers and convention-goers south of McCormick Place. Chinatown is just a few blocks west of McCormick Place, that’s a place to go to, but like I said, not much to see, south of Chinatown either, if you are a regular out-of-towner and not after the interesting little locales of Chicago.

As you take the taxi to and fro downtown, between State Street to Lake Shore Drive, the clearing on one side would be the park and the lake (the east side), and the other side would be the rest of the city (west of the avenues).

I usually see stationary white light above the lake. You can ask taxi drivers. They would usually dismiss the lights as just stars. However, they look bigger than stars. Sometimes the lights move, but they never blink, like the planes. There would also usually be no other lights in the sky, no stars other than the one or two or three lights that don’t seem to be stars. I wonder if satellites would have continuous lights turned on? I should read on that, but can satellites appear to be lower than you would expect airplanes to be in?

Sometimes, I went to the Playboy building in the late afternoon, a block away from my apartment building. (It’s called that because the Playboy publisher’s office is located there, but it also includes other offices, residences and some retail shops, including a grocery, for the residents). I usually went there for Hollywood Video, to either rent a movie or buy a dvd or vhs. That side street, Erie St., as I walked home and faced west (my back would be the lake), I sometimes looked up to the sky and I sometimes saw one or two stationary lights up in the sky, clearly visible above Erie St., which goes east-west, obviously above the city. Once again, usually, they would be just stationary or moving very, very slowly, and unblinking, so they cannot be planes.

Because Chicago has busy airports, people I’ve talked to usually explained them away as planes, that were coming directly to the city, that it would seem like the lights were not moving. However, if you time them, they would be there for more than 30 minutes. By then, even if you saw them, because they stayed for long periods of time, you would not bother waiting for them to disappear or move away.

Other weird things have happened to me in Chicago, strange dreams, shadow people and whosts, but those are more personal. I mentioned all these in one of my books, Memoirs of an Artist as a Masseur, but I took the book out of Lulu.com, hoping to get a regular publisher to publish it. I got other books in Lulu.com for the meantime, including a book of drawings,
Valentino F. Zubiri: Nude Drawings and Paintings from 1995 to 1996, and the one about psychic surgery, Healing Lessons from a Psychic Surgeon, which is just as weird anyway, but about my encounter with psychic healing in the Philippines.

I have always wondered if there are any alien abductees in Chicago. hmmm.

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This video introduces myself, the origami crane, and my motivations related to volunteerism, visual art and writing.

I hope my YouTube.com video is acceptable. I’m hoping that it serves as an introduction to myself, my motivation, what happened to me in 1996, 2002, 2006, 2007 and 2008 and my combined pursuits of volunteerism, visual art and writing. YouTube has a limit of 100 megs and 10 minutes, so I came up with a 7 1/2 minute video. I hope you don’t find it too much.

The pictures of myself are from 2006, when I still had short hair. I let my hair grow long and haven’t had a haircut since September 2006.

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If you can spare $1, I would not be insulted. Thanks!

First off, if I said I don’t need help, I would be more insane than my project. Please help. Please be creative. Please be financial. Please let me know if you have any ideas. Please sponsor me. Please collect my art. Please use the logos. Please mention me in your blogs. Please send your cranes. I also welcome other artists. I don’t want to be alone. My email addresses are vzubiri334@aol.com and val@valentinozubiri.com.

The Origami Crane Project is MONUMENTAL. I’m asking the entire world to send me cranes. I will be overwhelmed with mail, and many other related aspects of it, receiving, storing, cataloging and displaying the cranes. I will need to travel as well.

In my heart and mind, when I was just thinking about it, and hesitating to do it, I was in anguish. When I decided to just go ahead with it, and prepare, with my website, adding credentials in my blogs, etc., I felt better. Now that I am actually asking people to send me cranes, I actually am even feeling much, much better. This project is in my system. I’m really into it. Money has no bearing on this project. It’s the art! But reality will set in, and I will need some.

I also hope to establish a nonprofit myself that can work with people and with other nonprofits. This project will qualify me in many ways. If I succeed, I will gain credibility to work with more and more people.

I’m hoping to begin an Art for Awareness nonprofit organization. I’m hoping that a small donation could make a difference. You can give small, because as of yet, I am still a private entity - your donations are not yet tax deductible.

If you would rather buy my own art, please do so, that way it would not be a donation. I should be collectible soon enough. You can email me at vzubiri334@aol.com

Please separate thinking about donating with thinking about how you would be making a crane and sending it to me. I’m hoping to get cranes from poor people and countries. If you don’t have money, but you have paper to fold, please send me your crane. If you are a child, just send me your crane. Don’t even think about money. Maybe one day I’ll send you some, but your crane is magical. It will inspire many, it will go places. Don’t cage your message!

If you decide to help me financially, the PayPal Donate button is available, and thanks in advance.

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I used to be a member of a theater group in Chicago, Pintig Cultural Group, where I designed the posters, postcards, tickets, and souvenir programs. However, the most memorable work I did for the group was not the posters. It was when I froze and forgot my lines in the middle of a performance.

What happened was, we in the production side of things were already running around doing nothing, while the real play, scenes from an unfinished country, was already running. We got invited to perform a 20-minute excerpt at the University of Michigan, about 3 hours away, and so the production people were elected to do it. I did the main role, and in the middle of the thing, I forgot my line. I’m really good at making posters. The next time I act, it will be in Hollywood. At least there, someone can shout “Cut!”

Bells of Balangiga, Pintig Cultural Group, Chicago, Illinois

The Bells of Balangiga, a musical, was about the Filipinos in Balangiga, a town in the Philippines who rebelled against the Americans, during the Filipino American War. The Americans took three bells from the local church belfry after the bloody battle, I don’t know when, but two of the bells are now in Wyoming and one is in Korea. There is currently a movement of Filipinos and Americans who want the bells to be returned to the town. I’m not so sure about all this now, I could be wrong, so Google the history for more accurate information.

You will notice that my painting has a mountain of ghostly faces in the horizon, which do not distinguish between Filipino and American. The two arms holding the bell above the embers are actually the current Filipino and American flags. When I learned about this, I felt that the best way I can give tribute to Balangiga was to paint the bell. Because I felt that the United States and the Philippines are both equal players in the battle, I made a symmetrical work broken only by the wavy flame and smoke. I also wanted the title to sit right in the middle of the bell.

Oops, I almost forgot. Bob Couttie, author of Hang the Dogs, the True and Tragic History of the Balangiga Massacre, published in 2004, actually used my painting as a cover for his book. He is part of the Balangiga Research Group. I actually hit the mark, with the ghosts in the back, in my painting. There really have been ghostly apparitions in the graveyards of both the Americans and Filipinos. I just learned about it now, April 7, 2008. Google it.

Below is Bob Couttie’s book cover.

Hang The Dogs: The True Tragic History of the Balangiga Massacre, Bob Couttie, 2004. Bob asked me if he could use my painting as part of his book cover. I’m glad he did.

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Wa Etching! Pintig Cultural Group, Chicago

Wa Etching! This is another poster which I am very proud of. Jaime Almonte, who wrote the play, was and still is a friend of mine, and I was so proud of his work, that I made sure the design for the poster was good. I also believe that the graphical poster, posted all over the city was the first to sell a play, even before play-goers look at the local papers. I believe I succeeded in designing this poster, because it was constantly being stolen, and every three days we had to revisit the local store windows and coffee shops to repost. It hurt me to suggest that we should slash the posters. We did on our third repost, and the stealing stopped. Before this play, Jaime had also written about one or two more plays which the theater group staged.

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Nanay Isog and Her Children Poster, Pintig Cultural Group, Chicago

Nanay Isog and Her Children is a Filipino reinterpretation of Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children.

Scenes from an Unfinished Country, Pintig Cultural Group, Chicago, Illinois

Sorry for the moire on this poster. Because the budget for printing was tight during this production, I opted for a monochromatic color. This double-sided poster only used one color ink, like a dark reddish sepia, and I played with the gray scale.

There was a good number of Pintig posters that were double-sided. They were actually fold-out posters, so that historical and other related information can be read on four separate pages, and then the final fold-out would be the poster. Bells of Balangiga was also double-sided, but I was able to get a deal with the printer, so we had a big fold-out poster, another smaller poster and postcards. I did not want my painting to go to waste.

Flipside, Pintig Cultural Group, Chicago, Illinois

Flipside was two separate, but related, short plays.

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I painted a few works on Gessoboard in 1996. Collection of J.A.

You will notice how I placed my last name, “zubiri", at the bottom of all the works. This is my billboard signature, and it will get bigger and more conspicuous. Politicians and everyone else get a billboard to get famous enough to be elected or get the public to do what they want. Everyone nowadays is competing for attention, and artists just continue to paint a pretty picture. It seems that artists should do the same thing, get a billboard, or be left behind. lol.

Girl, hat and coffee in garden, 5″ x 7″, oil on gessoboard, 2006.

Mother and child, 7″ x 5″, oil on gessoboard, 2006.

Red chair, 7″ x 5″, oil on gessoboard, 2006.

Man studying, 5″ x 7″, oil on board, 2006.

Four friends, 5″ x 7″, oil on board, 2006.

Orange lady, 7″ x 5″, oil on board, 2006.

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Two Nudes

These are my works, framed, available for sale by the owner, a friend of mine. Please email me at vzubiri334@aol.com. The male is one of my earliest nudes. My first group show in 1994 showed three male nudes, this and two others, owned by 2 Chicagoans (One works for Kraft, I think until now, I forget his name, and the other one is Phil L. I will see if I can get an image from Phil, if I can track him.)

Valentino Zubiri, Female Nude, height 18″ x width 24″, watercolor on paper, 1995.

Valentino Zubiri, Male Nude, height 24″ x width 18″, pastel on pastel, 1994.

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Oil on canvas portrait of Evelyn Masbaum

I can’t remember when I did this, I think it was in 1998. The images below are from 2000 using a webcam. The actual painting is a little more sepia.

Detail of face. Evelyn Masbaum, approx. 30″ x “20″, oil on canvas, approx. year 1998.

Evelyn Masbaum, approx. 30″ x “20″, oil on canvas, approx. year 1998.

I drew friends in 2007, when I did lab rat studies, just using Sharpie and pastel on paper. Those would be hard to track because they are all living in different states, and I don’t have a lot of their phone numbers. Maybe they will try to email me back.

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Back to Valentino Zubiri.com

Arts Global Impact.org

Chicago Art Movement.com

Check out my 2 books on Lulu.com!

Buy Valentino F. Zubiri: Nude Drawings and Paintings from 1995 - 1996 ($59.00)

View my Nude Drawings on Scribd.com for free!

Buy Healing Lessons from a Psychic Surgeon ($14.00)

Front and Back Cover of Healing Lessons from a Psychic Surgeon

I released this book on the first week of February 2008, a week after releasing the book of nude drawings. This is actually seven chapters from my bigger book, Memoirs of a Masseur, which has more than sixty chapters.

This is still a story, I did not change it to become a technical how-to book. Everyone knows that psychic surgery is not entirely a scientific activity, so after careful thought, even though I am able to write about the topic, I decided to stick to writing about it as part of a story. My goal is still to continue being an artist and my writing still has to reflect the art, so I wrote without an attempt to redirect myself into a career of talking about this subject.

Memoirs of an Artist as a Masseur is not currently available. I decided to edit it some more and add a few more chapters. My sister edited it initially, after my contribution.

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Front and back covers of Valentino F. Zubiri: Nude Drawings and Paintings from 1995 - 1996, 156 pages.

The book is sold here: Lulu.com

The ebook can be viewed and downloaded FREE, here: Scribd.com

for the book was not to sell, but to be viewed. The book is at the standard 300 dots per inch, while the digital ebook is at 72 pixels per inch, which is the display screen resolution. The printed book would be finer.

It’s not like I lose the value of my originals by sharing copies of the book for free. On the other hand, the more people view my images, the more the images become popular and the originals more valuable. It’s a strange thing, because music, for example is the product itself, so downloading free music means less sales.

Then again, I read somewhere that the music industry should have found a way, early on, to profit from filesharing. I creatively found a way to share my works. Scribd.com alone, after 30 days of upload, showed more than 500 views of my file. My rapidshare account had another 400 downloads, and I also found my ebook in other websites, with links to the file that are no longer my original links.

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In some countries in Asia, especially in Japan, there is the myth that if you make 1,000 cranes, you will be granted a wish. I read about this when I was very small, in the Philippines, and I believed.

The most famous person to become involved was Sadako Sasaki, in Japan, who at the age of 12 was diagnosed with leukemia and given only a year to live. She was only two years old when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, just a mile away from her home.

While in the hospital, Sadako folded cranes to pass the time, and although she did not recover from her sickness, dying just months after the diagnosis, her legacy lives on. Around the time of her death, other people sent her cranes as well. At lease two statues now stand in her honor, one in Hiroshima, Japan and another in Seattle, Washington, U.S.

Read more about her on Wikipedia and The Children’s Peace Monument. You can follow the links to other articles from there if you want to read more.

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I used to use just white bond paper, because it brought out the color of the ribbon. However, I encourage everyone to use any type of paper they want, and to deviate from the ribbon if they want to do so as well. When you send me your crane, you can include a dvd or cd of a video related to your work, and / or an essay.

Begin with a square paper. Use the size of bond paper if you are not yet used to folding. Try to be precise, make the points sharp and the creases sharp as well. Ask for help if you need to.

There are 2 folds that result from the previous creases. You will either get a mountain fold, which looks like a triangle, or a square fold, which looks like a square. If you got a mountain fold, just flip the paper over and the square fold will result.

You are now shaping the wings at this stage, by bringing the 2 flaps up on both sides of the square.

The 2 legs that are pointing down are going to be the head and the tail of the crane. You need to make them narrower to make the neck and the tail slim.

On this last stage, bring the “legs” up, and then make the head on one of them.

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This is a simple entry, just to welcome everyone who will come to this site. I have decided to undertake the 1000 Cranes project, like I did more than 10 years ago, and this time it will be bigger. This is the quiet before the storm.

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Hello everyone! I installed this blog especially because I decided to go ahead with my idea of the Cranes. More than 10 years ago, I did the 1000 Cranes idea, and I will now do it with a twist. I will also be posting my other projects and progress with stuff here. I will be going back and forth here in this blog and the more static pages of my website(s) since blogs get seen by people and spiders faster. Thanks for visiting.

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