Funding for a Visual Novel to Save My Home

Geometry, tech, and bits of architecture set against flesh figure heavily into my work; a sort of exegesis on the late-stage, proto-destruction, capitalist state of the world where the virtual is Body and the Body is coerced virtual. Nothing escapes from what is not there.

My art is a confluence of various abstractions, of science fiction staples, kitsch and emotional compromise, such as the grand works of Philip K. Dick, Frederik Pohl; of fascism, counter-fascism, worldliness, debauchery, endless Sysiphean suffering, loss, Marxism, death.

I want to publish all of these dreamscapes and ruminations into a thick book; something like the enigmatic Voynich Manuscript, where images unadulterated run through indecipherable texts that leave nothing, and everything, to the imagination. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, they claim, so I want to consummate that promise. I want to nurture not just the visually pleasing, but the ugly, the deformed, the amorphous and grotesque. I want to create a visual world with no bounds. A flight of fancy into the unknown where the Object is the Subject and the Alpha is the Omega, and vice versa.

The visual novel will be composed of over 100 illustrations as you can see in this body of text. There will be no narrative; only expression and impression, abstraction and abstention, manifestation and materialization.

I developed a new approach specifically for these drawings that allowed me to gather moments that were repeated in my daily routines, relationships and tasks. Revisiting these ordinary moments again and again on the same page revealed the impact of time on myself and the people around me, and profoundly altered my work as an artist.

There is an investment of time and labor in a drawing that requires an awareness and presence in a moment that snapshots miss. The images included in this graphic novel are a record of my time with those people, places and things familiar. With daily practice, my drawing began to flow again like handwriting. I believe it to be personal and sincere. Most importantly, I found myself, once again, present in my own life.

I hope you can help me realize this journey.

But this journey is not without reason. Due to unforeseen circumstances, the home in Rizal, a small town east of Manila where I produce art, where my little studio is located (aka my room), is currently in the process of being foreclosed due to the economic forces my country is facing. My parents, both senior citizens, unemployed and relying on pension, have little to no money in reserve to pay off what was needed to avoid repossession. The bank has given me six more months to cough up half a million pesos (roughly USD 9,600.00) before they take the house, and it has made me deeply anxious and constantly depressed and suicidal and increasingly uncertain about my future, because I do not earn that much with my art to fix everything. Whatever money I earn from art is enough to cover a hand-to-mouth existence - paying the bills, utility, food, water, etc. What keeps me up at night is that there is the possibility of having no roof over my head after all of this blows up, and I can only dream and wish and hope that it does not. As a freelance artist without health insurance, without life insurance, this home is the only thing I have.

This crowdfunding will go to the production, publication and distribution of this visual novel. I will be selling this online, and to family, friends, acquaintances, to donors, most especially in the big Comic Conventions in the country, and the income coming from the sales of the graphic novel will go to saving the house I have lived in for 27 years, and I pray, that with your help, that everything pulls through ever so successfully, and for that I thank you with all my soul.

Sincerely,
Miguel