AYEN QUIAS

Top : Pagoda Ride. Taiwan Wood Collage. 20in x 24in Right : Island of Procida. Wood Collage. 13in x 19in. Bottom : Stobosa Village. Wood Collage. 20in x 26in.

AYEN QUIAS is a painter/ collage artist born in Santiago City, Isabela and now based in Pura, Tarlac. She studied Architecture in University of Cordilleras in Baguio City. Most of her paintings are in Ilocano title as respect to her Ilokano roots. Her subject is a lady with cheeks on fleek, as she called it. It is a figurative abstract of woman with protruding shoulder, elongated hands and neck, hourglass shaped bodies, dressed in a series of patterns and with coveted cheeks. One of her paintings “Sophistikada” was sold in an auction and currently a collection of New York Modern Art Gallery.

Ayen Quias is the owner and artist of Ayenics Arts and Crafts, makers of faux barrels and customized wood crafts for weddings and other events. When Covid-19 pandemic reached the country and social gathering is restricted, her business along with the event industry was totally devastated. But Ayen Quias is a person who doesn’t dwell on what went wrong but rather thinks that in every mistake there is a possibility and opportunity. So this gives rise to “Ayen’s Little Town”- a wood collage of colorful dense houses with candy colored skies. It is made out of wood scraps and she transformed it into a wonderful work of art. To her it is an artwork to remind us that during this pandemic we lost so much lives, we struggle to live and yet we still have hopes for tomorrow.

Ayen Quias joins and attended exhibits in galleries and museum here and abroad which includes 2013 Art Expo Malaysia, Italy, USA, Mexico and the latest is in Singapore where she lost 6 paintings.

The Life of An Average :

“Entitlement Free Zone”

By Ingrid Aimee

Arrogance means “bigging yourself up”—whether publicly or just inside your own mind. Often it involves knocking others down at the same time. Other names for arrogance are : egotism, conceit, grandiosity, and self-importance.

Ancient Greek literature refers to hubris, a form of arrogance in which a person thinks himself to be higher in status than other ordinary mortals. In other words, a god.

As with the opposite chief feature of self-depracation, arrogance is a way of manipulating others’ perceptions of yourself in order to avoid taking a “hit” to your self-esteem. In this case, however, the basic strategy is to get others to see you as special, perfect or flawless —diverting attention from your ordinary imperfections, weaknesses and failings — and thereby keeping your self-esteem artificially inflated.

An arrogant person is the one who acts as if he is superior, more worthy and more important than the others. Therefore, he puts others down and even disrespects them. At the same time, he wants to be admired and respected. He wants to be ‘appreciated’ for all the great things that he has done and all the special qualities that he has.

In many cases, a person becomes arrogant when he makes the kind of achievements that his peers fail to make. Doing something extraordinary that no one else could do gives a tremendous boost to our self-worth and when we find that others haven’t accomplished nearly as much, we tend to look down at them.

It’s because our subconscious mind is always comparing our life with our peers in order to measure our progress in the things that matter to us. Know that just because you did something great doesn’t mean that you’re a super-human. You have some weak points too and you know it. Know that others are not less worthy than you just because they never did what you were able to do.

Maybe they’re trying, maybe they’re much better than you in a lot of other things, and maybe they don’t even care about making the type of achievements that you have made.

I could go on and on giving reasons but the point is- you have no reason to be arrogant and think that others are less worthy than you even if you did something remarkable. A reason for becoming arrogant is that you’re trying to protect your ego and self-worth in some way. You may behave arrogantly to hide your insecurity, inferiority, and a lack of confidence. If you’re insecure and you fear rejection from other people then you may behave arrogantly towards them.

Arrogance, in this case, helps you to kind of reject others before they can get an opportunity to reject you! It’s a pre-emptive strike.

Since you already know you’re inferior, you’re worried that others will find out about it and as a result they won’t accept you. You’re so sure that they’ll reject you that you show rejection first- before they get a chance to show it to you and hurt you.

This way, you’re able to protect your ego because even if they rejected you later you can say that you never really cared about their acceptance and never really thought much of them because you had already rejected them! The truth, however, is that you cared a lot about their approval and were afraid of their rejection.

This is the reason why a lot of people tend to behave arrogantly with strangers or with people they barely know. Friends and family members accept you- you know that. But who knows how a stranger might respond? Let’s reject them before they can get the opportunity to reject us!

Despite what meets the eye, arrogant people care a lot about others’ approval. If they didn’t, whom would they show their arrogance to? Sometimes, arrogance may just be the result of trying to gain attention because no other way of gaining attention has worked for you.

This is true for those people who learnt that being arrogant resulted in them receiving a lot of attention in the past and that’s why they became motivated to continue this behavior. As soon as they find that their arrogance no longer brings them attention, they’ll drop this behavior.

It is unacceptable to be too obviously arrogant and manipulative in most adult settings. Just going around bragging is “against the rules” in most social circles.