I have many Filipino writer friends who live abroad but I cannot paint portraits of any of them--it would be most cruel. Years ago I did make a huge portrait for a friend who lives in the U.S.A. The shipping company required us to document the work and then obtain a clearance from the National Museum of the Philippines for exportation of art, Gallery Frames had to construct a heavy, wooden crate to ensconce the portrait in, and total expenses ran up to more than a thousand USD.

I paint on cradled canvases only, which are, essentially, wooden boxes that cannot be disassembled. I no longer paint on pieces of unstretched canvas fabric that can be rolled and placed in cylinders for shipping.