IN: Regine Velasquez was born in Tondo, Manila, on April 22, 1970. Her father, Gerardo Velasquez, was a construction estimator, and her mother, Teresita (nee Ansong), was a homemaker. The singer has three younger sisters, Cacai, Diane and Deca, and a younger brother, Jojo. The family moved to Hinundayan, Southern Leyte where Velasquez spent the early years of her life.

After winning Ang Bagong Kampeon, Velasquez was signed to OctoArts International (now PolyEast Records). She was introduced as 'Chona' Velasquez--her nickname--and recorded the single "Love Me Again", which was released in early 1986. However, the single was commercially unsuccessful. On February 16, 1986, at the behest of another OctoArts recording artist, Pops Fernandez, Velasquez was invited to appear on her live late night musical television show, The Penthouse Live!  While she was rehearsing for the live show, the producer and talent manager Ronnie Henares showed interest and signed her. At the suggestion of Fernandez's husband and the show's co-host, Martin Nievera, Velasquez adopted the stage name "Regine".  Under Henares' management, Velasquez was introduced to the head of VIVA Records, Vicente del Rosario Jr., who signed her and started production of her debut album. Del Rosario enlisted top songwriters, including Joaquin Francisco Sanchez, Vehnee Saturno and Christine Bendebel. He and Henares, who were both serving as executive producers, planned to market Velasquez as one of their main female pop artists, hoping to attain commercial success as they had done with Nora Aunor and Sharon Cuneta. After Velasquez completed her debut album, Regine, VIVA released the lead single "Kung Maibabalik Ko Lang" in 1987. Despite a weak start, the album gained mainstream appeal after Velasquez's promotional appearances on the ABS-CBN television variety shows Triple Treat and Teen Pan Alley. The album produced two more singles--"Urong Sulong" and "Isang Lahi".  Two years after the release of her debut album, Velasquez represented the Philippines in the 1989 Asia Pacific Singing Contest. She was initially apprehensive and skeptical of the idea of participating in another competition at that stage in her career. At Henares' urging she agreed to compete and won the contest in Hong Kong, performing the songs "You'll Never Walk Alone" from the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel and "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" from the musical Dreamgirls.

What was Regine's first experience singing?

OUT: After winning Ang Bagong Kampeon, Velasquez was signed to OctoArts International (now PolyEast Records).


IN: Judy Chicago (born Judith Sylvia Cohen, July 20, 1939) is an American feminist artist, art educator, and writer known for her large collaborative art installation pieces about birth and creation images, which examine the role of women in history and culture. By the 1970s, Chicago had founded the first feminist art program in the United States. Chicago's work incorporates a variety of artistic skills, such as needlework, counterbalanced with labor-intensive skills such as welding and pyrotechnics. Chicago's most well known work is The Dinner Party, which is permanently installed in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum.

While at UCLA, she became politically active, designing posters for the UCLA NAACP chapter and eventually became its corresponding secretary. In June 1959, she met and became romantically linked with Jerry Gerowitz. She left school and moved in with him, for the first time having her own studio space. The couple hitch hiked to New York in 1959, just as Chicago's mother and brother moved to Los Angeles to be closer to her. The couple lived in Greenwich Village for a time, before returning in 1960 from Los Angeles to Chicago so she could finish her degree. Chicago married Gerowitz in 1961. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1962 and was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. Gerowitz died in a car crash in 1963, devastating Chicago and causing her to suffer from an identity crisis until later that decade. She received her Master of Fine Arts from UCLA in 1964.  While in grad school, Chicago's created a series that was abstract, yet easily recognized as male and female sexual organs. These early works were called Bigamy, and represented the death of her husband. One depicted an abstract penis, which was "stopped in flight" before it could unite with a vaginal form. Her professors, who were mainly men, were dismayed over these works. Despite the use of sexual organs in her work, Chicago refrained from using gender politics or identity as themes.  In 1965, Chicago displayed work in her first solo show, at the Rolf Nelson Gallery in Los Angeles; Chicago was one of only four female artists to take part in the show. In 1968, Chicago was asked why she did not participate in the "California Women in the Arts" exhibition at the Lytton Center, to which she answered, "I won't show in any group defined as Woman, Jewish, or California. Someday when we all grow up there will be no labels." Chicago began working in ice sculpture, which represented "a metaphor for the preciousness of life," another reference towards her husband's death.  In 1969, the Pasadena Art Museum exhibited a series of Chicago's spherical acrylic plastic dome sculptures and drawings in an "experimental" gallery. Art in America noted that Chicago's work was at the forefront of the conceptual art movement, and the Los Angeles Times described the work as showing no signs of "theoretical New York type art." Chicago would describe her early artwork as minimalist and as her trying to be "one of the boys". Chicago would also experiment with performance art, using fireworks and pyrotechnics to create "atmospheres", which involved flashes of colored smoke being manipulated outdoors. Through this work she attempted to "feminize" and "soften" the landscape.  During this time, Chicago also began exploring her own sexuality in her work. She created the Pasadena Lifesavers, which was a series of abstract paintings that placed acrylic paint on Plexiglas. The works blended colors to create an illusion that the shapes "turn, dissolve, open, close, vibrate, gesture, wiggle," representing her own discovery that "I was multi-orgasmic." Chicago credited Pasadena Lifesavers, as being the major turning point in her work in relation to women's sexuality and representation.

When did she get married?

OUT:
Chicago married Gerowitz in 1961.