It's a jolly holiday with Gilda

"Time for lunch. Waiting na kami," the SMS from Gilda Cordero Fernando went. The summons came while I was in a cab with a driver-road warrior who knew how to navigate the mean streets of Metro Manila to get me to Panay Avenue on time.

In time to find the hostess and her other guest, art organizer Trickie C. Lopa, enjoying a meal of fresh fruit salad, soup steeped in slices of chicken galantina, clam spaghetti, fish croquettes. They were midway, and I caught up in good time while GCF and I mapped out our art hop itinerary. The OC in her likes to write things down to make sure she doesn't forget. I take photos for the same reason.

We traveled in an old van that could fit Gilda's "stroller" from Quezon City to Makati. All for art! No wonder artists old, middle aged, young and still studying alike, love you, Gilda.

The most unique gate along the stretch of Panay Avenue features these images, not aliens, insects actually, painted by Dexter Fernandez.

The back of the gate that faces the inside of the compound

The Leandro Locsin-designed Cordero-Fernando art house with a lush garden planted and tended by Gilda's late husband Marcelo

Trickie and Gilda look at an image of the latest Gabby Barredo sculpture in the former's phone.


First stop: Four simultaneous solo shows at West Gallery. Aiko, Gilda's sidekick, and Gilda prepare the latter's "stroller"-cum-wheelchair

"Nestled in Love," oil on buffalo horn and skull by Henry Royales

Viewing Alwin Reamillo's "Mise en (matched) scene"

Details from one of Reamillo's Chinese scroll paintings. Could those be Bonifacio and Aguinaldo?

Reading a wall essay about Louie Cordero's art at Finale Art File

Studying Cordero's "Pattern for life's never-ending search for utopia"

"Ba't maganda ito? Cordero ito!" She holds up one half of a bookend (designed in the shape of a lamb or cordero) while waiting for another art show, Leeroy New's, to open in Greenbelt 5.

New's installation "Garden of Earthly Delights" at posh Greenbelt 5, an Altro Mondo-organized affair

Dr. Joven Cuanang, another passionate lover of art, tells us to hold each other for this photo with Gilda and art's darling Leeroy New.

Photos, except for the last, by Babeth Lolarga

Aze Ong takes crochet to the next level | Vera Files

Aze Ong takes crochet to the next level | Vera Files

Aze Ong's light, healing touch and crochet art

The last time I saw crochet artist Aze Ong, she was leading guests, mainly students and teachers, in a dance at the opening of the group exhibition called "Lima-lima" at the San Beda Museum in Alabang Hill in December last year.

She let the audience hold her "instruments" or wear her creations. I haven't quite forgotten that because pictures of that evening help me remember. I've also stored some of her words in my files.

That's Aze at left beating a rhythm with her hands as teachers let go

Aze once went through what she calls her "lost" period. It's nothing unusual for artists and writers. She went to Bukidnon during that period to do volunteer work so she could try living away from her comfort zone and her family. That period taught her resourcefulness and the ability to listen to the silence within and without. She lived atop a hill with a view of mountains, trees, vegetation. Sometimes she saw eagles. Wild sunflowers grew and thrived in the cool climate.

Living with the Talaandig tribe also made her see that "art and life flow together, that art is life seen in the rituals for harvesting, their marriage rites and birthdays. Dancing and singing--it's a way of life."

After processing that whole experience, one day she finally saw the light. She realized that she didn't  have to belong to a tribe to make art or to perform. She said, "I just follow my instincts and do it. This [immersion]  is an experience I always go back to and share with others. That sharing of yourself to others is the best gift you can give to them.This made me realize the beauty in imperfection. There is no perfect world, no perfect people. Imperfection makes it perfect!"

Her works bring to mind the colors of butterfly wings or what one imagines to be colors of angel wings. It's no coincidence that Aze believes that wings are the symbols of freedom. She says, "When we are enlightened, we are free."

Woman shakes an Aze-made percussion instrument.

Aze, the woman in purple, with fellow travelers and seekers. On the left wall are framed paper cuts of Sinag de Leon who's holding a papier mache horse (called taka in Laguna) with a decopage of her paper cuts.

Forest hugger Kay Malilong Isberto

The lawyer who paints to raise consciousness about our dwindling forest cover with her "Bantay Gubat" series

Now here’s a lawyer who makes that litigious profession shine: Kay Malilong Isberto. By continuing to make trees and forests the subjects of her paintings (she recently held a solo show at San Beda Museum in Alabang Hills, Muntinlupa City), Isberto is able to promote a passionate advocacy to overhaul Philippine forestry laws.

“I never thought of abandoning law [to be a full-time painter]. Painting was just another way [of expression] that if words did not work, maybe pictures will,” she said.

Last year, she met another visual artist, Aze Ong, while she was setting up for a solo exhibit at Likha Diwa in the UP Diliman campus. Ong asked her if she wanted to exhibit in another venue.  Her exhibit then at Likha Diwa was entitled “Rainforest Caravan.”

Without hesitating or even considering her load as lawyer and mother to young children, she immediately said “Yes!” without knowing where the venue was (in far-flung Alabang).

"Abundance 3",

8 x 10 inches, acrylic on canvas

She explained that she wanted to bring her forest advocacy to a wider audience. She submitted an exhibit proposal to San Beda Museum curator Joseph Renta. He challenged her, saying  that she just had a month to get ready.

She didn’t panic; instead, she focused on painting “until I felt I had enough to tell the story of the Rainforest Caravan. I painted as soon as I woke up and painted at least eight hours a day for the next found weeks. It helped that acrylic dries fast.”

Isberto, 38, who has degrees in economics and law from UP Diliman, had always been keen on the arts. She took an art workshop at age13 in Cebu under Meowix Flores, then another one at 17 that was run by fine arts students of UP Cebu. When her son took art classes under Mimsy Sermonia Jundis in 2008, she did some of the exercises that the workshop teacher gave him. The young mom also had a few drawing classes with Jundis.

This persistently studious woman was already working on her masters in art history, also at UP Diliman, but temporarily stopped when she got pregnant with her second baby in 2010.

As for her deep concern for the country’s dwindling forest cover, she said, “I worked on a project to amend the Philippine Forestry Code. I learned that our forest cover is estimated at 21 percent when the ideal should be at least 45percent or for some scientists, 54 percent. When I think about the implications of that for the future in terms of availability of clean air and water, biodiversity, prevention of landslides and the threats from climate change, I realized that we have to work fast to change paradigms about the forest and to act accordingly.”

While she worked on that draft bill, she realized that “the idea that the forest is valuable in itself, not merely as a source of timber, is abstract for a lot of people. It is so different from the attitude of indigenous peoples, the same attitude that chroniclers wrote about when the Spanish colonizers arrived here.”

"Orange Gypsy Dancer",

18 x 24 inches, acrylic on canvas

She added, “There was reverence and love for the forest. I thought that I should depict what the Philippines would look like if we found that love for the forest again. I imagined a Rainforest Caravan moving across the country. Through this, we could connect the forests and forest communities in the Philippines, share stories about them, including best practices on taking care of them, the hopes and dreams of communities taking care of them, and find ways for people in urban areas, even abroad, to help with forest conservation. Helping a forest community send children to school, for example, is one way to do that. When we make the lives of people taking care of the forest easier, we indirectly help take care of the forest.”

Isberto considered herself lucky because her husband Dominic is very supportive. “He not only buys my art materials, he gives me space and time for my forest advocacy and art,” she revealed.

Her  teenage son Francis Ruben critiques her work. “He and my toddler Leandro are daily reminders that I need to keep going on my forest advocacy,” she said.

She seizes opportunities “to tell the story of the forest and of the need to take better care of it.” The recent show at the museum was meaningful for her because she was able to reach more children and young people.

She said, “It is their future at stake. I want them to enjoy the ecosystem services that forests provide. If I can convince them of how important it is to love our forests and to take care of them, maybe they can influence the adults in their lives to act differently.”--Text and photos by ELIZABETH LOLARGA

First uploaded by Vera Files / Yahoo Philippines, Jan. 12, 2013.

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