A painting to spare

Now framed, installed and proudly displayed in my brother Junic's family room in Calgary, Alberta, is this painting I began and finished in the Year of the Snake. The mouthful of a title is "In the Year of the Snake, a Pinay Abroad Dreams of the Green Grass of Home." It's from a series of acrylic works (I remember doing three variations, the main one I continue to use as the cover art for this blog) that pay tribute to the kerchief-wearing, working women of painter Anita Magsaysay Ho.

Junic said he'd try shooting photos of the work at night so there would be no reflections. That was Aug. 2. I guess he got too busy. But I am thankful for this documentation. Sometimes I wonder about these children of the mind and of the brush of mine that have found other homes.


I recently stumbled upon a poem, author unkown, that Magsaysay Ho supposedly lived by. It's called "The Art of Living." I quote it in full.

The Art of Living

To touch the cup with eager lips and taste, don't drain it
To woo and tempt and court a bliss and not attain it
To fondle and caress a joy, yet hold it lightly
Lest it become necessity and cling too tightly
To see the sunset in the West and not regretting
To hail its advent in the East, the night forgetting
To have enough to spare
To know the joy of giving
To heed response to every good in life is living.

A Pinay in Claude Monet's garden

This Pinay, inspired by the kerchief-covered heads of Anita Magsaysay Ho's farming and fisher folk, I painted in 2012 as a present for my balikbayan bro Junic who came home with his family (wife Amy and kids Sara and Christian) after an absence of over 10 years.

This was given in the spirit of "What can I give you, 'poor' as I am, if I were a carpenter, I'd give you animal shelter, if I were a wood cutter I'd gather fallen branches and not cut wood anymore, and if I were to pick just one European destination in my short bucket list, it would be Monet's garden in Giverny, France."

But since poems and short essays are not exactly tangibles that can be held as homecoming gifts, I painted this work. Bro got around to framing the work himself after it stayed rolled up somewhere in his house for some time. Today he grabbed a ready-made frame from IKEA. He'll send me more pics in the next days of my other works hanging in his Calgary digs. Photo by Junic Lolarga

Womanly, naturally

Two artists have been uppermost in my consciousness while working on this painting: Anita Magsaysay-Ho and Jerry Araos. 

The first I admire for the subjects that filled her canvases and watercolor paper for much of her career--women doing farm chores, selling chickens, getting together with friends for a relieving round of giggling, etc. Hard-core social realist painters may fault her for idealizing the back-breaking work that these women did, but she gave her kabaro a dignity they deserved.

Jerry I continue to admire for, among many qualities as a sculptor and gardener, his choice of women as subject of his wood torsos (only in his last show while still alive at the Crucible Gallery did he do a bakla series) and the way he planned his garden in Antipolo. There may have been a schematic drawing of his plans for the garden, but sometimes Jerry would just let himself be moved by his dreams and feelings--he just let things flow naturally until before he or the others knew it, he had envisioned and carried out a Bob Fosse pathway, a mandala with a seat of power, etc. 

So here's to both of you, Ma'am Anita and Jerry, a small tribute from a smaller painter who has kept you both in her mind's eye.

Thank you also to Norman Chow, the most patient art teacher and friend I know, for sorting out my sometimes incoherent thoughts when I get ready to paint. He said he gets me quickly precisely because he is a teacher. Love you, Teach!

For me the lotus is more than a flower. It is also symbolic of how a fragrant beauty like it can blossom out of stench and mud.

Adding the human figure, a bent woman, in the background

Putting the background of a restful blue

Adding the skin tones

Drying the acrylic on canvas work alongside the day's laundry (thanks, Kimi and Ate Mack)