Gilda's gift of time

The pose that says, "You want my picture? Hala, hmmmph!" She looks like she's about to dance the itik-itik.

When the subject of Gilda Cordero Fernando, writer and serious painter (no matter how she pooh-poohs the seriousness with which she applies herself to painting), comes up, sculptor Julie Lluch and I are one in agreeing on this. One of her best gifts (rare to find in other persons, no matter how especially endowed by God with gifts of creativity) is her ability to focus her being on you, beam at you as though you were the most important person seated across or beside her. That feeling she gives you enables you to feel that you are special and that the work you do is sincerely appreciated. Simply put, you emerge from her presence assured that what you are, what you say, what you do are all important.

She never gets on a high moral horse and imposes anything on you that she knows you can't and won't do. And I don't know if she's even aware of this: that she has saved and healed many lives, that she has enabled (yes, I will repeat the word "enable" again and again) artists and writers to realize their gifts and the lessons of their life experiences so they can flower and fully realize their potentials; of course, not in the same magnitude and breadth that she has done and continues to do.

Whenever I enter her home, a living gallery, via a lush garden now tended by her daughter-in-law Lilli Ann after Gilda's husband died, I'm reminded that it was she who tapped young architect Leandro Locsin when he was a newbie and was just building the circular Chapel of the Holy Sacrifice in the Diliman campus, to build her home in the '50s.

When I look at the Elmer Borlongan murals in her hallway and bedroom, I remember how the painter was also wet behind the ears when she commissioned him to do those ceiling-to-floor paintings. What other encouragement does one need when Gilda has, like I wrote, beamed her blessings on you?

Yesterday we met and I said after I saw her version of Mebuyan, "Gilds, ang galeng mo talaga gumawa ng mga dede." Her pert answer, as she points to her chest: "Expert ako dyan kasi wala ako."

Her forthcoming show's title, "Same Difference: Ganon pa din ang Diperensya," has her self-abnegating, laconic kind of humor, the kind that says hindi seryosohan ito but it (whatever she does) is actually serious.

And one can almost visualize her shrugging her shoulders to say, "It's more or less the same old stuff. Walang masyadong diperensya." Meaning, the paintings are all new, even the 1997 piece has never been exhibited, but the style carries over what she had already started with (and with such flair and fearlessness): the distortions of the human faces, the witty titles (like little short stories or flash fiction, as it's called these days), the references to sinaunang Filipino beliefs/folklore on the creation of the world and our own myths about strong women (Darna, Mebuyan the goddess with many breasts, etc.).

With Isa Lorenzo and Rachel Rillo

She went to Silverlens yesterday afternoon and, upon her invite, I tagged along to watch her tie up loose ends, price her paintings, interact with the galleries' Isa Lorenzo, Rachel Rillo, the Santos sisters Isabel and Carina (grandchildren of Mauro Malang Santos who is more or less her contemporary) and co-exhibitor Ryan Villamael whose work will occupy a smaller corner alcove independent of the space that Gilda's works will occupy. It's always a lovely sight to watch Gilda the Great Hugger interact with young artists and coax them out of their hesitation (that look of being intimidated because they're face to face with the maker of GCF Books, their classroom and library references in art school).

With the next generation of artists from the Soler Santos family whose group show with their father is still up until Tuesday next week. When Carina and Isabel were introduced to Gilda, she said, "Ang lolo niyo ang kilala ko!"

Gilda looks thrilled that Ryan Villamael, who's having a simultaneous solo exhibit with her at Silverlens, is "very guwapo," and there again is that warm embrace she gives openly.

Well, I need to apologize for this photographic documentation of that afternoon (it's the kind of apology Gilda makes when she mocks at her finished work). Her works are already under glass so I had to position myself in such a way that I didn't include the glare of the pin lights or my reflection in the pictures. At times I just focused on details of the works like the folded pieces of old terno and similar clothing materials pasted on the dresses of the female figures that added more texture to what could have been a flat work.

Mabuhay ka, Gilda! You will always be Ka Universe to me.

Photos by Babeth Lolarga

Gilda's exhibition opens July 10, from 6 to 9 p.m., at Silverlens Galleries, 2F YMC Bldg. 2, 2320 Don Chino Roces Ave. extension, Makati City. The show will run until Aug. 9.

Hats on!

It was time for old girlfriends to meet again on the last Thursday of April.This  happens four or five times a year, six on a good year.

Even if the distance from the mountain home to Manila amounts to 250 kilometers and some, I try with all my might to be present. (Do I hear grumbling from one end in the north? Nah! My partner in life knows that sending me off to attend ladies' lunches and suppers plus official work-related meetings is cheaper than two hours of decadent luxury in a spa, the full body treatment and some. Sitting around a table discussing manuscripts, projects and acting on them can be more rejuvenating, I've learned.)

First Draft is agreed that when it's Gilda's turn to pick a spot, you can be sure the ambiance is better than good, the food fit for the gods (sorry, blasphemy unintended).

Gilda introduces Jetro to the group.

Clockwise: Karina, Mariel, Lorna, Edna, Rita, Fe, Babeth and Gilda. 

We got the royal treatment all the way, even if I arrived in my summer shorts and Hawaiian shirt and barefoot (footwear is left outside the door). Jetro Rafael is the cook-proprietor of Van Gogh is Bipolar which is his home by day and restaurant by appointment by evening (it can only accommodate 12 persons; with eight of us there, that left only two other tables for the other diners who were separated from us by a beaded curtain)

He had small clip-on hats or hairbands for each of us. For awhile I was wearing out-of-season reindeer antlers, but they kept on hitting the low-hanging mobiles so Jetro lent me a dainty black feathered head-dress, which can't hold on to the little head of hair I have so I pinned it on my breast pocket.

Queenly Lorna with a sword-like shaft of light protecting her from behind.

Karina

Edna

Mariel

Rita

 Jetro I've met at his former tea laboratory at 10a Alabama in Cubao, Quezon City. We share and own our condition of bipolar disorder (manic depressive in the days of old). So Gilda's confirmation of our meeting's venue went something like "Van Gogh is Bipolar Like You." She isn't queen of sass for nothing.

Woman reading

That evening she read a fine piece whose title I dare not disclose for fear the others will pounce on me for disclosing our six-month-long project in the making. I used to do what Edna called "beadle duties" for the group, mainly recording attendance, even the menu (compulsive note-taker that I am), reminding members when the next meeting is or whose birthday is forthcoming.

It can be daunting, if you have 10 women who all have families to attend to, whose activities range from business, counseling, advocacy work in safeguarding press freedom and the environment to professional writing, editing and painting, etc. Getting ourselves to agree on a meeting date, time and place, then making adjustments, almost became a tertiary job for me. After seven years, someone had to take over.So beadle duty has been rotated among the others.

Where was I? The hats! Oh, that was Jetro's welcome touch followed by a welcome drink called Courtney Love's Potion (his dishes and drinks come with names of people who have our condition). If by strange fortune, you fall in love love with 'em food and drinks, they're not on the menu; Jetro cannot repeat them for you. He likes a creative challenge when doing his marketing, in choosing what is available and agreeable in different sources and in kitchen prep, cooking and plating. If this cook were a musician, he does improvisational jazz.

Courtney Love's Potion. Karina and Mariel look at Jetro's photos.

Where was I again? The Potion! It's made of fresh fruit extracts with wild honey. He paused when he presented our individual appetizers and tried to think of a name for it. Gilda piped in: "Babeth." And Babeth is dried pastrami with German white cheese and basil and lotsa pepper. How can Babeth be less than yummy?

Ain't it a dish? And it's called Babeth.

A "gigolo server", also a volunteer, not a paid waiter, came to serve us Virginia Woolf's Tears whose chemical components are supposed to inhibit anger and other negative emotions. It was a hearty wild turkey soup with banana chips and edible flowers.

For the main course, we had a choice of a Happy (emperor's fish with black rice) or a Chill Dish (slow-roasted, mouth-watering chicken). Most of us went for happy, but the chillers generously shared a small portion of their meat-based dish so we got a taste of what we would've missed out on.

Melting carabao's milk sorbet with nuts and a piece of fruit. I mixed this with the shot of dark chocolate on the right and ended up with milk chocolate. Mmmmmm!

The dessert to cap the evening: another came with a choice of wholesome (ice cream made out of fresh carabao's milk) or sinful (black chocolate in a shot glass to be consumed with amber-colored liqueur in a beaker). Have I already written that Jetro's presentation is a work of art each time? If I have, pinch me for repeating myself, but it comes with age, and we're women of a certain interesting age.

It was a lovely way to spend an evening, a way to mark First Draft's 10th year, with  individual women continuing their journey to become themselves...and something else. On evenings like these, even if we missed the company of Chit and Melinda, we feel like the komiks heroine Darna, soaring high and pregnant with ideas.

Photos, except for the topmost illustration found in the Web and the group shot by Jetro, were taken by Babeth Lolarga. Excuse the fuzziness--tried composing pictures only with available light. Van Gogh Is Bipolar is in the inner courtyard at 154 Maginhawa street, Sikatuna Village, Quezon City.