'Collectibles' from Joy B

"I love writers who paint. To me, their works are collectibles."

Coming from Tony Perez, creative writer, playwright, poet, lyricist, painter, author of Tatlong Paglalakbay trilogy (Bombita, Biyaheng Timog and Sa North Diversion Road), Oktubre, Noong Tayo'y Nagmamahalan Pa, Noong Akala Mo'y Mahal Kita, among other titles, that's as good as a validation as any. He posted the comment after I shared a family photo showing Rolly, Kimi, Ida and myself in a rare moment together at the opening of my first solo show of paintings at Gallery Nine back in 2006 or "07.

By that time I was in the thick of Fine Arts studies and was taking art tutorials under Norman Chow at the same time. And painting was indeed a reason to live.

Recently, PR girl-art collector Joy Buensalido emailed me photos of works of mine in her collection. The thing with old works when you view them after a span of time and space is they never cease to amaze. I end up half chuckling while I tell and congratulate myself, "Did you really do that? You're not so bad, my friend!"

"Apples in Space," acrylic on canvas

"Landscape," acrylic on canvas From the collection of Joy Buensalido

Coloring is for all

This “Peter Pan market” has roots in publishing, beyond coloring books (the growth in sales of children’s and young-adult books to much older readers has been well documented), but it is far from confined to that arena.

Summer camps for adults, for example, have also gone from curiosity to viable enterprise. Following a near-death experience, Fidget Wigglesworth (birth name: Levi Felix), then the vice-president of a successful dot-com, turned off his phone and went backpacking for two and a half years with his partner, Brooke Dean; when they returned, in 2012, they founded Camp Grounded, a “Digital Detox” experience for which campers relinquish their electronic devices and engage instead in stargazing and sing-alongs...
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“Coloring is so accessible,” she told me. “It unleashes the creativity we all have in a way that’s quite safe.” - Adrienne Raphel, "Why Adults Are Buying Coloring Books (for Themselves)" found in today's www.newyorker.com

Kimi's "book" and her tentative strokes

By coincidence, my eldest child Kimi (no longer a child, really, she's 30) Kimi came home a few hours ago from National Bookstore with something that would "chillax" her from her online work: a coloring book. Her fear is she might get addicted to coloring books and not get any official work finished. Nah, Kimi has a Kai to support so she has to balance work and play.

Curly Kai wasn't going to be outdone. I pulled out a "spoiled" rubbercut print that I had done when I went to art school at the University of the Philippines Baguio and a tin box full of broken or used oil pastels and pencils, still not all dried up (keep 'em sealed always). One of our electives in the Fine Arts program was printmaking (then taught by Manolo Sicat).

Like I wrote in an earlier blog, I like partnering with Kai--this time I gave the given (not a blank canvas paper as I did over a month ago) and it's her turn to fill up the places and spaces with colors.

When I left her less than 30 minutes ago, she was still at it.

God bless James Barrie's eternal boy Peter Pan and whoever invented the adult coloring book. Also grandmas who don't immediately throw old works away. My rubbercut that has lemons and strawberries for its subject now has a life of its own, and it isn't wholly mine but Kai's, too.

Our curly-haired colorist giving life to an old black and white print Photos by Babeth Lolarga