Tic Tac Toe

A blank plank of wood served as surface for a big painting (I haven't gotten around to measuring it) I began in February and resumed work on in April to offer it as birthday present for Butones, my grand-daughter. I'm hoping it lasts long enough so she can form an opinion about it when she learns to speak in sentences.

As of now, the acrylic-on-wood painting, which I've called "Tic Tac Toe Hally Hally Hoe," is hung in our porch in Baguio City and gets all naturally lit up by the morning sun. It makes for a colorful background for family pictures as these photos of my sister Suzy and the little gels show.

I thank my painting tutor Norman Chow for getting the muddle all sorted out in my head when I explained my idea for the work (he said he could figure out my incoherence because that was his work as a teacher), my spouse Rolly Fernandez for letting me use this piece of retazo wood idling in his basement, my assistants in detailing, Bianca Susi and Maylene Viray, who spent Holy Week with us in Green Valley, Baguio, to be around for Butones's birthday bash. There was no unveiling of said work, except here on this blog.

Juan Jose Cuadra, who used to answer to the name Jolicco when he wrote art reviews in the past, sent these comments through the email account of his partner Chikki Gomez, a.k.a.Auggusta de Almeidda, upon seeing past photos of my visual works in this blog: "Your childhood's deep pure innocence shows in your mature work. Innocence is important in art. All great artists have the grace of innocence in their art. It is an angelic gift, and I find it in your paintings. Nourish it well."

Grandma Sue carries Butones, Bianca stands at attention.

K stands for Butones's real name, Kai, while numbers 4 and 11 are  her birth date.

A tribute to Butones isn't complete without an elephant or two hugging her.

The full piece taken around 8 a.m. on a Friday morning.

Posing in front of work with the wee ones, Butones and Bianca

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Detail: That button nose, or should it be tomato-shaped nose?

Another detail: There's a frog in my throat!

We're dog persons, but stray cats are constants in our porch, too.

As for socks, mismatched, paired, orphaned, they're strewn all over the nursery when Butones has full run of the room.

Bianca insisted on polka dots, and after painting three or so dozens of them, she decided to drop her brush and join the trip to Camp John Hay. Guess who was left to finish her spot?

Somewhere in the painting is a symbolic figure of Grumpa Rolly who looks delighted by the sweet sunshine in his life. Photos by Babeth Lolarga

A refreshing art space in Laguna

From left:"Alamat ng Saging" and "Alamat ng Bayabas" 
by Brenda V. Fajardo; "Walang Llihim" by Imelda Cajipe-Endaya

Nineveh Artspace, the first and only art gallery in the capital town of Santa Cruz, Laguna, and the biggest in the province, comes as a breath of fresh air for the Manila-based visitor, especially on exhibition opening day. There is none of that cocktail-party artifice where one tries valiantly to view the works while maintaining a decent conversation and balancing a small plate of finger food on one hand.

Untitled sculptures from Paete Laguna; 
in the background, "Uniporme" by Jaypee Samson

At Nineveh, expect a mini barrio fiesta with similar performances from local choirs or dance troupes to keep the familiarity levels up. Food unique to Laguna is served like kalamay sa talulo, especially made in the town of Cavinti, mo-le (actually deep-fried balls of banana heart), akin to kare-kare  and ordered from Pila native Joe Lat, vegetable dishes and miki-bihon pancit.

These touches reflect the down-to-earth personality of Louie Sevilla, the moving force  behind the art space. Apart from teaching Philippine history, art appreciation and the Rizal course at St. Peter’s College Seminary in San Pablo City, he writes and directs plays, the most significant of which are variations of the senakulo (plays on the passion and death of Jesus Christ).

"Blind Item Series #4" by Brave Singh

He opened his home and made it part of the country’s gallery circuit “at a time when I was collecting artworks like mad and wanted to share this passion with others,” he says.

In bringing art to his residence, Sevilla says his friends tell him “it’s a joy to visit it every now and then because there’s something different each time.”

He was partly inspired by The Second Gallery in Angono, Rizal, owned by Totong Francisco who turned his garage into a display area, by a sampling of what gallery work is like when a set of paintings was loaned to him for a move-over show and by an opportunity to exhibit 13 Artist awardee Noel Soler Cuizon’s new works.

Clockwise: "Sa Akin ang Lahat" by Jeho Bitancor; "Sakada" by Nunelucio Alavarado 

and "Mnemosyne" by Noel Soler Cuizon

 Cuizon's show did it for Sevilla. By November 2003, Nineveh, a biblical name to mean both “root” and “dwelling,” opened its first solo and has since built up a track record of putting up at least seven simultaneous shows three to four times a year, or 21 shows yearly.

What sets Nineveh apart from other galleries in the country is the volume and variety of works, its big backroom and a nature space that is home to a number of plants and animals.

Sevilla says: “While we do have some artists who, by regularly exhibiting with us, have become identified with us, we don’t opt for exclusivity. We have encouraged many young artists to exhibit here, with some having their first solo here.”

The place has seven exhibition spaces with sizes suitable for a modest solo show to a bigger space for group shows.  Sevilla says: “If we were to accommodate two outdoor shows for outdoor sculptures, for instance, and allot one gallery space for two exhibits, there would be room for 10 simultaneous shows!”

"Banal na Aso" by Julius Samson

"Tanghalian" by Bernard  A. Vista

He chooses exhibiting artists whose works he appreciates and feels should be recognized by a wider audience. He examines works for the excellence in craftsmanship and the idea or philosophy being put across by the artist.

Sevilla quotes a departed friend, Bobi Valenzuela, who once said: “If a work moves you, then it’s good.”

This year, he upped the ante by also setting aside a room for the works of 13 Artists awardees, explaining, “While Nineveh would like to encourage young unknown artists, we need to show the works of recognized artists because these are what draw art aficionados to patronize the gallery. Moreover, exhibitions featuring the works of 13 Artists serve as models of excellence for beginning artists and the viewing public. Any one show has a mix of renowned and unknown artists. We invite students from elementary to collegiate levels to visit our exhibits to upgrade their knowledge of and taste in Filipino art.”

 From left: "Tured" and "Manag Ba-bain" by Brave Singh

Sevilla suggests these other spots to put in one’s Laguna cultural itinerary good for a weekend: Pila, a heritage town that is a perfect example of the Spanish colonial setup and renowned for its preserved turn-of-the-century houses; Lumban for its barong; Paete for sculptures and paper mache; Pakil for its church and the Danilo Dalena museum; the liturgical museum in Liliw; and the Underground Cemetery in Nagcarlan.

With this entire month dubbed as “La Laguna,” an arts and culture festival, it’s a good time to head south. Nineveh Artspace is at 2452 1st Avenue Villa Silangan Subdivision, Santa Cruz, Laguna.--Text and photos by Elizabeth Lolarga

First published in Vera Files/Yahoo Philippines, April 21, 2012. The current exhibits are on view until April 30.

Grand dame reading

For young reader Bianca Ysabel Lolarga Susi who turned 10 years old today

Of the hundreds of pictures that our grandmother, Telesfora Cariño Lolarga, arranged in her scrapbooks that have survived changes of residence, this one retrieved from one of her vintage suitcases stored in another Baguio house is a favorite.

On the Play List of this blog is a site called Awesome People Reading devoted to authors and celebrities doing just  that--reading hard copy (scripts, letters, magazines, pamphlets, newspapers and books, of course).

Lola's gesture of reading (she must have been in her 30s here in the original family home on Pepin street, Sampaloc, Manila, since then sold and demolished) is typically her, a woman who was both solitary and social.

Sometime between the years 1992 and early 1997, I bought Suzanne Juhaz's Reading from the Heart: Reading, Literature and the Search for True Love (Penguin Books, 1994). The title jumped out of a bin of yellowing titles in a Baguio bookstore (Nini and Pancho Lapuz's late lamented Legato) when I was full-time mother to two daughters, part-time freelancer and all-the-time reader. In the lulls when the kids were in school or I was waiting for a kettle to boil or the coffee to drip or giving up on the idea of doing the day's house cleaning and dusting, books were my refuge, haven of rest, escape and enduring passion. As they are today.

These days, I go into debt because of book purchases I cannot curtail. My priorities are all skewed, family members like to reprimand me.

And after I'm done with the last page, it's time to hand the title over to the next similar spirited reader or add it to a bundle of read books for turnover to a group that Prof. Delfin Tolentino Jr. put up in the 1990s--the Friends of the UP Baguio Library, friends who love the printed word enough to want to share their "loot."

I am reminded of the group because two nights ago, Rita Ledesma, fellow First Draft member, turned over to me two big and heavy bags of book for the University donated by her former grade school classmate, Pinky Farolan, another passionate reader. Thank you, Pinky and Rita--these books, once brought up to Baguio, will fill the hours of some incoming students there in the new semester. No frigate like a book, indeed.

Meanwhile, some lines from Ms. Juhasz's prologue describe how reading makes the real world tolerable. These lines explain why the people I read about, whether in fiction or non-fiction, have always been more real to me than the ones I live and have to deal with:

"Talking about books with other people is a delight, which may be one reason why I made it my profession. It complements those many hours spent alone with a book. And yet, reading isn't exactly solitary, either. I'm alone in the room when I read, but not in my mind. And maybe that's the key, because the society of the book--its world that I can enter, as well as the deeply intimate and always developing relationship with the author as the book incarnates her--keeps me from being lonely. I am lonelier in the real world situation I've just described--when no one seems to understand who I am--than by myself reading, when I feel that the book recognizes me, and I recognize myself because of the book."

That said, let me now get on with what supports my addiction--meeting a writing deadline.

Lost without Lani

Lost without Lani

A day told through poems of acceptance

A day told through poems of acceptance

Teaching and ‘mami-siopao’

Teaching and ‘mami-siopao’

Maningning lives anew in the Miclat family’s season of rebirth

Maningning lives anew in the Miclat family’s season of rebirth

Little bro no more

Traditional caption-writing goes from left to right. That's Eric, the brother I'm referring to in the title, with another sister, Pinky, and our Lola Purang. Taken at the old family home in Lower Brookside, Baguio City, summer of '68. Eric still likes wearing shorts, especially on weekends when he does his version of visita iglesia or mall hopping all over Ortigas Center. Brisk walking, badminton, basketball--all these activities crammed into his daylight hours. That's why he has never dealt with  unwanted body fat, unlike his other siblings. He also has the shortest first name among us. Poor Pinky who had to learn to write "Genevieve" when she was that high. I write this with the knowledge that Eric, Kerfwenk or Kwenk, turned 48 yesterday, has graying hair but still hasn't lost his childlike outlook. After I sent my SMS greeting from another part of Baguio where I've temporarily escaped from the Manila heat wave, he reminded me to bring down a loaf of raisin bread. That's why I love my little bro so. He doesn't ask much. B-)