Don Quixote
Don Quixote is one of my favorite literary characters. As a visual artist, a performance artist in particular, I identify with Don Quixote. I feel like him, always trying to explain that he has to do battle with the windmills for the sake of his love Dulcinea, when I try to explain to people what performance art is.
Over the weekend, I was at an art exhibit forum at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila. There, we as the exhibiting artists were made to explain our works. I represented our group, the Lunâ Art Collective. The consensus was that the exhibit, which was really more about artist groups than individual artists, had the common ground of trying to be relevant to the times.
Relevance in art is something that most artists don't really care to talk much about. For them, as for much of the public, relevance is really just another word for Quixotic.
Yet, our difference with Don Quixote is that while he didn't recognize the windmills for what they were, we do. We recognize that it is the windmills of the mind that our art battles with.
But this column is not about those battles. A battle that, by the way, was almost joined when a woman at the forum drew first blood by exclaiming that she didn't find anything particularly new with the works, that they were all so passé and it were as if we were not moving forward at all from the social realism of the 80's.
No, this column is not about that. This column is about how in such Quixotic gatherings there is bound to be a real Don Quixote around.
This Don Quixote didn't look anything like Don Quixote. He looked fit, on the short side, was deeply tanned and moved about with the confidence of a salesman. He was looking for George So, an artist from Davao, representing the Davao Artists' Foundation, another of the exhibiting groups.
Orly, bay, he says, holding out a hand with a sure grip. I had to look for you when I heard about this Davao group and that there was a representative here, he went on. George introduces me. We shake hands.
It wasn't immediately clear why Orly or Orlando Ongkingco was there except for an assumed interest in the arts. Soon, it became clear that he didn't have an interest. He had a passion. A Quixotic one.
I also work with an art form, he said. A traditional art form that, like many traditional forms we are losing because of disinterest on one hand, commercialization, paradoxically, on the other hand and mostly because of government neglect. Our neighbors in Asia celebrate this art form in annual festivals, complete with full government support, he continued.
He proceeded to take out a presentation folder full of newspaper clippings of such festivals and pictures of him participating in them. Jakarta, Brunei, Cambodia, Vietnam, he's been there. And, here, look, that's me with the Philippine Ambassador to France in one of my workshops there.
While he holds the official position of president of the Kite Association of the Philippines, and just recently, was elected the Deputy President of the Asean Kite Federation, that had just been recognized as an official accredited cultural organization by the Asean, he is really more the unofficial, self-appointed ambassador of the back to the traditional kite movement of the Philippines.
I helped Bear Brand when they first organized their kite festival, he revealed. But soon, he got disillusioned when it was clear that Bear Brand's interest was not in the kites but in selling their brand. Soon, he said, kids were looking up and saying, “hey, there's Bear Brand” and not, “hey, there's a kite.”
It is not just any kite that he is interested in, though he says that rekindling the interest in kite flying, especially kite making is a good start. His interest is in the traditional kite, that, if I recall right, is called the baki-baki locally. This is the kite with an oval body, a curved triangular fishtail and a pyramidal head. Sometimes, across the body is a bow with a string across that makes a humming sound in the air.
He doesn't make a living off it, but he does makes kites. So does his wife. People do come and ask for us to make special kites, special traditional kites which is our expertise, he explains. They can't compete, he admits, with cheap plastic Chinese kites. He doesn't want to. Theirs is business, ours is art.
We nod. We agree. Sally forth, brother. The windmills are waiting.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Sunday, February 25, 2007
02.27.07 art review
Material girl
If there is anything that the Fine Arts Program of UP Cebu is vaunted for it is its being the bastion of the mixed media practice in the local visual arts scene. And this has become even more entrenched in the last few years.
This has made some, – let's call them the sipra school of art -- to conclude – often snidely – that this has developed at the expense of technical facility in drawing, which, is not entirely the case, and, which, in any case, these mixed media artists – the sobra pa school -- would exclaim, is not the only point of art. Of, at least, their art.
Yet, every once in a while, comes a student whose work twits the presumptions of the sipraists and, while supporting the other school, also shows them that facility in or even mastery of drawing does not necessarily detract from the entire point of art but can, in fact, compliment it quite effectively.
Anchoring her work in portraiture, mostly of herself, Eloise Daniot deftly mixes her facility with oil portraiture – the gold standard of the sipraists – with mix media of a material that few of her fellow mix-media artists, student or professional, have explored or even considered.
Currently on exhibit and running till the end of the month at the Bluewater Gallery, Maribago Bluewater Beach Resort, in Mactan, 'Hulagway (Multiple Exposure)' is Daniot's thesis exhibit.
The show, somewhat sparse with just 9 works is contained only in the main gallery room where other previous exhibits spilled out into other spaces, mostly within the main restaurant across this gallery room.
Yet, this sparseness is the correct intuitive set-up of gallery operator-cum-curator, Vic Vergara. This is more than made up for by the studied intricacy and the plethora of both visual content, mostly biographical, and physical material, mostly related to textile and jewelry accessories.
There is just enough to keep us from becoming overwhelmed and, more importantly, maintains our sense of intimacy that Daniot tries to initiate with her intensely personal, even confessional explorations of her multiple roles, identities and challenges as a woman; single mother, recovering lover, career focused person and daughter.
Central to all the works are self-portraits in oil with clothes that are, in some, also painted, but in others with more elaborate clothing though only its front side. This is then surrounded by other painted or illustrated images and an intricate layer of cloth, objects – mainly fashion jewelry accessories -- and textile work related to quilting, appliquéing, and, in one work, a technique appropriated from a fellow accessories designer, using the soldering iron to create non-edge burning holes on cloth.
It is immediately apparent that Daniot is an experienced textile hand. That she sews clothes of her own design – for her exclusively use, for now – helps. But, it is with the fashion accessories that one appreciates her discipline that balances the necessary audacity, required balance and sought for practicality that lends her works its singular mark.
This has also catapulted her into the ranks of the successful in this extremely competitive, faddish and copycat industry. She has twice been adjudged among the top ten finalists in the Philippine Fashion Design Competition in the accessories category in 2005 and 2006/07.
This success is what we would somehow expect from somebody whose trajectory to the arts and design is from ambitions to become either a lawyer or a doctor, via a year in a medical technology course in pursuit, finally, though aborted, of the latter and a successful study of the violin.
This is also seen in her self-assured confidence in her works and in person.
Yet, what is also striking is how in many of her self-portraits, she is looking from a somewhat lower vantage point. She is looking slightly upwards, in a defensive manner, as if expecting the worse.
Listening to her story one sees her attempt to tell it in her art, but also, one realizes that she has more to say and that there is more angst beyond what amounts to pretty and extremely creative pictures that are in themselves not a problem unless they turn out to be just more masks. Yet, as the paradox of masks go, they might really be telling the truth. But, perhaps, more about us than the wearer. Thus, her hulagway, is ours as well.
If there is anything that the Fine Arts Program of UP Cebu is vaunted for it is its being the bastion of the mixed media practice in the local visual arts scene. And this has become even more entrenched in the last few years.
This has made some, – let's call them the sipra school of art -- to conclude – often snidely – that this has developed at the expense of technical facility in drawing, which, is not entirely the case, and, which, in any case, these mixed media artists – the sobra pa school -- would exclaim, is not the only point of art. Of, at least, their art.
Yet, every once in a while, comes a student whose work twits the presumptions of the sipraists and, while supporting the other school, also shows them that facility in or even mastery of drawing does not necessarily detract from the entire point of art but can, in fact, compliment it quite effectively.
Anchoring her work in portraiture, mostly of herself, Eloise Daniot deftly mixes her facility with oil portraiture – the gold standard of the sipraists – with mix media of a material that few of her fellow mix-media artists, student or professional, have explored or even considered.
Currently on exhibit and running till the end of the month at the Bluewater Gallery, Maribago Bluewater Beach Resort, in Mactan, 'Hulagway (Multiple Exposure)' is Daniot's thesis exhibit.
The show, somewhat sparse with just 9 works is contained only in the main gallery room where other previous exhibits spilled out into other spaces, mostly within the main restaurant across this gallery room.
Yet, this sparseness is the correct intuitive set-up of gallery operator-cum-curator, Vic Vergara. This is more than made up for by the studied intricacy and the plethora of both visual content, mostly biographical, and physical material, mostly related to textile and jewelry accessories.
There is just enough to keep us from becoming overwhelmed and, more importantly, maintains our sense of intimacy that Daniot tries to initiate with her intensely personal, even confessional explorations of her multiple roles, identities and challenges as a woman; single mother, recovering lover, career focused person and daughter.
Central to all the works are self-portraits in oil with clothes that are, in some, also painted, but in others with more elaborate clothing though only its front side. This is then surrounded by other painted or illustrated images and an intricate layer of cloth, objects – mainly fashion jewelry accessories -- and textile work related to quilting, appliquéing, and, in one work, a technique appropriated from a fellow accessories designer, using the soldering iron to create non-edge burning holes on cloth.
It is immediately apparent that Daniot is an experienced textile hand. That she sews clothes of her own design – for her exclusively use, for now – helps. But, it is with the fashion accessories that one appreciates her discipline that balances the necessary audacity, required balance and sought for practicality that lends her works its singular mark.
This has also catapulted her into the ranks of the successful in this extremely competitive, faddish and copycat industry. She has twice been adjudged among the top ten finalists in the Philippine Fashion Design Competition in the accessories category in 2005 and 2006/07.
This success is what we would somehow expect from somebody whose trajectory to the arts and design is from ambitions to become either a lawyer or a doctor, via a year in a medical technology course in pursuit, finally, though aborted, of the latter and a successful study of the violin.
This is also seen in her self-assured confidence in her works and in person.
Yet, what is also striking is how in many of her self-portraits, she is looking from a somewhat lower vantage point. She is looking slightly upwards, in a defensive manner, as if expecting the worse.
Listening to her story one sees her attempt to tell it in her art, but also, one realizes that she has more to say and that there is more angst beyond what amounts to pretty and extremely creative pictures that are in themselves not a problem unless they turn out to be just more masks. Yet, as the paradox of masks go, they might really be telling the truth. But, perhaps, more about us than the wearer. Thus, her hulagway, is ours as well.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
02.22.07 kulturnatib
The last tree standing
Labangon is one of the biggest barangays in Cebu City. That is also where our ancestral house is. Before I was born there was an even older, more ancestral house; a Spanish style house complete with an azotea. But that was torn down to make way for modernity; an American-style two-level house complete with a basement and a hole on the roof to accommodate a palm tree.
This was the house, that is still there now sans the palm tree, that I was born into. Yet, much older than both houses there were the trees, the fruit trees.
Last week, taking my mother back from lunch, I noticed that the last of those trees is finally dead. The remains are still there, but they are more a menace now, its branches liable to break in strong winds and fall on somebody's head or vehicle.
It surprised, even shocked me. It seemed like it wasn't that long ago when I noticed that it was still bearing fruit. But, nobody took the trouble anymore to gather these, not just because it was no longer safe to scamper up the already brittle branches, but mostly because the people living there were no longer interested in fruits, especially those that you gather yourself.
These people were the generation that came after us. They are the children of my siblings who still live in the compound in houses that trees had to make way for: Four big caimito or star apple trees, a guava tree, an atis tree, before a typhoon knocked it down, a tisa tree, and the tree that outlived them all, the tambis tree.
These trees were as much a part of our childhood as, particularly, the tambis tree was no longer a meaningful part in my nieces and nephews growing up, especially those who lived right next to it.
For us a game of tag was not just a simple matter of running and outrunning but a question of climbing and outclimbing. The trees whose branches were connected to each other by their proximity to each other and to the roof of the house making them somehow all connected were all one long extension of our playground.
Yet, more than making our games as challenging as it was enjoyable, they provided us with fruits. Their flowering clued us on to the approach of summer, to the end of school. By the time the fruits were ripening, we would be packing our school bags for summer storage.
The insane idea that children are supposed to be early Einsteins and have to be in some kind of school all-year round was unheard of in our time. Summer was for children, for playing, for eating fruit right there up on the branches as you pick them or at the dining table when you had a salad of chilled caimito with milk.
Aside from fruits, trees provided for medicine as well. The young guava leaf was best for chewing after a milk tooth had to be extracted or had fallen out as they often do. The atis leaf was also useful for treating minor aches. The caimito leaf was also treatment for something I no longer remember.
Of course, trees had their hazards. A cousin had the worse of it. He fell from one of the caimito trees. He tried to cushion his fall with his hand. But the fall broke his wrist instead. The wrist bone protruded right through his young flesh.
My worse brush with arboreal agony was with the hairy caterpillar, the til-as, that was part and parcel of the package of the tambis tree. These creatures cause the worst itch in the world. And how it liked to be scratched! Because, doing so only spreads the itch wider, often, to all the nooks and cranny of the body.
But they were a minor inconvenience compared to the joy of biting into a tree full of red, sweet, juicy tambis. Besides, a session at the shower took care of the itchiness which one needed anyway with the heat and clamminess of summer.
Now, the tambis tree is dead. Killed, by too much concrete, loneliness, not being appreciated enough, by being practically being left for dead.
It is now a headstone for our generation: Born – Sometime, Died – In No Time.
Labangon is one of the biggest barangays in Cebu City. That is also where our ancestral house is. Before I was born there was an even older, more ancestral house; a Spanish style house complete with an azotea. But that was torn down to make way for modernity; an American-style two-level house complete with a basement and a hole on the roof to accommodate a palm tree.
This was the house, that is still there now sans the palm tree, that I was born into. Yet, much older than both houses there were the trees, the fruit trees.
Last week, taking my mother back from lunch, I noticed that the last of those trees is finally dead. The remains are still there, but they are more a menace now, its branches liable to break in strong winds and fall on somebody's head or vehicle.
It surprised, even shocked me. It seemed like it wasn't that long ago when I noticed that it was still bearing fruit. But, nobody took the trouble anymore to gather these, not just because it was no longer safe to scamper up the already brittle branches, but mostly because the people living there were no longer interested in fruits, especially those that you gather yourself.
These people were the generation that came after us. They are the children of my siblings who still live in the compound in houses that trees had to make way for: Four big caimito or star apple trees, a guava tree, an atis tree, before a typhoon knocked it down, a tisa tree, and the tree that outlived them all, the tambis tree.
These trees were as much a part of our childhood as, particularly, the tambis tree was no longer a meaningful part in my nieces and nephews growing up, especially those who lived right next to it.
For us a game of tag was not just a simple matter of running and outrunning but a question of climbing and outclimbing. The trees whose branches were connected to each other by their proximity to each other and to the roof of the house making them somehow all connected were all one long extension of our playground.
Yet, more than making our games as challenging as it was enjoyable, they provided us with fruits. Their flowering clued us on to the approach of summer, to the end of school. By the time the fruits were ripening, we would be packing our school bags for summer storage.
The insane idea that children are supposed to be early Einsteins and have to be in some kind of school all-year round was unheard of in our time. Summer was for children, for playing, for eating fruit right there up on the branches as you pick them or at the dining table when you had a salad of chilled caimito with milk.
Aside from fruits, trees provided for medicine as well. The young guava leaf was best for chewing after a milk tooth had to be extracted or had fallen out as they often do. The atis leaf was also useful for treating minor aches. The caimito leaf was also treatment for something I no longer remember.
Of course, trees had their hazards. A cousin had the worse of it. He fell from one of the caimito trees. He tried to cushion his fall with his hand. But the fall broke his wrist instead. The wrist bone protruded right through his young flesh.
My worse brush with arboreal agony was with the hairy caterpillar, the til-as, that was part and parcel of the package of the tambis tree. These creatures cause the worst itch in the world. And how it liked to be scratched! Because, doing so only spreads the itch wider, often, to all the nooks and cranny of the body.
But they were a minor inconvenience compared to the joy of biting into a tree full of red, sweet, juicy tambis. Besides, a session at the shower took care of the itchiness which one needed anyway with the heat and clamminess of summer.
Now, the tambis tree is dead. Killed, by too much concrete, loneliness, not being appreciated enough, by being practically being left for dead.
It is now a headstone for our generation: Born – Sometime, Died – In No Time.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
02.15.07 kulturnatib
Harvests
At the SM City Cebu, in the area fronting Planet Xchange, on the same level with the Art Center, is the on-going exhibit 'Ani' or harvest. This is the second exhibit of the visual arts component of the celebration of the National Arts Month in the Visayas. The first one was the exhibit of Kitty Taniguchi of Dumaguete and Merlie Alunan of Tacloban. And, following this exhibit will be the architectural heritage show by the architecture department of the University of San Carlos.
This current exhibit brings together visual artists from all over the Visayas, which is among the thrusts for this celebration. The other art components are also trying to do this, to be as inclusive of as much of the Visayas as possible, but it would be safe to say that it is with the visual arts where this has been achieved most widely.
During our organizing committee meetings, where I sit as visual arts representative together with Palmy Pe-Tudtud, logistical challenges had always been pointed out as standing in the way of achieving this objective. Still, Palmy and myself decided to go ahead and invite other artists from the neighboring islands.
Here is where the true harvest is. Several harvests already, in fact. When we were planning for this exhibit, we immediately agreed that the best way to move ahead was to work with the art organizations; To invite the organizations and to have them choose among themselves the works to be exhibited.
These organizations are part of a network that are loosely grouped under the banner of the Visayas Islands Visual Arts or VIVA. Every two years these organizations get together for a conference and an exhibit. This has been done without interruption since 1992 when the inaugural VIVA ExCon took place in Bacolod, making this the longest-running event of its kind in the country.
With the exception of Bacolod that has hosted this biennial three times, this event has always been hosted by a different island. Early on, this had been agreed upon as one of the central commitments of this organization and the wisdom of this has been borne out by the consistent surge in artistic activity in the locality that plays hosts.
Through this network, the organizations are able to maintain cordial even fraternal relations with each other. This has made organizing Visayas-wide or intra-island exhibits less difficult as contact have been maintained, with people knowing who they are dealing with and knowing, more importantly, the usual conditions or requirements for such exhibits, unideal or burdensome as these may be.
Thus, not taking it for granted or considering it a given, when we invited them we still mentioned the fact that they will have to shoulder the cost for the shipping of their works and their own board and lodge should they decide to attend the opening of the exhibit.
There was no hesitation. Yes, we will join and some even said we will be there for the opening. And, they did join and some were present in the opening.
As a way of saluting these groups, let me thank them here: Alon of Dumaguete, La Consolacion College of Bacolod, Kasi-Kasi of Tacloban, Catbalogan Arts Association, Inc., Banig Eskaya and Piskay of Bohol, Kolor Sugbu, Cebu Arts Association, Inc., Binhi, Inc., Pusod, Inc., and Lunâ Art Collective of Cebu.
Still, there is another coming harvest. Next year, 2008, Cebu will once again be the host of the VIVA ExCon. This will be ten years after our first hosting in 1998. At that ExCon we gathered close to one hundred art works and exhibited them in three different venues around the city that lasted for a whole month. Attendance was also record high.
This shall be the hosting short of the 10th bianniversary of this biennial. The organizing committee will face many challenges, not the least of which is the rather high standard set in the hosting of 1998. Also many fundamental questions about art in the Visayas, in the Philippines and in the world need to be seriously looked into should the organizing committee take this path.
I have already signified my willingness to be part of this event as I was in 1998 though I am not certain to be here. All I know is, given enough care, what has been planted will be harvested. There are enough people who care. Of that I am sure.
At the SM City Cebu, in the area fronting Planet Xchange, on the same level with the Art Center, is the on-going exhibit 'Ani' or harvest. This is the second exhibit of the visual arts component of the celebration of the National Arts Month in the Visayas. The first one was the exhibit of Kitty Taniguchi of Dumaguete and Merlie Alunan of Tacloban. And, following this exhibit will be the architectural heritage show by the architecture department of the University of San Carlos.
This current exhibit brings together visual artists from all over the Visayas, which is among the thrusts for this celebration. The other art components are also trying to do this, to be as inclusive of as much of the Visayas as possible, but it would be safe to say that it is with the visual arts where this has been achieved most widely.
During our organizing committee meetings, where I sit as visual arts representative together with Palmy Pe-Tudtud, logistical challenges had always been pointed out as standing in the way of achieving this objective. Still, Palmy and myself decided to go ahead and invite other artists from the neighboring islands.
Here is where the true harvest is. Several harvests already, in fact. When we were planning for this exhibit, we immediately agreed that the best way to move ahead was to work with the art organizations; To invite the organizations and to have them choose among themselves the works to be exhibited.
These organizations are part of a network that are loosely grouped under the banner of the Visayas Islands Visual Arts or VIVA. Every two years these organizations get together for a conference and an exhibit. This has been done without interruption since 1992 when the inaugural VIVA ExCon took place in Bacolod, making this the longest-running event of its kind in the country.
With the exception of Bacolod that has hosted this biennial three times, this event has always been hosted by a different island. Early on, this had been agreed upon as one of the central commitments of this organization and the wisdom of this has been borne out by the consistent surge in artistic activity in the locality that plays hosts.
Through this network, the organizations are able to maintain cordial even fraternal relations with each other. This has made organizing Visayas-wide or intra-island exhibits less difficult as contact have been maintained, with people knowing who they are dealing with and knowing, more importantly, the usual conditions or requirements for such exhibits, unideal or burdensome as these may be.
Thus, not taking it for granted or considering it a given, when we invited them we still mentioned the fact that they will have to shoulder the cost for the shipping of their works and their own board and lodge should they decide to attend the opening of the exhibit.
There was no hesitation. Yes, we will join and some even said we will be there for the opening. And, they did join and some were present in the opening.
As a way of saluting these groups, let me thank them here: Alon of Dumaguete, La Consolacion College of Bacolod, Kasi-Kasi of Tacloban, Catbalogan Arts Association, Inc., Banig Eskaya and Piskay of Bohol, Kolor Sugbu, Cebu Arts Association, Inc., Binhi, Inc., Pusod, Inc., and Lunâ Art Collective of Cebu.
Still, there is another coming harvest. Next year, 2008, Cebu will once again be the host of the VIVA ExCon. This will be ten years after our first hosting in 1998. At that ExCon we gathered close to one hundred art works and exhibited them in three different venues around the city that lasted for a whole month. Attendance was also record high.
This shall be the hosting short of the 10th bianniversary of this biennial. The organizing committee will face many challenges, not the least of which is the rather high standard set in the hosting of 1998. Also many fundamental questions about art in the Visayas, in the Philippines and in the world need to be seriously looked into should the organizing committee take this path.
I have already signified my willingness to be part of this event as I was in 1998 though I am not certain to be here. All I know is, given enough care, what has been planted will be harvested. There are enough people who care. Of that I am sure.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
02.08.07 kulturnatib
Back to basics
Twenty years ago, I bought a classical guitar. This was not my first guitar though it could very well be my last. The first one I bought was a folk acoustic guitar in the pattern of the Martin Dreadnought, which, at that time, with folk singing enjoying the popularity that videoke does today, this guitar type was fairly common though the Dreadnought in particular was not, at least locally.
This guitar did not survive the transpacific crossing I subjected it to not long after I bought it. But, it was not because of weather difference, though the maker was quiet interested to find out as this was his first guitar to be subjected to such a test.
It was, unexpectedly, a more pedestrian force; human frailty. Somebody tried to steal it. Forcible entry was written all over the locks and the stays of its hard case. Finding that it was stringless – I was advised to remove the strings to increase its chances in the airplane's unpressurized cargo hatch – the theft wasn't consummated, though, I guess, in the hurry to return it in the case the rib or side got damaged.
The airline paid up for the damage without fuss, save one requirement: That I have a guitar maker or a luthier certify my claim. I found one who, in the course of making the certification, said the guitar was very well made and would have very possibly done well even in winter. Music, surely, to the original maker's ear, though I'm not sure I told him.
As subsequent circumstances turned out to be less than what I expected or was led to believe, the money claim came in handy. I even had enough left over to buy guitar number two. It was another folk acoustic though a bit smaller and far cheaper by the standards of the original Dreadnought.
When it was time for me to return, I sold that guitar knowing that with the money I could buy another and better hand-crafted guitar locally.
I did. But, not right away. In the meantime, my interest had veered from folk to the classical guitar, a more mature instrument, I thought and, eventually, to this guitar that is still with me twenty years later and showing its age. Not just in the darkening of the varnish, the scratches in the table or face and back, but in its fuller, more nuanced and mature tone, which is the hallmark of all good wooden instruments.
So, with instrument in hand, some lessons in tow, I got married. It did not last. I lost the marriage, but kept the guitar.
Twenty years later, I have remarried.
At the wedding reception we had a duet play. Martin on the flute and William on the guitar. Both are my friends, though I've known Martin longer. They were the perfect combination for an intimate gathering of close friends.
A week later, I saw William. Without hesitation and with a decisiveness that surprised me, I approached him and said, – blurted out really because at that time it seemed like a spur of the moment kind of thing though, looking back, I realize that I had been thinking about this – “I want you to teach me classical guitar.”
“What do you want to learn?”
“Tarrega's Recuerdos del Alhambra.”
“Ah, that's rather challenging, I don't think I have played that piece in its entirety, besides I have now taken up jazz guitar, but, if you're really determined and can set aside time to practice daily, I can help you.”
I was late for the first class. Some hangover Sinulog street dancing blocked traffic near Babag, Lapu-lapu City where William lives. He led me to their house. The living room was strewn with musical instruments. I felt at home already.
During a break, William takes out a music sheet and starts playing. It was the Recuerdos del Alhambra. He doesn't finish. Sorry, he apologizes, no practice. No, I thought, don't be. I will finish it for you. I will finish it, but it will not end.
Not this time around.
Twenty years ago, I bought a classical guitar. This was not my first guitar though it could very well be my last. The first one I bought was a folk acoustic guitar in the pattern of the Martin Dreadnought, which, at that time, with folk singing enjoying the popularity that videoke does today, this guitar type was fairly common though the Dreadnought in particular was not, at least locally.
This guitar did not survive the transpacific crossing I subjected it to not long after I bought it. But, it was not because of weather difference, though the maker was quiet interested to find out as this was his first guitar to be subjected to such a test.
It was, unexpectedly, a more pedestrian force; human frailty. Somebody tried to steal it. Forcible entry was written all over the locks and the stays of its hard case. Finding that it was stringless – I was advised to remove the strings to increase its chances in the airplane's unpressurized cargo hatch – the theft wasn't consummated, though, I guess, in the hurry to return it in the case the rib or side got damaged.
The airline paid up for the damage without fuss, save one requirement: That I have a guitar maker or a luthier certify my claim. I found one who, in the course of making the certification, said the guitar was very well made and would have very possibly done well even in winter. Music, surely, to the original maker's ear, though I'm not sure I told him.
As subsequent circumstances turned out to be less than what I expected or was led to believe, the money claim came in handy. I even had enough left over to buy guitar number two. It was another folk acoustic though a bit smaller and far cheaper by the standards of the original Dreadnought.
When it was time for me to return, I sold that guitar knowing that with the money I could buy another and better hand-crafted guitar locally.
I did. But, not right away. In the meantime, my interest had veered from folk to the classical guitar, a more mature instrument, I thought and, eventually, to this guitar that is still with me twenty years later and showing its age. Not just in the darkening of the varnish, the scratches in the table or face and back, but in its fuller, more nuanced and mature tone, which is the hallmark of all good wooden instruments.
So, with instrument in hand, some lessons in tow, I got married. It did not last. I lost the marriage, but kept the guitar.
Twenty years later, I have remarried.
At the wedding reception we had a duet play. Martin on the flute and William on the guitar. Both are my friends, though I've known Martin longer. They were the perfect combination for an intimate gathering of close friends.
A week later, I saw William. Without hesitation and with a decisiveness that surprised me, I approached him and said, – blurted out really because at that time it seemed like a spur of the moment kind of thing though, looking back, I realize that I had been thinking about this – “I want you to teach me classical guitar.”
“What do you want to learn?”
“Tarrega's Recuerdos del Alhambra.”
“Ah, that's rather challenging, I don't think I have played that piece in its entirety, besides I have now taken up jazz guitar, but, if you're really determined and can set aside time to practice daily, I can help you.”
I was late for the first class. Some hangover Sinulog street dancing blocked traffic near Babag, Lapu-lapu City where William lives. He led me to their house. The living room was strewn with musical instruments. I felt at home already.
During a break, William takes out a music sheet and starts playing. It was the Recuerdos del Alhambra. He doesn't finish. Sorry, he apologizes, no practice. No, I thought, don't be. I will finish it for you. I will finish it, but it will not end.
Not this time around.
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