It felt nice making a retirement speech, as if! :) No, I am far from even touching that treasure chest of vast wealth of knowledge and experience that comes with retirement, but was excited to do one for my father-in-law, a very dedicated pre-school teacher who's scheduled to retire this coming December-- but of course his employer requested him to stay on for at least 6 more months. Masipag kasi ang Pinoy kaya malaking kawalan kung Filipino teacher ang mawawala sa kanila. Parang 3-4 na tao daw kasi ang katumbas ayon sa ilang nakausap kong nag-eempleyo ng Pinoy sa ibang bansa. From experience and from those of family and friends working abroad, I would say that it's pretty accurate. Anyway, here's the draft.
For Papang..
Good morning/afternoon/evening everybody. Thank you all for being here with us today.
The idea of retirement brings on so many different feelings for me, and so to keep my little speech short, I have decided to read to you what I have to say today. Otherwise, I might be too overwhelmed and talk all day/night about my 45 years of teaching and be remembered as the teacher who bored you all to sleep with his speech before he retired.
Anyway, I just would like to take this chance to share with all of you some thoughts that I have collected from my experience over the years:
1) A Filipino hero called Dr. Jose Rizal once said that “The children are our future”, and if this is true, then teaching, is really a noble profession, because parents (parents please remember that you are your children’s teachers too!) and teachers like us who guide the young ones have the wonderful privilege and great opportunity to shape the future.
2) Because of this great privilege, the responsibilities of teachers then go beyond teaching A,B,C’S or 1,2,3’s. We then must also try to teach our little ones
a. To always DO the best they can;
b. To BE the best they can; and
c. To try to BE A GOOD PERSON as best as they can.
3) We, as adults also have to remember that what our children learn in their early years, they will bring with them as they grow up. There is a nice book entitled All I Really Need to Know I learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum [that I have been sharing with my son all these years] which talks about this, and what the author says there really makes sense—that if we take what is taught in kindergarten like sharing everything, playing fair, not hitting people, putting things back where you found them, cleaning up your own mess, not taking things that aren’t yours, saying you’re sorry when you hurt somebody, washing your hands before you eat, flushing, warm cookies and cold milk are good for you, living a balanced life, and many other basic things like love, the Golden Rule (which tells us to treat others as we want to be treated), and cleanliness and apply them in our adult lives, life might be more orderly, simpler and happier. We don’t have go to graduate schools to have wisdom, because wisdom might just be there, waiting for us in the sand pile at our children’s school.
With this, I would like to sincerely, thank you all--- my superiors, my fellow teachers, all the parents, guests, and most of all, the wonderful children who have been a part of my life and made me a part of theirs too—one way or another. As I have said earlier, retirement from teaching brings on many different feelings for me. Sadness, because I will be leaving behind the people—big and small --that I have fondly worked with; and at the same time—fulfillment, because I know that I have shared the best I could with you and with your children, and finally--happiness, because now I would be able to spend more time with my family, specially my grandson and four granddaughters who are all, by the way, aged between 4-8 years old. And though I would be moving on and would no longer be here with you very soon, as I share with my own grandchildren the same happy thoughts and humble knowledge that I have shared with you and all our children here, you will all be warmly remembered for sure. Again, thank you and good night!
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Sunday, January 30, 2005
Why Our Lady of Sorrows School is Important to Me
Had to sprint this little piece for my niece at the request of my doting mother-in-law. This piece is supposed to be an "example" for a requirement. Shortcut if you will. Sure it would have been great if the kid did this on her own, no doubt about that, but that's not my point. What I'm driving at is this. It never fails to put a smile to my face whenever I see ates, kuyas, parents, grandparents and other relatives personally supervising the "learning process" of the children in the family. I remember my mom literally breathing down my neck in the early evening, as soon as she gets home from work, to check if I did my homeworks correctly-- of course to explain things if i did not, and to cheer me on if I did. I miss those pat on the backs, as most times in our adult life, we have to pat our backs ourselves.
For Riz
Being with my classmates and friends is fun,
I enjoy stories, snacks and playing under the sun.
But everyday that I'm in school,
I'm always learning things, which I think is cool.
I learn about words, numbers, and reasons,
Including manners and christian values for all seasons.
My teachers are all helpful and nice,
Teaching me about God and Jesus Christ.
Here, I'm happy and content as a kid can be,
And this is why the Our Lady of Sorrows School is special to me...
For Riz
Being with my classmates and friends is fun,
I enjoy stories, snacks and playing under the sun.
But everyday that I'm in school,
I'm always learning things, which I think is cool.
I learn about words, numbers, and reasons,
Including manners and christian values for all seasons.
My teachers are all helpful and nice,
Teaching me about God and Jesus Christ.
Here, I'm happy and content as a kid can be,
And this is why the Our Lady of Sorrows School is special to me...
Sunday, October 10, 2004
lesson number two
Don't complain. Do something creative to help.
Sometimes waiting for a child to learn will take time, and of course, parents as the first and most important teachers need to lovingly intervene--not only to encourage effective learning, but to help their children feel good about themselves. Sometimes children are branded as "slow learners" or as "problem children". It really gets to my skin. I really believe that children are blessings and if there ever is a "problem" kid, then it is easier to believe three things: 1. There is a problematic environment; 2. There is a "problem" parent, and; 3. There is a problematic teacher. Sounds too harsh for us adults, doesn't it? I mean, I'd be disturbed if people I care about, students included, labeled me as problematic, worst if my own kid thought of me as a "problem" mom. Imagine if a young kid hears or reads that he's considered a "slow learner" or a "problem child".
We're adults, parents, teachers, uncles, aunties, and friends. It would be nice if we can wait for the kids to learn by themselves, but if we're too impatient, growling at them wouldn't do too much good. Maybe we can show them how things are "usually" done , and walk them through their own learning pace or style patiently. At least we'd have done more than complain too much, and if we're lucky, we might strike a cord, and be part of a child's blooming process.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your lifeYou were only waiting for this moment to be free
Blackbird fly
Blackbird fly
Into the light of a dark black night
[Beatles]
Sometimes waiting for a child to learn will take time, and of course, parents as the first and most important teachers need to lovingly intervene--not only to encourage effective learning, but to help their children feel good about themselves. Sometimes children are branded as "slow learners" or as "problem children". It really gets to my skin. I really believe that children are blessings and if there ever is a "problem" kid, then it is easier to believe three things: 1. There is a problematic environment; 2. There is a "problem" parent, and; 3. There is a problematic teacher. Sounds too harsh for us adults, doesn't it? I mean, I'd be disturbed if people I care about, students included, labeled me as problematic, worst if my own kid thought of me as a "problem" mom. Imagine if a young kid hears or reads that he's considered a "slow learner" or a "problem child".
We're adults, parents, teachers, uncles, aunties, and friends. It would be nice if we can wait for the kids to learn by themselves, but if we're too impatient, growling at them wouldn't do too much good. Maybe we can show them how things are "usually" done , and walk them through their own learning pace or style patiently. At least we'd have done more than complain too much, and if we're lucky, we might strike a cord, and be part of a child's blooming process.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your lifeYou were only waiting for this moment to be free
Blackbird fly
Blackbird fly
Into the light of a dark black night
[Beatles]
Friday, October 01, 2004
Friday, May 28, 2004
The Semantics of Grabe
Filipinos watching noontime shows are familiar with the expression grabe na ‘to, referring to the unbelievable feats a contestant has to complete to win the cash prize. Taglish-speaking collegialas say grabe ever so often that it is usually said when they can’t think of anything to say. In jest, it is also spoken in an exaggerated way to make fun of these collegialas, or the controversial women associated with this term—Kris Aquino and Ruffa Gutierrez.
Though grabe can accurately respond to the hardness of its homonym graba- which actually are hard cut rocks used in construction, this superlative effectively expresses the gravity of any situation. It could be very useful in one’s very active and exciting life, and quite confusing too, as this simple five-letter word could mean anything under the sun—and everything to this nameless student.
A student prepares for school early in the chilly morning, and the water heater is broken. Graaabe! One would be squealing it as if life depended on it, to distribute the body shock as the almost ice-cold water hits the skin. Then the student drives to school and can’t help but mutter grabe as she is welcomed by the frustration traffic. As soon as she enters the room, the teacher shouts and slams the door on her. She’s late. Embarrassed, she mouths it without any sound. Grabe. She then goes to her next class and the teacher hands out the midterm exam results. She gets a perfect score and in her elation, smilingly says it. Her classmates meantime verbalize their disbelief, admiration, and even envy. GRABE! She goes home and hurriedly runs to tell the good news to her significant other and twists her ankle in the process. She screams GRAABEE!!, as the pain shoots sharply in her lower extremity. She gets to her house eventually, and learns that her other half still has a meeting to attend to. Grabe. Disappointing. Her son wakes up from his nap and hears her, runs to her as usual kisses her and says ‘Mama, you’re beautiful. I miss you!’. Grabeee! How sweet! She smiles as if she just won the Miss Universe Beauty Pageant. Then they play tag and guess who runs out of breath? Grabe, she tiredly gasps. Panting like a dog, she realizes that she cannot even outrun nor out tire her terrible-two toddler, who can also be described as simply GRABE. Then the “good husband” comes home, kisses them both then whispers something naughty to the gasping mommy, who is by now gasping and giggling at the same time. Grabe! So funny! What’s that smell? GRAAAABEEEE!!! She panics when she saw the smoke in the kitchen! Yayks! The tinola has transformed into an inihaw na manok! GRABE KA! Her “sweetheart” angrily shouts at her. She then turns her heels and slams the bedroom door. He soon follows her and consoles her with a sweet Grabe ka naman, as he embraces her. He then goes to the kitchen and takes out canned sardines. Resignedly muttering, with a smile—hay grabe.
Anyway, what happens next to that student nobody knows, but this I do know. The semantics of grabe is like clay. Sure it is a general superlative, but the beauty of it lies in that anybody can take it as their own and mold it to comfortably suit what they need to express—be it the bliss of that first stick of cigarette after two weeks abstinence, or the thirst quenched by that ice-cold beer on a hot summer day, or hunger satiated by that delectable succulent steak, or the panic caused by the volume of backlogs that you have(in school and at home), or the appreciation for your recent enrolment in school after a long vacation, or the sleepless nights after a fight, or the unbelievable ecstasy when bodies and souls unite, or the breathless minutes that follow it, or the pains of the scars of the past that haunts you on cold quiet nights, or the contentment brought by a child’s embrace.
Ah grabe. It seems so easy to forget that it can also be used, more importantly, to articulate our gratitude to that super being that never tires of just being there for us—letting us live and breath, and express ourselves sensibly, even just through a single word that can tell the stories of our lives…GRABE.
Though grabe can accurately respond to the hardness of its homonym graba- which actually are hard cut rocks used in construction, this superlative effectively expresses the gravity of any situation. It could be very useful in one’s very active and exciting life, and quite confusing too, as this simple five-letter word could mean anything under the sun—and everything to this nameless student.
A student prepares for school early in the chilly morning, and the water heater is broken. Graaabe! One would be squealing it as if life depended on it, to distribute the body shock as the almost ice-cold water hits the skin. Then the student drives to school and can’t help but mutter grabe as she is welcomed by the frustration traffic. As soon as she enters the room, the teacher shouts and slams the door on her. She’s late. Embarrassed, she mouths it without any sound. Grabe. She then goes to her next class and the teacher hands out the midterm exam results. She gets a perfect score and in her elation, smilingly says it. Her classmates meantime verbalize their disbelief, admiration, and even envy. GRABE! She goes home and hurriedly runs to tell the good news to her significant other and twists her ankle in the process. She screams GRAABEE!!, as the pain shoots sharply in her lower extremity. She gets to her house eventually, and learns that her other half still has a meeting to attend to. Grabe. Disappointing. Her son wakes up from his nap and hears her, runs to her as usual kisses her and says ‘Mama, you’re beautiful. I miss you!’. Grabeee! How sweet! She smiles as if she just won the Miss Universe Beauty Pageant. Then they play tag and guess who runs out of breath? Grabe, she tiredly gasps. Panting like a dog, she realizes that she cannot even outrun nor out tire her terrible-two toddler, who can also be described as simply GRABE. Then the “good husband” comes home, kisses them both then whispers something naughty to the gasping mommy, who is by now gasping and giggling at the same time. Grabe! So funny! What’s that smell? GRAAAABEEEE!!! She panics when she saw the smoke in the kitchen! Yayks! The tinola has transformed into an inihaw na manok! GRABE KA! Her “sweetheart” angrily shouts at her. She then turns her heels and slams the bedroom door. He soon follows her and consoles her with a sweet Grabe ka naman, as he embraces her. He then goes to the kitchen and takes out canned sardines. Resignedly muttering, with a smile—hay grabe.
Anyway, what happens next to that student nobody knows, but this I do know. The semantics of grabe is like clay. Sure it is a general superlative, but the beauty of it lies in that anybody can take it as their own and mold it to comfortably suit what they need to express—be it the bliss of that first stick of cigarette after two weeks abstinence, or the thirst quenched by that ice-cold beer on a hot summer day, or hunger satiated by that delectable succulent steak, or the panic caused by the volume of backlogs that you have(in school and at home), or the appreciation for your recent enrolment in school after a long vacation, or the sleepless nights after a fight, or the unbelievable ecstasy when bodies and souls unite, or the breathless minutes that follow it, or the pains of the scars of the past that haunts you on cold quiet nights, or the contentment brought by a child’s embrace.
Ah grabe. It seems so easy to forget that it can also be used, more importantly, to articulate our gratitude to that super being that never tires of just being there for us—letting us live and breath, and express ourselves sensibly, even just through a single word that can tell the stories of our lives…GRABE.
Sunday, January 18, 2004
What is Philippine Traditional Arts?
One can easily be misled into thinking that Philippine Traditional Arts refer only to those arts that are also known as “tribal arts”. And why not since the implements crafted by our indigenous groups are indeed, more often than not, considered as traditional arts?
On close scrutiny however, of the phrase itself—Philippine Traditional Arts--, we can infer that these arts, as tradition goes, are practiced by particular communities, used in their everyday life, passed on from generation to generation, and are shaped by their way of life. Based on this inference, there appears to be no discrimination then as to class, region, or tribe. All things in consideration then, this could mean that even those practiced or made by Filipinos in Manila during American colonial period can qualify.
What are these traditional art things exactly? As these reflect the way of life of a community from generation to generation, these arts also mirror the things that these communities use in their everyday living. These include implements for cooking like pots, bowls, baskets, jars. Clothing, textile art, blankets, musical instruments, architecture, wood carvings, jewelries, tatoos, metalworks are also considered traditional arts. However, traditional arts are not only limited to those which are material in nature. The dances, songs, literature, music, and rituals practiced by people living in a particular area and period are also part of the arts defined by tradition, as it is part of their way of life.
In my opinion, these traditional arts can be considered as “endangered species” already for several reasons. One most important is that the preservation of these arts are not really taken cared of by those who should—be it the government or the people themselves. What happens then is that the “ways and the why’s of making” usually sadly dies with the old makers of these arts, like the weavers of Cordillera. The younger people in search of “greener pasture” opt to go to the cities and never learn the art. Probably, it is also because their way of life is also changing (as they want it to), as their exposure to the Western world expands via tourism, television, cable, music videos, radio, etc.
However, these arts are our treasure too-- something that we can tell or hopefully still share with our children in the future. Speaking for myself, I need to understand all the part and parcels of my culture, to fully understand who I am as a Filipino. For this reason, I believe that we have to protect the Philippine Traditional Arts, because we, the world, and the children of the future, need to hear the true story not only of our cultural or political history, but of who we are as a people.
On close scrutiny however, of the phrase itself—Philippine Traditional Arts--, we can infer that these arts, as tradition goes, are practiced by particular communities, used in their everyday life, passed on from generation to generation, and are shaped by their way of life. Based on this inference, there appears to be no discrimination then as to class, region, or tribe. All things in consideration then, this could mean that even those practiced or made by Filipinos in Manila during American colonial period can qualify.
What are these traditional art things exactly? As these reflect the way of life of a community from generation to generation, these arts also mirror the things that these communities use in their everyday living. These include implements for cooking like pots, bowls, baskets, jars. Clothing, textile art, blankets, musical instruments, architecture, wood carvings, jewelries, tatoos, metalworks are also considered traditional arts. However, traditional arts are not only limited to those which are material in nature. The dances, songs, literature, music, and rituals practiced by people living in a particular area and period are also part of the arts defined by tradition, as it is part of their way of life.
In my opinion, these traditional arts can be considered as “endangered species” already for several reasons. One most important is that the preservation of these arts are not really taken cared of by those who should—be it the government or the people themselves. What happens then is that the “ways and the why’s of making” usually sadly dies with the old makers of these arts, like the weavers of Cordillera. The younger people in search of “greener pasture” opt to go to the cities and never learn the art. Probably, it is also because their way of life is also changing (as they want it to), as their exposure to the Western world expands via tourism, television, cable, music videos, radio, etc.
However, these arts are our treasure too-- something that we can tell or hopefully still share with our children in the future. Speaking for myself, I need to understand all the part and parcels of my culture, to fully understand who I am as a Filipino. For this reason, I believe that we have to protect the Philippine Traditional Arts, because we, the world, and the children of the future, need to hear the true story not only of our cultural or political history, but of who we are as a people.
Monday, July 28, 2003
An Integrative Paper on Approaches to Art History
Art as a Cultural System
It has been said that an object has value depending on a person’s perception. One makes meaning out of something and this is in relation to the way he/she sees things, which are first and foremost, affected by personal experiences which are shaped by the relationships that he has gone through, the joy and suffering he has felt, the values instilled in him, the state of the community and society in which he belongs to, and all other stimuli which affects his thoughts and convictions. This is made clearer by John Berger in Ways of Seeing, where he posits: “The way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe. x x x We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves.”[i]
When I was younger, I was taught that there were different kinds of art –the fine arts (which refers to the Western idea of fine arts), and the crafts (of which the Philippine traditional arts were included along with our elementary art projects). Meaning, if I can produce paintings and sculpture, I will be considered an artist, and if I can do wonderful, breath-taking weaving(or embroidery, which I do pretty well), I will be seen as a “creative person”. Not that there was no honor in being creative, it was just that it seemed then that the recognition was not complete, and the nagging thought that some arts are just not “art enough” because they are not included in the “fine arts”.
Studying art today, I have become more aware of the western influences and biases that we have lived through and still continue to experience today. I am not going to bark on them and condemn them for throwing their weight about and harnessing the “colonial mentality” that I, like most Filipinos, have been guilty of. After all, it is just not the Filipinos who have “benefited” from these biases. In fact, western canons as we know today are laden with them. For example, the Western art style Gothic is actually a derogatory expression used by Italian Renaissance writers as a derogatory term for all art and architecture of the Middle Ages, which they regard as comparable to the works of barbarian Goths.[ii] Even the term barbarian, which means a savage and uncivilized, and uncultured person[iii] was used by the Romans to refer to the Goths, the Huns, the Vandals, the Vikings, the Teutons, the Franks, and the Angles because they lived outside the Hellenistic and Christian influence.[iv]
In studying art therefore, it is accepted that discernment and subjectivity can only minimize but can not completely dislodge cultural biases. Even Rustom Bharucha, in the Politics of Cultural Practice acknowledges this humanity in saying “In order to account for my cultural biases, from which no study of culturalism is entirely free, I should acknowledge that I feel much closer in my cultural and critical affinities.”[v]
This is so because we are as cultural as art, and art is cultural, in fact. Although some people have “managed to convince themselves that technical talk about art, however developed, is sufficient to a complete understanding of it; that the whole secret of aesthetic power is located in the formal relations among sounds, images, volumes, themes or gestures”[vi], it can not be denied that art is embedded in culture, and that to “study an art form is to explore a sensibility, that such a sensibility is essential to the collective formation, and that the foundation of such a formation are as wide as social existence and as deep”[vii]. Simply put, art is culturally significant because of the value and meaning the people in a particular community gives to it relative to the benefits that it brings to them as a result of their relationship with art. Clearly, “works of art are elaborate mechanisms for defining social relationships, sustaining social rules, and strengthening social values”[viii].
In the local context, the T’bolis and the Mandayas share a tradition of weaving which each and every member of their community has endeavored to nurture and keep alive to this day. This concerted effort in utilizing their weaving tradition, has not only given them something to live on, but it has also strengthened their identity as a people and prevented the extinction of their tradition since it has found a new meaning in the young people, particularly the young women, in the community: “they must help their mothers at a good source of extra income and at making something that is, after all, “theirs””.[ix]
The “discovery of a decorative detail or an unusual pattern in two different parts of the world, regardless of the geographic distance between and an often considerable historical gap”[x] reminds us of the humanity and universality of art and the fallibility of canons, research, and even science, to explain everything. It also encourages us to hurdle the barriers 6of cultural biases. Art will always be cultural and the biases from the Western influence and from us will always be there. However, although people go through different experiences and are exposed to different cultures, we all share the same humanity, the same pains, the same joys, the same need to feed not only our stomachs but our deep senses, as well, and this is evident in the different and similar ways we express our hearts and our arts.
Art of the Trade
In Africa, art objects and cultural artifacts are either acquired by African art traders from local villagers who, for financial or personal reasons, sell their “family heirlooms and ritual paraphernalia” or from artist who actually produce for export trade.[xi] In the Western world, especially in the 80’s, New York art professionals “operated as the art world’s power axis”.[xii] Here in the Philippines, we have several galleries in the metropolis, however, in the far-away provinces, especially those places where our ethno-linguistic groups live, valuable art objects and artifacts are sold to the “dayong mag-aantik” or visiting buyer of antiques. Similar to Africa, woven cloths made by the Bagobo and the B’laan groups in Davao, enter the market as “heirloom pieces bought by middlemen or “runners”, often from families in economic hardship. These costumes enter the antiquarian collectors market that runs parallel to the more tourist-, souvenir-, and fashion-oriented mass market”[xiii]
In trading art, art is also employed in the way these objects are marketed. Through the curators of galleries and auction houses, to the local African or Filipino art trader, creative marketing and publicity skills are used to introduce, arouse interest, and consequently encourage the purchase of these art objects, and more importantly, at a price that would be worth their attention. This goal is more clearly expressed as an ideal in the following:
What happens is that artists, dealers, and collectors have a shared taste and a common interest. The center of their attention is the work of art: it is a product of the artist, the commodity of the dealer, and the possession of the collector. The three types represent an alliance for the purpose of furthering the work both as a cultural sign and as an object on the market.[xiv]
Through the creative utilization of language and public relations, which is also publicity, they somehow re-invent the history of a particular art object, literally on some occasions. In the African art market, an art object is carefully presented, described(the history or origin of the object is re-told or re-constructed and information regarding cultural meaning and traditional use is provided), and altered, if necessary to “satisfy perceived Western taste and are intended to increase the likelihood of sale”.[xv] The future buyer and his pleasures are targeted, and is then pleasingly convinced that the object or opportunity being sold to him will make him happy and feel good about himself. “Publicity is, in essence, nostalgic. It has to sell the past to the future.[xvi]
However, the value of some art works does not lie anymore in its origin, its meaning, its size, or the stories that surround it—sometimes not even in its innate value. There are occasions and places where the sole determinant of an art’s worth is its price, and this price is upped by “how controversial” it is, and most importantly, “how much” a moneyed patron bids to acquire it, in competition with other bidders for prestige. Even during the mid-eighties, “artists and art professionals had become polarized by the idea that money was the driving force, even the focal idea, of an art system”[xvii]
One example would be Leonardo da Vinci’s painting, the Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist. An American buyer wanted to buy it for 2.5 million pounds, and now innumerable copies of its reproductions have been sold by the National Museum which is holding the original—which is now sitting alone in a gallery enclosed in bullet-proof display case.
“It has acquired a new kind of impressiveness. Not because of what it shows –not because of the meaning of its image. It has become impressive, mysterious because of its market value.”[xviii]
In this kind of trade, where the value of an art work is dramatically ballooned to mirror the fat wallets of those who desires to own unbelievably priced objects, only the richest of the rich are able to participate, and the rest of us ordinary people will just have to content ourselves in viewing these works in postcards or reproductions, or in exhibits(if and when the owners decide to display their collections in preserve—again for prestige).
“What the modern means of reproduction have done is to destroy the authority of art and to remove its images which they reproduce –from any preserve. For the first time ever, images of art have become ephemeral, ubiquitous, insubstantial, available, valueless, free.x x x Yet very few people are aware of what has happened because the means of reproduction are used nearly all the time to promote the illusion that nothing has changed except that the masses, thanks to reproductions, can now begin to appreciate art as the cultured minority once did. Understandably, the masses remain uninterested and skeptical...”[xix]
It is in thinking about these expensive paintings that I have come to appreciate the wonders of the copy machines and the computer. With all the manipulation, the preparation, the publicity, the stories told to sell an art object, for it to be sold at a sky-rocketing amount, and for its eventual “sleep” in its new “home” or “grave” seems like a pity. But then again, why not, he who owns the golden hen gets the golden eggs. As much as a student like me would want to sour-grape, or badly want to own(not really) a Luna, or a Van Gough, or a BenCab, I don’t think that would be possible right now. But thanks to modern technology, I am not left wondering what their works really look like. I even have print-outs of some of their works stuck in my notebook. However, I am aware of the “greatness”, the “calmness”, and the history that an original can bring to your senses, on sight. And so today, little by little, beginning with my favorite traditional weavers, I build my own collection, also hoping that in striving to be a part of the art world, someday, I’ll be able to actively participate in the art of trading art.
Art as a Means of Transformation
Whenever an artist is talked about, almost everybody almost often thinks of the eccentric personality or the unconventional lifestyle that is implied by being that—an artist. It does not matter whether one is a painter, a singer, an actor, a musician, or a writer, as long as one is an art performer, the unexpected and the unorthodox is expected.
This expectation is further justified by imagining these irregularities part of their talent to wield that gift of performance, which is also, not natural to many people. Aside from this, they are also subject to extreme conditions which goes along with their being performing artists—pressure from the recording companies, television networks, paying audience and, the considerably, from themselves.
As an example, Glenn Gould, a performing musician, “neither ate nor slept, nor behaved socially like anyone else. He kept himself alive with drugs, his musical and intellectual habits were ringed with insomnia and endless quasi-clinical self-observation, and in every way imaginable he allowed himself to be absorbed into a sort of airless but pure performance enclave”, while his “outstanding virtuosity and rhythmic grace produced a sound clearer and more intelligently understood and organized than the sound produced by other pianists”[xx]. Simply speaking, “the phenomenally gifted Gould seemed never to have done anything that was not in some way purposefully eccentric”.[xxi] He is one way off the stage--weird, and another way when he’s performing—brilliant and totally in control.
There are many other stories of artists who are transformed by their art, but the most interesting I’ve heard and read so far did not come from the “professional” or “fine” artists, but from a local contest in Calabanga, Bicol, as described by Fenella Canell.
The most interesting of the examples that she cited was the Ms. Gay Calabanga contest. I have heard of Calabanga before from a gay friend. I thought it was just an expression since whenever he has finished something that he’s doing, he used to say “Haaayy, Ms. Calabanggaaaa here I come!”. I didn’t know that there was such a place or a name for a gay contest for that matter.
I know of many baranggays which hold gay contests during their fiestas, in fact, just this week, our baranggay, Sn. Vicente, just held one. The interesting thing about this “occurrence” and especially the discussion held in class was that it brought to my consciousness, the transformation that the “bakla” is indeed working hard for during these occasions. They, as queen of the parlors, making women beautiful, they who are “are more artful in altering appearances x x x and therefore occupy a very particular position as mediators of beauty and glamour”[xxii] are, for night, actually going to compete as beauty queens. They, who are unrecognized in the production of art in which women are the primary beneficiaries of, will for one night, perform and apply art to transform themselves as “objects of art and beauty” inside and out—not only in their appearance, but also in their gestures, in their speech, in their “dating”. For once, they leave the “vulgarity” of being and acting the bakla, and transform themselves into the “dalagang Pilipina, mahinhin, mayumi, maganda, at matalino”, and aspire to be the “star of the night”.
However, performers and creators of art are not the only ones who could be transformed by it. In reading about, looking at, appreciating, listening, and writing about art, one could also be transformed through the beauty and the truths that become clear in the discovery of what is art, really. In reading about transformation, and opening one’s mind, I believe that one is also welcoming transformation itself, but to what?
Self-transformation, through arts or through any other medium should be relevant, thoroughly thought of and should be decisive, in my opinion. There are many ways and medium which would encourage self-transformation especially with the advent of high tech advertising and publicity, pushing us to take advantage or purchase this and that lifestyle, product, or opportunity with dollar signs in mind. “Publicity proposes to each of us that we transform ourselves, or our lives buy buying something more. This more, it proposes, will make us in some way richer—even though we will be poorer by having spent our money. Publicity persuades us of such a transformation by showing us people who have apparently been transformed and are, as a result, enviable”.[xxiii] It is not right and it is not wrong, it is just the way it is.
_________________________________________
[i] Berger, John.Ways of Seeing, pp.8-9.
[ii] Hinkle, William M. “Gothic Art and Architecture”, Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Standard 2002 Edition.
[iii] The New Webster’s Comprehensive Dictionary of the English Usage. p.78.
[iv] Ortiz, Aurora et.al. Art Perception and Appreciation. p. 180.
[v] Bharucha, Rustom. “Interculturalism and its Discriminations”, The Politics of Cultural Practice,p.13.
[vi] Geertz, Clifford. “Art as a Cultural System”, Local Cultures. p.96.
[vii]Geertz, Clifford. “Art as a Cultural System”, Local Cultures. p.99
[viii]Ibid.
[ix] Quizon, Cherubim. “Living the Ethnic in Mindanao”, Pananaw. p.37.
[x] Levi-Strauss, Claude. “Split Representation in the Art of Asia and America”, Structural Anthropology.p.245.
[xi] Steiner, Christopher. “The Art of the Trade:On the Creation of Value and Authenticity in the African Art Market”, The Traffic in Culture: Refiguring Art and Anthropology..p. 152.
[xii] Sullivan, Nancy. “Inside Trading: Postmodernism and the Social Drama of Sunflowers in the 1980’s Art World”, The Traffic in Culture: Refiguring Art and Anthropology. p. 257.
[xiii] Quizon, Cherubim. p.36.
[xiv] Sullivan, Nancy. “Inside Trading: Postmodernism and the Social Drama of Sunflowers in the 1980’s Art World”, The Traffic in Culture: Refiguring Art and Anthropology. p. 271. (Alloway,Lawrence. “The Great Curatorial Dim-Out”, Artforum May 13,1975, p.32
[xv] Sullivan, Nancy. P.157.
[xvi] Berger, J. p. 139
[xvii] Sullivan, Nancy. P. 266.
[xviii] Berger, J. p. 23
[xix] Ibid. p.32-33.
[xx] Said, Edward. “Performance as an Extreme Occasion”, Musical Elaborations. P.23.
[xxi] Ibid.p.22.
[xxii] Cannell, Fenella. “Beauty, Mimicry and Transformation in Bicol”. Discrepant Histories: Translocal Essays in Phlippine Cultures(Vicente Rafael,ed). P. 242.
[xxiii] Berger, J. p. 131
It has been said that an object has value depending on a person’s perception. One makes meaning out of something and this is in relation to the way he/she sees things, which are first and foremost, affected by personal experiences which are shaped by the relationships that he has gone through, the joy and suffering he has felt, the values instilled in him, the state of the community and society in which he belongs to, and all other stimuli which affects his thoughts and convictions. This is made clearer by John Berger in Ways of Seeing, where he posits: “The way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe. x x x We never look at just one thing; we are always looking at the relation between things and ourselves.”[i]
When I was younger, I was taught that there were different kinds of art –the fine arts (which refers to the Western idea of fine arts), and the crafts (of which the Philippine traditional arts were included along with our elementary art projects). Meaning, if I can produce paintings and sculpture, I will be considered an artist, and if I can do wonderful, breath-taking weaving(or embroidery, which I do pretty well), I will be seen as a “creative person”. Not that there was no honor in being creative, it was just that it seemed then that the recognition was not complete, and the nagging thought that some arts are just not “art enough” because they are not included in the “fine arts”.
Studying art today, I have become more aware of the western influences and biases that we have lived through and still continue to experience today. I am not going to bark on them and condemn them for throwing their weight about and harnessing the “colonial mentality” that I, like most Filipinos, have been guilty of. After all, it is just not the Filipinos who have “benefited” from these biases. In fact, western canons as we know today are laden with them. For example, the Western art style Gothic is actually a derogatory expression used by Italian Renaissance writers as a derogatory term for all art and architecture of the Middle Ages, which they regard as comparable to the works of barbarian Goths.[ii] Even the term barbarian, which means a savage and uncivilized, and uncultured person[iii] was used by the Romans to refer to the Goths, the Huns, the Vandals, the Vikings, the Teutons, the Franks, and the Angles because they lived outside the Hellenistic and Christian influence.[iv]
In studying art therefore, it is accepted that discernment and subjectivity can only minimize but can not completely dislodge cultural biases. Even Rustom Bharucha, in the Politics of Cultural Practice acknowledges this humanity in saying “In order to account for my cultural biases, from which no study of culturalism is entirely free, I should acknowledge that I feel much closer in my cultural and critical affinities.”[v]
This is so because we are as cultural as art, and art is cultural, in fact. Although some people have “managed to convince themselves that technical talk about art, however developed, is sufficient to a complete understanding of it; that the whole secret of aesthetic power is located in the formal relations among sounds, images, volumes, themes or gestures”[vi], it can not be denied that art is embedded in culture, and that to “study an art form is to explore a sensibility, that such a sensibility is essential to the collective formation, and that the foundation of such a formation are as wide as social existence and as deep”[vii]. Simply put, art is culturally significant because of the value and meaning the people in a particular community gives to it relative to the benefits that it brings to them as a result of their relationship with art. Clearly, “works of art are elaborate mechanisms for defining social relationships, sustaining social rules, and strengthening social values”[viii].
In the local context, the T’bolis and the Mandayas share a tradition of weaving which each and every member of their community has endeavored to nurture and keep alive to this day. This concerted effort in utilizing their weaving tradition, has not only given them something to live on, but it has also strengthened their identity as a people and prevented the extinction of their tradition since it has found a new meaning in the young people, particularly the young women, in the community: “they must help their mothers at a good source of extra income and at making something that is, after all, “theirs””.[ix]
The “discovery of a decorative detail or an unusual pattern in two different parts of the world, regardless of the geographic distance between and an often considerable historical gap”[x] reminds us of the humanity and universality of art and the fallibility of canons, research, and even science, to explain everything. It also encourages us to hurdle the barriers 6of cultural biases. Art will always be cultural and the biases from the Western influence and from us will always be there. However, although people go through different experiences and are exposed to different cultures, we all share the same humanity, the same pains, the same joys, the same need to feed not only our stomachs but our deep senses, as well, and this is evident in the different and similar ways we express our hearts and our arts.
Art of the Trade
In Africa, art objects and cultural artifacts are either acquired by African art traders from local villagers who, for financial or personal reasons, sell their “family heirlooms and ritual paraphernalia” or from artist who actually produce for export trade.[xi] In the Western world, especially in the 80’s, New York art professionals “operated as the art world’s power axis”.[xii] Here in the Philippines, we have several galleries in the metropolis, however, in the far-away provinces, especially those places where our ethno-linguistic groups live, valuable art objects and artifacts are sold to the “dayong mag-aantik” or visiting buyer of antiques. Similar to Africa, woven cloths made by the Bagobo and the B’laan groups in Davao, enter the market as “heirloom pieces bought by middlemen or “runners”, often from families in economic hardship. These costumes enter the antiquarian collectors market that runs parallel to the more tourist-, souvenir-, and fashion-oriented mass market”[xiii]
In trading art, art is also employed in the way these objects are marketed. Through the curators of galleries and auction houses, to the local African or Filipino art trader, creative marketing and publicity skills are used to introduce, arouse interest, and consequently encourage the purchase of these art objects, and more importantly, at a price that would be worth their attention. This goal is more clearly expressed as an ideal in the following:
What happens is that artists, dealers, and collectors have a shared taste and a common interest. The center of their attention is the work of art: it is a product of the artist, the commodity of the dealer, and the possession of the collector. The three types represent an alliance for the purpose of furthering the work both as a cultural sign and as an object on the market.[xiv]
Through the creative utilization of language and public relations, which is also publicity, they somehow re-invent the history of a particular art object, literally on some occasions. In the African art market, an art object is carefully presented, described(the history or origin of the object is re-told or re-constructed and information regarding cultural meaning and traditional use is provided), and altered, if necessary to “satisfy perceived Western taste and are intended to increase the likelihood of sale”.[xv] The future buyer and his pleasures are targeted, and is then pleasingly convinced that the object or opportunity being sold to him will make him happy and feel good about himself. “Publicity is, in essence, nostalgic. It has to sell the past to the future.[xvi]
However, the value of some art works does not lie anymore in its origin, its meaning, its size, or the stories that surround it—sometimes not even in its innate value. There are occasions and places where the sole determinant of an art’s worth is its price, and this price is upped by “how controversial” it is, and most importantly, “how much” a moneyed patron bids to acquire it, in competition with other bidders for prestige. Even during the mid-eighties, “artists and art professionals had become polarized by the idea that money was the driving force, even the focal idea, of an art system”[xvii]
One example would be Leonardo da Vinci’s painting, the Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist. An American buyer wanted to buy it for 2.5 million pounds, and now innumerable copies of its reproductions have been sold by the National Museum which is holding the original—which is now sitting alone in a gallery enclosed in bullet-proof display case.
“It has acquired a new kind of impressiveness. Not because of what it shows –not because of the meaning of its image. It has become impressive, mysterious because of its market value.”[xviii]
In this kind of trade, where the value of an art work is dramatically ballooned to mirror the fat wallets of those who desires to own unbelievably priced objects, only the richest of the rich are able to participate, and the rest of us ordinary people will just have to content ourselves in viewing these works in postcards or reproductions, or in exhibits(if and when the owners decide to display their collections in preserve—again for prestige).
“What the modern means of reproduction have done is to destroy the authority of art and to remove its images which they reproduce –from any preserve. For the first time ever, images of art have become ephemeral, ubiquitous, insubstantial, available, valueless, free.x x x Yet very few people are aware of what has happened because the means of reproduction are used nearly all the time to promote the illusion that nothing has changed except that the masses, thanks to reproductions, can now begin to appreciate art as the cultured minority once did. Understandably, the masses remain uninterested and skeptical...”[xix]
It is in thinking about these expensive paintings that I have come to appreciate the wonders of the copy machines and the computer. With all the manipulation, the preparation, the publicity, the stories told to sell an art object, for it to be sold at a sky-rocketing amount, and for its eventual “sleep” in its new “home” or “grave” seems like a pity. But then again, why not, he who owns the golden hen gets the golden eggs. As much as a student like me would want to sour-grape, or badly want to own(not really) a Luna, or a Van Gough, or a BenCab, I don’t think that would be possible right now. But thanks to modern technology, I am not left wondering what their works really look like. I even have print-outs of some of their works stuck in my notebook. However, I am aware of the “greatness”, the “calmness”, and the history that an original can bring to your senses, on sight. And so today, little by little, beginning with my favorite traditional weavers, I build my own collection, also hoping that in striving to be a part of the art world, someday, I’ll be able to actively participate in the art of trading art.
Art as a Means of Transformation
Whenever an artist is talked about, almost everybody almost often thinks of the eccentric personality or the unconventional lifestyle that is implied by being that—an artist. It does not matter whether one is a painter, a singer, an actor, a musician, or a writer, as long as one is an art performer, the unexpected and the unorthodox is expected.
This expectation is further justified by imagining these irregularities part of their talent to wield that gift of performance, which is also, not natural to many people. Aside from this, they are also subject to extreme conditions which goes along with their being performing artists—pressure from the recording companies, television networks, paying audience and, the considerably, from themselves.
As an example, Glenn Gould, a performing musician, “neither ate nor slept, nor behaved socially like anyone else. He kept himself alive with drugs, his musical and intellectual habits were ringed with insomnia and endless quasi-clinical self-observation, and in every way imaginable he allowed himself to be absorbed into a sort of airless but pure performance enclave”, while his “outstanding virtuosity and rhythmic grace produced a sound clearer and more intelligently understood and organized than the sound produced by other pianists”[xx]. Simply speaking, “the phenomenally gifted Gould seemed never to have done anything that was not in some way purposefully eccentric”.[xxi] He is one way off the stage--weird, and another way when he’s performing—brilliant and totally in control.
There are many other stories of artists who are transformed by their art, but the most interesting I’ve heard and read so far did not come from the “professional” or “fine” artists, but from a local contest in Calabanga, Bicol, as described by Fenella Canell.
The most interesting of the examples that she cited was the Ms. Gay Calabanga contest. I have heard of Calabanga before from a gay friend. I thought it was just an expression since whenever he has finished something that he’s doing, he used to say “Haaayy, Ms. Calabanggaaaa here I come!”. I didn’t know that there was such a place or a name for a gay contest for that matter.
I know of many baranggays which hold gay contests during their fiestas, in fact, just this week, our baranggay, Sn. Vicente, just held one. The interesting thing about this “occurrence” and especially the discussion held in class was that it brought to my consciousness, the transformation that the “bakla” is indeed working hard for during these occasions. They, as queen of the parlors, making women beautiful, they who are “are more artful in altering appearances x x x and therefore occupy a very particular position as mediators of beauty and glamour”[xxii] are, for night, actually going to compete as beauty queens. They, who are unrecognized in the production of art in which women are the primary beneficiaries of, will for one night, perform and apply art to transform themselves as “objects of art and beauty” inside and out—not only in their appearance, but also in their gestures, in their speech, in their “dating”. For once, they leave the “vulgarity” of being and acting the bakla, and transform themselves into the “dalagang Pilipina, mahinhin, mayumi, maganda, at matalino”, and aspire to be the “star of the night”.
However, performers and creators of art are not the only ones who could be transformed by it. In reading about, looking at, appreciating, listening, and writing about art, one could also be transformed through the beauty and the truths that become clear in the discovery of what is art, really. In reading about transformation, and opening one’s mind, I believe that one is also welcoming transformation itself, but to what?
Self-transformation, through arts or through any other medium should be relevant, thoroughly thought of and should be decisive, in my opinion. There are many ways and medium which would encourage self-transformation especially with the advent of high tech advertising and publicity, pushing us to take advantage or purchase this and that lifestyle, product, or opportunity with dollar signs in mind. “Publicity proposes to each of us that we transform ourselves, or our lives buy buying something more. This more, it proposes, will make us in some way richer—even though we will be poorer by having spent our money. Publicity persuades us of such a transformation by showing us people who have apparently been transformed and are, as a result, enviable”.[xxiii] It is not right and it is not wrong, it is just the way it is.
_________________________________________
[i] Berger, John.Ways of Seeing, pp.8-9.
[ii] Hinkle, William M. “Gothic Art and Architecture”, Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia Standard 2002 Edition.
[iii] The New Webster’s Comprehensive Dictionary of the English Usage. p.78.
[iv] Ortiz, Aurora et.al. Art Perception and Appreciation. p. 180.
[v] Bharucha, Rustom. “Interculturalism and its Discriminations”, The Politics of Cultural Practice,p.13.
[vi] Geertz, Clifford. “Art as a Cultural System”, Local Cultures. p.96.
[vii]Geertz, Clifford. “Art as a Cultural System”, Local Cultures. p.99
[viii]Ibid.
[ix] Quizon, Cherubim. “Living the Ethnic in Mindanao”, Pananaw. p.37.
[x] Levi-Strauss, Claude. “Split Representation in the Art of Asia and America”, Structural Anthropology.p.245.
[xi] Steiner, Christopher. “The Art of the Trade:On the Creation of Value and Authenticity in the African Art Market”, The Traffic in Culture: Refiguring Art and Anthropology..p. 152.
[xii] Sullivan, Nancy. “Inside Trading: Postmodernism and the Social Drama of Sunflowers in the 1980’s Art World”, The Traffic in Culture: Refiguring Art and Anthropology. p. 257.
[xiii] Quizon, Cherubim. p.36.
[xiv] Sullivan, Nancy. “Inside Trading: Postmodernism and the Social Drama of Sunflowers in the 1980’s Art World”, The Traffic in Culture: Refiguring Art and Anthropology. p. 271. (Alloway,Lawrence. “The Great Curatorial Dim-Out”, Artforum May 13,1975, p.32
[xv] Sullivan, Nancy. P.157.
[xvi] Berger, J. p. 139
[xvii] Sullivan, Nancy. P. 266.
[xviii] Berger, J. p. 23
[xix] Ibid. p.32-33.
[xx] Said, Edward. “Performance as an Extreme Occasion”, Musical Elaborations. P.23.
[xxi] Ibid.p.22.
[xxii] Cannell, Fenella. “Beauty, Mimicry and Transformation in Bicol”. Discrepant Histories: Translocal Essays in Phlippine Cultures(Vicente Rafael,ed). P. 242.
[xxiii] Berger, J. p. 131
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