Two paintings, with a shared history, come home

"Anak ng Bantay" was one of my earliest works.  I was "unschooled" and ambitious in my undertaking as an artist.  I bravely knocked on the doors of Penguin Cafe and left my portfolio under the name of "Sayong", my maternal grandmother's nickname.   This was the rainy season of '92 and on a bright sunshiny afternoon a couple of days later, I got a call that sealed the deal.  My Tita bought it on opening night.  The show was sold out!  Papi was convinced.  He sent me off to New York with his blessings, his generosity: 100% financial support, and his favorite line: "be good".   

                          

                              

                             ("Papi and I in the farm", photograph by Nico Sepe) 

   

The little boy, staring directly at the viewer amidst a flowery background, is the caretaker's son   , Jeherson. Born in the farm, he was our family's "first" little bundle of joy.   He took to us and we to him like fish to water.   I cannot talk about "Jersey" without talking about his mother who served us well.  She was a bony woman---reed thin, plain looking, a little deaf and would speak at the top of her shrilly voice.  She was our childhood help who would put on my socks and shoes every morning without waking me up.  She would stealthily come in, without turning on the lights, and move quietly about.  After me, she would move on to my sister's side and do the same.  She was sweet that way to afford us more time to sleep.    And, was she ever so loyal!  When my brother left for America, he had instructed her to turn on the lights of his room every night.  My parents were perplexed why those lights were on every night until my father caught her and she, without apologies, explained that was her vow to my brother.  She was that kind of a woman, brave enough to speak her mind to my father.

When "Jersey" learned how to walk, he would come jog with me and we would sing, "Twinkle, twinkle little star...", he in his thick Visayan accent he got his from his mother and me, with my American twang.  This was our little ritual every afternoon when I was in the farm.  I would return him to his mother before the sun would set to sleep in her gentle embrace.    My little breathing toy, my little joy.  He would cry buckets of tears when he and his mother would take me to the car.  I'd give him a tight squeeze, kisses on both cheeks, and throw him a thousand more flying kisses as the car would drive away.  His wailing would always break my heart.  

The eruption of Mt. Pinatubo changed our familial landscape.  I fled to New York

to chase my dream.   

                                             

                                (photograph by Primo, New York 1994)       

The volcano's ashes were too much for our caretaker.   She fled, too, with her husband and her brood---three boys, to seek greener pastures.  But before she had the energy to do that, she had time to wait for another artist to walk into the farm to paint her son.  That was "E.".  After the ashes settled   down, my brother (with my father's generosity in funding) put up a Center for the arts

 to      train fisherfolk children to play the violin.  The Center had a visual arm and "E." was one of its chosen artist-in-residence.  "E.'s" residency coincided with a theater group so my brother housed him in our parent's home.

How "perfectly convenient" for "E." because all this time he had harboured a secret "thang" for me.  Being in our home meant being closer to me despite my absence.  My parents would arrive on the weekends.  Sometimes my mom would have my letter from New York in her bag and if there were pictures, she would show them to "E." and ask him how he thought my progress was.   "E." was later to reveal that this was simply "heaven" to him.  He waited for me, patiently.  "Not so patiently", I argue, "because you had a girlfriend!"  "But that doesn't deny the fact", he insists, "that I secretly longed for you."   

Two months ago, while setting up  a mini-retro at the Ayala Museum, my cousin texted me to drop by because her mom, Tita Nena Olivares, wanted to give

   "Anak ng Bantay" back to me as a gift.  I was dancing on air.  "Jersey" was coming home!  And right around that same time frame, too, my brother decided it was time to, finally, give up "Pangarap", ("E.'s" painting of Jeherson that was in the Center's collection),  to raise funds for his own personal dreams at the Center.  I quickly jumped at the chance and offered to buy it.  My brother, who was also secretly in favor of "E." for me from the moment he saw us alight from a tricycle after a four hour "getting to know you sort of" bus trip from Manila to Zambales, agreed.  I'd like to think he knew, in his heart of hearts, "Pangarap" was about "us".  

  "Pangarap" describes a little boy sitting on a rocking  chair holding a helicopter, with a gaze far away and tragically, hopeful.  After "E.'s" revelation of his secret motivation to stay at the Center (he stayed on to teach art in the Center's regular program while pining for me), I found new meaning in the painting.  I see this little boy as "E." waiting for me to come home.  It is sentimental and endearing.   

"Anak ng Bantay" and "Pangarap" are our separate stories entwined.  Two paintings, one subject, separated by time and space, come home to fill the walls with "Jeherson's

                     

                          (photograph by Rico Quimbo)

gaze that cannot be denied as one longing to find a place in this world and a reason to exist.