E: It started last year when I was invited to join the St Theresa’s art fair. I thought of compiling my watercolor paintings for a calendar for my art to be more functional. A friend told me that she will try to sell it and add a few hundreed pesos so she can donate to the projects to rebuild the lives of the Yolanda typhoon victims. Pope Francis was coming that time for the same reason but in a different way. I am not a very charitable person. Not in ways I know other people are but maybe an angel’s whisper made me decide that I wanted to do it with all my he-art. Then the frenzy and madness started. I was just obsessed to sell as many to provide a place where learning can take place for the Yolanda children.
C: How long have you been doing water color painting? Water color is a difficult medium for a lot of people. Why did you choose this medium to work with.
My watercolor affair was not that serious until two years ago though it somehow started in 1997. It was an on-off affair, more off than on, as I was very much married to my life project which is my school. I felt guilty loving how watercoloring was challenging me and how it was hard to tame and how it gave me so much pleasure at the same time. Watercolor is magical. I am always awed at how water would behave differently on different paper, different angles, then how a brush stroke can create countless possibilities.. Then all the combinations are brought to life by the splatter, bleed, bursts of color! I like it transparent andhardly there but definitely there. I love its unpredictabiity. I don’t even have to paint! The medium does it for me.
I am a survivor of difficult situations or maybe one who wants to create something beautiful from mistakes and unfriendly circumstances. So maybe also why the attraction to water color.
C: You founded HEDCen and made this beautiful school flourish and thrive. How do you feel about the school now? What is the connection between the you that is the Muse/Head of the school and the you that is The Artist?
The school just became. I enjoy the process of making things happen. Definitely, it is what makes a work of art beautiful. Yes, school is work. It is a religion even but the challenges of creating it, is art in itself. It is like painting without painting. You just know in your heartwhat you want to happen and the result is very much like the changes that happen when you paint on an empty canvas. In the end, the outcome of anything is a result of a plan and joyful accidents!
C: When I first met you, you were painting by the Tungtong River (do you remember that? Ces brought us down there with all the other girls that we're going to be in her show, including Ana). That was maybe 15 years ago. Did you have an inkling then that the school would be as successful as it is now? Did you think then that you would use your work as a painter to be able to help people?
I knew then that the school has no place in this world if it does not fulfill its purpose. There is no other way but for it to be “successful” , vanity aside. It should succeed.
I will always be an amateur when it comes to being a “painter”. I am confident with everything I do related to school, but actually very shy and unaccomplished with my so called “art”. So I gave my art a purpose. Then I am not that shy anymore because it is now the purpose and not the art that should be in the center of it. I cannot yet say that I am helping pseople with my art. I have yet to see that. And these are no ordinary people I would like to help. They are children. I also do not have the illusion that I am doing it alone. I am doing it with all the other people who have allowed themselves to be part of this mania.
Yes Chati. I remember meeting you in Tungtong river now that you mentioned it. You were just a wiisp of a girl but already a gentle human whose mind is on fire and walks the earth gently… how do you say that?
C: Please tell me a little bit about the Tungtong River ( I might use the river as a metaphor for life. Naks!).
This river is a small one but it is very much a river just the same. It is home to beautiful creatures and species, seen or unseen. It is trying to survive the ravages of pollution and misuse but comes out gurgling and babbling, whispering, raging and nurturing.
C: What now? What is the future of this project for you? What is the future for you as an artist?
Ang hirap nito. Okay. The future of the project is not primarily for me. It is for the children who will benefit from this. This is very small compared to the magnitude of devastation in their lives, in their psyche. I am just doing a bit of what I can and what I know.
Aha! Its future for me as an artist? Wala siguro. It provided practice and that is good enough. But I hope to continue to use my art to build. I want my art to also give healing, touch the heart or make one who views it realize that courage is the main thing. Without it, one cannot proceed. In my work, it is not the masterful stroke that is visible nor any attempt to compete with reality, but the impressions and bits and pieces of my existence, who I am, what I feel.
Thank you Chati!
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