Saturday, March 31, 2007

MI BODA


MI BODA
12" X 15"
acrylic on canvas


“Did you have one of those gunshot weddings? Or was it a sort of “love-at-first-sight” thing?”

“I knew I shouldn’t have let you watch too many of those old movies in the afternoons when you were a child. Now you have too many romantic notions.”

“Mamu, I’m your son. I should know how you guys ended up with each other.”

And that’s how it was my own mother would respond to my questions every time I’d ask her how she and my father became a couple… until one day, at dinner, she told me her story.

“…I was 19 when I came from Passi knowing nothing of the outside world. I also had nothing except a small bag with a few clothes and the best Sunday dress I had. I first stayed with your aunt – my older sister who worked near the American base in Clark in a club called Bubbles.

Your aunt was pretty back then but she also had a temper. It was that temper that didn’t make me get along with her.

One day we had a big argument. I ran away to Manila. Here in the city, I went to female friend of mine who was living in the dorm. But she couldn’t have me stay in her room – it was incredibly cramped and told me that she had another friend who had a bigger space in the campus. That friend of hers was your father.”

“So, you shacked up with him? A barrio lass in the room of a city boy?”

“Yes. The next day your father proposed that we get married. He said that no decent girl would stay in the room of a boy if they’re not married.

…and we’ve stayed married for the past 48 years.”

“Mamu, 2 years from now, you and Tatay are officially an old couple.”

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

LA PIETA / LOS PIES




LOS PIES/
LA PIETA

12” x 14 x 2”
acrylic on boxed canvas


It has been several days that I tried to figure out what to paint for a Holy Week exhibit.

I watched “The Passion” on dvd thinking I’d get some ideas there.

Nada.

All I can think of was painting a hand nailing another hand (but how many artists would think of nailed hands anyway? Answer: a lot)

Eventually I settled for a Pieta. I like the idea of keeping it simple – the Madonna caressing the dead Christ in her hands. I worked on it for a few days and when the Pieta was done, I was surprised. The Dead Christ looked like someone in my past.

And it was! It bore the spitting image of Anthony (a sweet young thing who I shared more than several nights of pleasure in the sheets).

I rummaged through some old numbers in a little black book for his number and called him up.

“Hey! You haven’t called for a long time.” said the voice on the other end. “Hey Anton, I just painted you. You now look like Christ.”

“What do you mean?”

“I finished a painting about the dead Christ and it ended up looking like you.”

“Now I will be holy… or I will end up dead? Hahaha…”

Thursday, March 1, 2007

KATULONG (Housemaid)


KATULONG
24” x 13”
pen and ink on acid-free paper



KATULONG
8” x 10”
pen and ink on acid-free paper



My brothers and I grew up with a succession of housemaids. Most of these women were “imported” from the province of my mother and arrive in the city “fresh from the ship”. We were taught to call them by addressing them either as “Ate” or “Manang” (Big Sister), but very rarely do we get to call any of them by their first name, a privilege meant solely for our mother. (Our father was oblivious to their names calling all our housemaids “Inday”.)

I. Eggplants and Oil of Olay

I was about 6 or 7 years old when she came to our household. Just a shadowy figure in my mind, I remember her as the frequent market-goer. Everyday, she’d tag me along to the market to make her rounds and always, it would also include buying an eggplant or two from this particular stall run by a big bald man.

By noon time, my brothers and I are fed. We’d watch Student Canteen for a few minutes and like clockwork, are led to our beds for our afternoon nap. Sleep will take over our tired eyes and as I drift off to slumber, she’d also go to her own room and lock the door.

It was during one of these afternoons, as I was waiting for sleep, that I spot her coming from our mother’s room and heading towards hers. In one hand she was holding one of my mother’s big jars that she always has on her dresser table and on the other a big plump eggplant. I am not so sure if it was curiosity or if it was simply that I had to go to the bathroom, but I found myself tiptoeing towards her room. I found her door unlocked and quietly opened it. I saw her lying on her cot, head turned towards the door, legs spread-eagled in the air and she seemed to be shoving something between her thighs with one hand. I couldn’t help myself giggle at how funny she looked except that my amusement turned to rage when I realized she was using my mother’s jar of face cream for she had a big glob on the other hand. “Isusumbong kita kay Nanay! Gamit mo Oil of Olay niya!” (I’m going to tell Mother! You’re using her Oil of Olay!) Then I ran to my room, locked the door and kept on shouting at her that I’ll tell mother.

I don’t remember seeing her off nor how I told my mother, but to this day, eggplants always leave me with a bad taste. And that Oil of Olay commercial, it makes me laugh.

II. London and Voltes V

I was coming out of the bathroom pee-happy early one morning when I first saw her - the woman with the fancy gypsy air. At first I thought she was one of my mother’s more flamboyant older relations with her colorful headwrap, jingling jewelries, a cigarette stuck in her mouth and wide tent-like dress. She looked like she was plucked out of one of those Hardy Boys series, a middle-aged gypsy woman with a crystal ball the two juvenile detectives went to. She looked at me with her curled lashes and haughty stare and said in perfect English “Good Morning. So, you’re Ate’s second child. You’re big.”

I was about to respond when I heard my mother from the kitchen shout, “Pagkatapos mo linisin ang kubeta, asikasuhin mo na ang labada.” (When you’re done cleaning the toilet, do the laundry.) It is only then I noticed she was holding a bucket and a toilet plunger. “YES, Ate.” And with a swoosh of her hem, she disappeared into the bath.

My mother only hires one maid to take care of our small household – to do the laundry, daily marketing and cooking. My brothers and I grew up knowing how to do our own share around the house which makes it easier for whoever its task it be to be the housemaid. When Manang Gypsy came I started to notice other people coming in to do the chores. There was the labandera (laundry woman) she’d watch over, careful to make sure the whites are separated from the colored. I remember the young girl across the street who’d she cuss at for not sweeping under the sofas and making the tiles in the toilet shimmeringly clean. It was also that time when we had a man doing the cooking while Manang Gypsy watches on her small tv her favorite soap, Flor de Luna. (My mother’s favorite was Anna Liza. Those early evenings were filled with the aroma of food cooking in the kitchen and the sniffles of women crying over the fate of these hapless tv orphans.)

“Are we rich?” I asked my mother in the middle of one of her tear-jerking Anna Liza episodes.

“No, why do you ask?”

“I notice since Manang came, we have a cook, a labandera, that girl cleaning the house every day. Yesterday, I saw Mang Pilo pruning the tree outside and sweeping the roof. The last maid used to do all these things ah.”

“You ask too many questions. Be glad we had Manang. She hires all of them and I don’t have to pay them myself.”

______

She had on full make-up with bright red lipstick that made her look like a clown, a luminescent green bandana, huge banana earrings and a necklace of multi-colored wooden spheres Carmen Miranda would be envious of on the last day I saw her.

“Thank you Ate, my daughter will pick me up at the airport in London. She’ll be there right after her shift at the hospital.”

My mom slipped into her hand an envelope, “Heto ang huli mong suweldo ‘Day. Ingat kaw ha? (Here’s your last salary. You take care.)

“You shouldn’t have Ate. You know my daughter sends me all I need”, and gave my mother a hug.

After all her cardboard boxes and luggages were boarded on the owner-type jeep she hired, she each bade farewell to the laundry woman, the girl across the street, Mang Pilo and the other well-wishers milling in front of our house. When she came to me, she leaned over my ear and with the smell of her cigarette breath she whispered, “I have a gift for you. Keep it.” And she slipped into my hand the envelope my mother gave her.

A few days after Manang Gypsy left, I was the proud owner of a new two-feet high Voltes V robot that can disengage and form the five vehicles of the Voltes team.