Morion Picture Book 3: Atonements & Tourist Moments

Though typical enough of a Philippine town, with its church, seat of government and market place facing each other at the town park or open area, Boac, Marinduque is more like Vigan. It’s one unique feature, however, apart from the Festival, is the Boac Cathedral, with its separate bell tower, perched atop a hill, very much like the Daraga Church in my hometown. It probably gives the penitent soul more chances of forgiveness in terms of physical atonement. Boac has kept much of its probably centuries-old houses intact, the slow pace and more or less friendly residents who, because of their famous festival, are never xenophobic. Which, on the other hand, makes it easier for Smart, Globe, Jollibee, Chowking and San Miguel Gin and San Miguel Beer to vie for their attentions during Moriones week. Jollibee and Chowking, for instance, sister companies though they maybe, either ferry their portable kitchens or haul in a huge portion of their commissaries. SM, the shopping giant not yet present on the island, banner its sales schedules, wooing people to go to Lucena City, where its malls are. The Holy Week pilgrim or penitent fulfilling a panata (sacred promise) is probably an island native, more or less comfortable with or simply unmindful of strangers—the tourists from Luzon, the Visayas or even far-off Mindanao, or stragners like us who come in with some non-pious, non-penitential agenda. Some of these pictures (the “symbolic” or “representative” kind) will be appearing in a new major poetic work of epic length, featuring Philippine historical places and landmarks, by National Artist Rio Alma, my main sponsor for this trip (together with the National Commission for Culture and the Arts or NCCA). But Moriones, with all its color and pageantry, affects more than the Catholic part of ourselves. The heat of Holy Week, the "penitential frenzy" of the Festival (part of our schizoid culture), the epic travel to Marinduque island, touch part of us that is far more sacred than religion.

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poets'picturebook No. 12 posted!

A Morion Picture Book

"Being a morion is an amulet against fear itself..."
(Raul Quizada)

A most expressive figure, perhaps only a bit player in pageant but could well be the Mater Dolorosa (cropped from the photo in the home page and improved with a little Photoshop)

In full regalia

Contests of viciousness

The apparent stars of the pageant

The grieving women of Jerusalem

JC Superstar actually manhandled

Anti-Morions?

Morion generations

A morion named Raul & two exalted centurions

It seemed like an endless cavalcade of costumed dolls and apparitions from our Catholic past, our ambivalent Hispanic heritage, a pilgrimage into our imposed memory that has nevertheless become part of us. There were morions and morions—classic, elaborated, improvised, Baroque. There was a female morion whose tan faux-leather costume and quaint headdress made her look like she came from the Mongol horde. There was a morion with a vest of puka shells or woven water-reeds. There was an updated morion straight the current movie then, "300." There were father-and-son, grandfather-and-granddaughter morions, fulfilling perhaps a lifetime panata. There was a gas-masked morion that seemed to have come out of the mustard fog of World War I, or the post-nuclear landscape, except that he had on a black mohair tunic. But all that made it a pageant after all, a Lenten ritual about the death of the Son of God that is always on the brink of celebrating His resurrection, somberness on the brink of laughter.

Moriones is a festival of faces that hides the faces of the pious, the repentant, the supplicant, the curious. We, both tourists and pilgrims to the sites that serve as landmarks on the way to knowing this thing called being Filipino, were privileged not just to participate in the ritual but have some personal glimpses into the faces behind the masks. Raul Quizada cautiously told us a bit about himself. Being a morion, he said, is an amulet against fear itself: when you're in the engine room of some ocean-going vessel and the waves are bigger than houses, you tell yourself you're a morion and you know you can survive "the devil himself." We had a few words with the privileged Longhino, whose mask bore the blind eye but whose name I failed to get. He was a public official, an engineer, I seem to recall, and also hermano mayor, the headman of celebrations. We shook his hand. But the chariot-riding centurion, with his authentic-looking costume and finery that said he was a devotee from the big city, stayed aloof and distant. Or he just wanted to play his part to the hilt.

Happy Easter!

Events whirl even after Arts Month

2. Tres Kantos
Three Exhibits in Manila by Sydney-based Filipino Artist Edd Aragon

Edd Aragon, artist and famous Filipino cartoonist of the Sydney Morning Herald (and my e-group mate at Banggaan Artists Group), writes in his blog:

“Can't wait to come home to Manila this April, very excited to see family and friends. Will be there for the whole month and hope to visit Baguio, Iloilo and Boracay with friends from Manila and North American chapter of Banggaan Art Group. Heber Bartolome, Filipino musician / painter and Ben Razon, Filipino photographer helped me a lot in organising the shows, putting me in touch with gallery owners. Thanks guys! Will bring you some bonza rippa Aussie red wine!”

Here are the “three corners” of his homecoming exhbit.


Digitalla Prima
Aragon's digitally-manipulated photographs and scanned images.
(Two Venues)

"Pixels as paint!” Ed enthuses. “I'm now addicted to this wonderful, electronic canvas.
I avoid gimmicky plugged-in effects. A simple paint program like Photoshop
offers simple yet powerful tools; much like an ordinary lead pencil effectively
used to sketch a pretty portrait in the analog world."

Venue & Opening: 3 pm, Sunday, April 6, The Oarhouse, 1803 A. Mabini St,
Malate, Manila tel.(+632 4508301)



Mulat!
Aragon's ultra-violet light-reactive (inivisible) paintings on canvas of legendary
Filipino and western rock & blues musicians, nudes and allegorical images.

"I can't help but think analytically when using u.v. reactive materials,” Edd explains. “The process is tricky, e.g.using white paint to appear as black under u.v. light, and develop the painting as I go; brushwork is almost second nature; but the theme is my real palette, like bridging the old and modern day heroes using musical and visual allusions in an alternative light. It's almost like exploring the dark side of the moon. Truth is hard to perceive in the blinding day-to-day life and light. Beneath the prismatic chaos reside the ultra-violet rays of rapture for things unseen."

Venue & Opening: 5 pm, Saturday, April 12, Banyuhay ni Heber Arts & Music Center, 170 Banlat Rd, Tandang Sora, Quezon City





Op Edd!

A collection of Aragon's opinion editorial (op-ed) cartoons and caricatures published in The Sydney Morning Herald, including prints of his political cartoons currently in exhibition at the National Museum of Australia, Canberra.

"Newspaper culture is universal; artists and journalists working together but each in his own world and constantly aware of events and deadlines,” Edd tells us. “My experience in Manila as newspaper cartoonist brought me confidence and tenacity to work in Australian newspapers since 1980. I've always injected the element of human form in my editorial drawings; and enjoy using manual airbrush to draw, scanned and brought to a paint program and rebirthed."

Venue & Opening: 6 pm, Saturday, April 19, Maestro, Masterpiece Art Depot, 2nd flr. rm 207, Seneca Bldg,1152 E.Rodriguez Ave, Quezon City, tel (+632) 396 5488

The artist at work on his Tandang Sora (Melchora Aquino, "Mother of the Philippine Revolution") UV painting)

The Filipino Artist as Invisible Man

(excerpt)

By Alfredo Roces

…The Filipino artist is also part of Australian culture whether this is recognized or not. Perhaps our artistic role of expressing the state of Australian culture today lies in our very invisibility. It says something, doesn't it? We came to Australia to be free, and if the price of freedom is anonymity, so be it.

Edd's current work [of UV-reactive art] speaks to me about visibility and invisibility. Under ordinary light his new canvases are white and empty–invisible paintings. But under ultra violet light, or what is known as blacklighting in the billboard advertising game, strange images appear.

It seems to me, the new migrant to Australia is like these “aragonite” paintings—blank and invisible to those who only see from a certain cultural framework, those who apply only one special code for recognition within a closed exclusively English speaking mode.

But place him under a different light, his own light, a light equally valid and equally luminous, and we might uncover perhaps unique noble traits and virtues. We may encounter basic humanity behind that anonymous facade.

Painting is not merely an image on canvas hanging on a wall. The viewer is asked to confront that image. The result of this confrontation decides what happens to the work of art. You have the artist-creator, you have his work, and you have the viewer. The three must interact and come together to produce the beauty and magic of art.

3. Printemps des poètes

The Alliance Francaise de Manille fete of spoken poetry & good wine
is slated for April 2
L'ELOGE DE L'AUTRE, CARREFOURS, CROISEMENTS, METISSAGES
“In praise of the other: crossroads, crossings, crossbreedings”



































The French, as represented by its local cultural center, Alliance Francaise, is most friendly to poets apparently around the world, as the event is observed in French cultural centers all over. Alliance deputy director Christophe Farges and board director Deanna Ongpin-Recto host the yearly event. Judging from pervious editions, Printemps is a most gracious literary event, well-attended by an appreciative audience, poet-readers, musicians and performers, and well-provided with tables of fine victuals and generous servings of French viticulture. Overall a heady literary treat for lovers of the word.

4. Romanza Book Launch

To be soft-launched at Printemps des poètes at Alliance is painter/watercolorist Marivic Rufino's bilingual art-and-poetry book Romanza. In a volume lovingly designed by Eva Peñamora and published by Tahanan Books of Reni Roxas, Mav's paintings are paired with National Artist Rio Alma's poems in the traditional Filipino short forms of the Tanaga, Diyona & Dalít. Romanza is edited with translations by Marne L. Kilates, and an introduction by the art critic Ruben Defeo.

Here are samples of the Marivic Rufino paintings, with the Rio Alma poems and my translations.




Sagot sa Lutrina

Nagbabalik ang ulan
Para magbayad-utang
At ang hampas ng hangin
Para muling maningil.

Answered Prayers

The rain comes back
To pay debts
And the wind
To collect payments.

Dahas

Ano nga ba ang dahas?
Isang bisig ng poot,
Kapanalig ng lakas,
At kabiyak ng lungkot.

Violence

And what, indeed, is violence?
An arm of rage,
A co-believer of force,
A spouse of sorrow.


Selos

Ang gabi’y lumalalim
Kahit hindi hukayin.
Ang mata mong malambing,
May sampung libong tabing.

Jealousy

The night deepens
Though no one’s digging it.
Your sweet eyes hide
Behind thousand veils.




❜

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poets'picturebook Issue 11 posted