A Potter-y Weekend

The sleeping pills did not work on Thursday, but on Friday I slept like a log after page 2 of Harry Potter. On Saturday I attended a pottery class.

Friends of the Museum:
T:"Hey, so what else are we going to do next? I'm taking up pilates now. It's expensive, but I like it."
N:"Ako, guess what? I'm taking voice lessons at the Ryan Cayabyab school in Galeria. It's 500 for 30 minutes and my instructor's very strict huh. Today nga I learned he died of a heart attack, imagine that! O, Armi naman di ba you're doing yoga, so how was it?"
A: "I like it but it costs P500 per session so I'm taking badminton classes now..."
T: " Ano pa kaya what we can do, I'm thinking of taking pottery classes at Petty Johnson.. Wait, there's this Jazz dance class at Rockwell. I think that should be fun. "
N: " I heard about this strip tease class naman.."
A: " Oh, is that the one with the pole? I heard about it from someone else eh.."
N:" Hindi ata..hahaha..i can't imagine myself with a pole. You know, T has tried almost everything, she also took up make-up classes, that's 11k for 8 saturdays"
T: " Yeah, I really wanna do something with my saturdays. This is my me time. What about massage kaya?"
A." I'm not sure i want to learn that because it's hard- i get it all the time and I know it's hard work for the therapist.."
T: " Yeah nga, pero di ba it would be nice if you learn how to do it yourself so your hubby won't look for it elsewhere..."
A and N: " Ahhh....oo nga.."

We were at the Toushin Maruyama pottery class, and it just struck me funny that while we were molding, pounding on the clay and having our Ghost pottery moment, I was actually having this conversation. I'm actually very jologs, but I must admit I like conversations about ideas. What fun 'ey?

It was an interesting class, and Maruyama-san has a lot of showmanship and talent. I was touched with his intro speech.

On Being Alive

"I was in Dumaguete, and walking along the beach. Walking with the wind blowing in the air, blue skies, very calm and beautiful beach. At that moment, that single moment, I felt alive! It felt good! And eventhough I had no swimsuit, I took off everything (except my briefs) and I swam for an hour..Art has nothing to do with that moment, but nature has touched me, and in one way or the other it will be reflected in my work.."

On His Creations


"It's not a boat! Everyone says it is, but it's called Dawn in Winter (my favorite piece in the museum's japanese pottery exhibit) ..I tried to capture the texture of the snow. I did not make this, it's borne out of the kiln. Sometimes it takes me 30 hours using a compressor or using various temperatures with my stick to create different colors and textures. 30 hours non-stop, pounding at the clay, and I swore i won't do it again, but 2 days later im there again. I use charcoal to create the grayish color, heavy fire creates pink color. I like shapes and color.To make a shape, you have to cut the clay,dig it out to make it hollow, otherwise it will explode, then you have to attach each layer. It's strange. I can't recreate each work. I have some typical japanese work (plate with a very zen-like feel to it), I don't like it but i must survive.. so please buy. So i can go back to japan..." he jokes.

On Sakura

"I feel sad everytime I see cherry blossom, because I know this thing of beauty will be gone soon."

I knew exactly what he meant.
Domo arigatoo gozaimahita,Maruyama-san.

Postscript:
When I was at the pottery-forming machine Maruyama-san said for first timers like me, I have to touch the clay, feel it, then be not afraid to push it, to create a form. He grabbed both my hands, making me feel the clay, pressing, pushing, gently forming, and it was a good experience, to touch, to feel a different texture. He told me NOT to think, but to just FEEL, go with the flow..

On the freestyle, I found out after not really knowing what I'm supposed to be creating that I was a bit obsessed about curves, folds, shape and texture- whether it was in the ashtray or vase I made. I dunno, we'll see next week if this turns out to be something worth keeping. It was fun interacting with my classmates, we were all having a blast, seeing what each one would make.

18th-19th Century Philippine Costumes

Happening this Monday at the Ayala Museum. Catch you there for a look, a chat, a sip or two, then we're ready to rumble!

How to Appreciate Art

Isabel Kenny, an artist, writer,producer and visual literacy expert teaches us how to appreciate art. She has over 20 years experience in her field, and is a docent herself at the Los Angeles, California Museum of Art. Art is, as i believed, an area of my interest, and i was surprised that i learned to appreciate it more with history and culture. My new-found friends Nina, Nina and Carlota were so into it, we wouldn't go to the restroom during class because we didn't want to miss a thing- be it a piece of history from Manuel quezon III or a world war II story, or how to better appreciate art. The last Saturday before our practical exam as museum guides is especially interesting; the art appreciation class helped me learn how to look at paintings. It's a bit tricky, especially with modern/contemporary art, which includes abstract. How does one begin to read the clues as to what the painter wants to convey with his brush strokes that surreptitiously mean nothing to the onlooker except that- a series of strokes with a dab of color? Let me, in my own words, summarize what I have learned:

1. People go to museums to LOOK AT THE ART, to look at the real thing. As museum guides, we should prod them to do that by creating a story, a theme, and a script that would sometimes include questions that would make them look at the painting.

2. To then appreciate art, we should see what draws our eyes to it- what is the subject, and what is its overall effect. Use adjectives-grand, majestic in the case of The Great Oak Tree by Van Ruisdael, or happy, warm, nostalgic in the case of Two Little Girls of Renoir.



In the case of Zobel's abstract art, some of his untitled paintings give an overall zen-like feeling, with his use of light, shadow and color. Sometimes he would be assymetrical in his composition, and yet the art would give off a balanced look. His Tension Luminosa is a powerful contrast of black and white; the white so powerful as one's eyes are drawn to it in spite the heavy diagonal brush strokes and lines, and the grey shadows surrounding 80% of the painting. No matter what it is, there is something in the artwork that your brain picks up; respond to it and you're on your way to interpreting the art.

3. How did the artist convey his subject, in other words, how is his technique? Van Gogh's Starry Night, for instance, showcased the artist's unique brush strokes. One can see that a larger part of the painting depicts the sky, and his strokes convey all the good and bad things that can happen at night; in the swirls and dark colors you can almost see the wild thoughts that run through someone's mind, and yet the lighter colors lets one feel that night, for some, is rest and relaxation.


Henry Matisse's Red Studio is interesting. At first, one would see the walls of his studio with a line that separates one wall from the other, but then the line disappears. However, on the larger wall are several paintings, and at its side a set of neatly stacked artworks. One loses perspective because the wall is merged with the furnitures painted red inside out, without a similar outline as the wall or the paintings. One is jolted to the fact that this is a painting, and not the artist's real studio.


Publication from the MoMA: "Modern art," said Matisse, "spreads joy around it by its color, which calms us." In this radiant painting he saturates a room—his own studio—with red. Art and decorative objects are painted solidly, but furniture and architecture are linear diagrams, silhouetted by "gaps" in the red surface. These gaps reveal earlier layers of yellow and blue paint beneath the red; Matisse changed the colors until they felt right to him. (The studio was actually white.)

The studio is an important place for any artist, and this one Matisse had built for himself, encouraged by new patronage in 1909. He shows in it a carefully arranged exhibition of his own works. Angled lines suggest depth, and the blue-green light of the window intensifies the sense of interior space, but the expanse of red flattens the image. Matisse heightens this effect by, for example, omitting the vertical line of the corner of the room.

The entire composition is clustered around the enigmatic axis of the grandfather clock, a flat rectangle whose face has no hands. Time is suspended in this magical space. On the foreground table, an open box of crayons, perhaps a symbolic stand-in for the artist, invites us into the room. But the studio itself, defined by ethereal lines and subtle spatial discontinuities, remains Matisse's private universe.

There are many other ways of appreciating art, but I leave you with these three.
1. Look at the painting
2. See what makes you drawn to it (colors? symmetry? balance? composition?)
3. Note the artist's technique.

Then perhaps we won't end up wandering aimlessly at museums. Hopefully, we'd come back. I can't wait til my next travel for a visit to the museum this time, and not the museum of contemporary times (the mall).

World War II and You

Prof. Bernard Karganilla dedicates his column to me and other docents-in-training in his column yesterday entitled, "World War II and You". The full article is on this site: www.malaya.com.ph/may05/edkarga.htm. He started module 3 of our saturday class with the documentary on the japanese atrocities, available on sale at the ayala museum for P700. Every filipino should watch this to understand how manila was raped and pillaged by the japanese from 1942 to 1945. Women raped, men beheaded, babies bayoneted, rich and poor together burned alive, the chinese, germans mocked before killed. It is an investigative report done with the survivors of the japanese occupation so that we will not forget the sins of the japanese fathers who refuse to apologize to our nation, and instead continue to honor their war dead in yanasaki shrine in tokyo. Although the war is centralized in manila, there were other casualties of war- in lipa, a massacre, and in panay island where the youngest brother of my grandfather,who, while running away from the japs who reached aklan, got caught and bayoneted, and eventually beheaded. This is a tale i heard from my relatives, who are now one by one dying of old age; our land, which used to be well-maintained, free from shrubs and weeds, now run in disarray as only an aunt is left to tend to it. Planting rice is never fun, as they say, and the youth, my grandmother said, would rather text than tend to the fields. .. I also used to ask Lolo Doroy about his wartime participation, he fought alongside the americans in the war, along with 18000 filipino men, out of which only 6000 got the renumeration and package promised them. Lolo was lived to see that day and got his family settled in before he died; others were not as lucky. He was 16, at that time of the war, and he was 65 when he set foot in the U.S... What many filipinos also don't know is that the americans, when they came in the 1900s were shooting at us like the native americans. It was the first mechanical war our filipino men fought, and they were helpless as the americans had big tanks and guns, and they even had a name for the filipinos- they were shooting goo goos, like they shooting ducks and they would party on fridays after a fight. This is uncanny because filipinos now love everything american, its consumerism, materialism, from american idol to hotdogs and branded apparel. The reason for this is when the americans colonized us, they also sent english teachers who taught our lolos and lolas english, and this assimilation made us love their culture. There were over 100,000 killed in world war II, and the filipinos triumphed over this. but we musn't forget. Along this story is a book that await to be written, about our valliant guerillas, our brave women,and how our kanya kanya attitude helped the americans in their quest to reclaim their colony; alongside this, there is a film in there somewhere that needs to be captured, and seen. It is the story of each and every filipino; so we will not continue to be a nation of dancers and overseas workers who toil away from our families and this beautiful land, a land where the sun always shines, and the people always endearing with their smiles.

Docent training program module 2:over 2500 years and still searching

The second module of the ayala museum's docent training program covered over 2500 years of history and new insights. Our speakers included among the first archeologists in the philippines (among the first 5- now numbering 40 in the country)prof. Ronquillo, and manuel luis quezon's great grandson. My evaluation of the program reads," If history were presented this way-factual,yet not spoonfeeding,no memorization of dates; focusing on the failures, on the tonality, the atmosphere of the times;sometimes even questioning-oh wow,i would have loved history and understood our culture earlier.....the use of visuals, art, dioramas, photographs, combined with music, the enthusiasm,passion and knowledge of manolo on phil history has a very powerful effect on the listener. I also appreciated how geography played in our history.

Metaphor; Metamorphosis

I watch as Frank climbs the ladder of trust, begins to free fall onto our outstretched hands, his mouth wide open,gagging and gasping for breath, hands flailing in the air, until finally his arms grasped the first thing that it can hold on to, hitting Jaime and big brother in the face. This teambuilding exercise relies on a person trusting his team mates to catch him as he announces," I'm falling!". As Frank's fall ends up in a sham, i find a metaphor in it. It's like someone in deep shit, who, in his effort to redeem himself but not doing what one is supposed to do, ends up hurting the persons nearest him. Trusting is hard when you let the fears control you. In this exercise, one panicked, another chose not to do the task, and another went up, only to come down with heart palpitating but not completing the task.

***

The next stage of healing is acceptance and this means facing all fears and completely letting go. I must admit i've moved on, but onto where? The path is not yet clear, and i'm muddying it up by exploring all possibilities at the tempo i'm used to. Contemplate a path to growth,you must , i seem to hear Yoda speak. Embrace your destiny, for it will reveal itself soon, when you are no longer anxious.

***

My person of character today is a 70 year old man who spoke of art in a manner and tonality that evoked something in me. He spoke of the artist's work this way,"...it may seem like a drab of color, but the strokes of the paintbrush tell how the artist is feeling, his choice of colors, always subdued, speaking from an almost meditational approach, as he studied calligraphy and the japanese culture. There is a sense of balance, from the juxtaposition of lines and colors. A painting should evoke depth to the viewer, but it should,at the end of the day, bring you back to a two-dimensional object..." I stood listening to Dr. Rod Perez at the Ayala Museum as he spoke of contemporary art in contrast to classical art, without any notes. This Fullbright scholar and Harvard alumni used the english language and his words sounded almost lyrical. Hearing someone with a passion speak is almost always interesting, i feel i get a piece of that person, and i take it with me. That,folks, is art appreciation.

Car Art

I don't know much about cars, but I do appreciate things of beauty, and so I decided to attend the car art show at the Ayala Museum with good friends Divina, Cielo, Lady and Bob. This is a part of the world tour through international museums and features BMW automobiles designed by artists Ken Done, Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella and Andy Warhol.


“I have tried to give a vivid depiction of speed. If a car is really fast, all contours and colours will become blurred”. Andy Warhol is an icon synonymous to pop art and his car is just that- a perfect depiction of his interpretation of a car at speed. I watch in awe at the video as he paints the car himself, taking no more than 24 minutes, translating the cost of the six-cylinder engine to a whopping 10 million euros. This car has a top speed of 307 km/hr, and has raced for the first and last time at the 1979 24-hour race at Le Mans, France.

Although that night, it was more about fashion than the need for speed, I couldn't help but remember about a piece I read many years ago on driving. Etienne Lebrunne wrote that love is like riding a fast car. You feel the rush in your body, the wind in your hair, but you never know when it's going to end. She may leave at some point, leaving you to take the rest of your destination on your own, or it can lead to fascinating discoveries and wonderful memories. We can't control how the journey ends, and so he tells us to enjoy the ride and the memories that will linger after the ride is over.

The car art show is open from March 3 to March 30 at the Ayala Museum in Makati.