ART is not just for entertainment. If it is just to present special numbers for events like the Sandugo, we miss the point for promoting it in our province. The province created the Center for Culture and the Arts with budget allocated for its operations because Bohol recognizes the role of the arts in development.
Art Impacts Society
My friends ask me why I choose the path of a serious visual artist, though I had been a business mentor at Central Philippine University (full-time) and Holy Name University (adjunct professor).
I do art for pleasure even if this is also a serious career. I sculpt and paint because I feel the intrinsic benefits of expressing my mind to the public and stir discourses through my art. Humans need to express their emotions. These expressions elevate the soul from despair to a place of courage and hope. A person who gets to that place creates a healthier community. A healthy community builds a strong nation.
The Arts Council of England quantifies how art improves societies in its publication entitled, “The Value of Arts and Culture to People and Society: An Evidence Review”.
We Need To Conquer Mountains
The reason developing our visual arts is knotty in our province is we do not have proper venues for exhibits. We have the Talimbaw Gallery in Albur, but not enough. The exposure of the public to art is quite minimal. Many Boholanos still wonder why a mass produced wall décor bought from the mall would only cost P800, while a signatured painting by Sam Penaso, a Boholano painter, is priced at P100,000 – and he got stable from his art profession alone.
When I calibrated the appreciation of my fellow teachers during my tenure as a professor, I knew that their knowledge is very minimal even with humanities subjects offered by our higher education institutes. With due respect to our humanities teachers, I assume, they only see pictures and read books about fine arts and teach students from these sources alone. They are not exposed to real art around us.
Boholanos need to rise from art illiteracy. They should consider the benefits of experiencing art through galleries.
This deserves our attention.
Napoleon Abueva, our national artist, grew up in Duero, Bohol. Yet the province was not equipped to present his works or nurture artists like him. This should make us reflect.
Gauging Art’s Contribution
How do prominent figures see art? Let me share their insights:
“The arts take us on a journey of the mind and the spirit. The steady light of everyday work is refracted by the prism of inspiration, shifting into a shimmer of beauty that becomes an infinite rainbow of colors. This transcendence into a timeless, eternal and universal reality provides nourishment to the soul.”
— Sara Harwin (International artist living and working in Portland)
“Art is such an action. It is a kindred form of action to idealism. They are both expressions of the same drive, and the man who fails to fulfill this urge in one form or another is as guilty of escapism as the one who fails to occupy himself with the satisfaction of bodily needs. In fact, the man who spends his entire life turning the wheels of industry so that he has neither time nor energy to occupy himself with any other needs of his human organism is by far a greater escapist than the one who developed his art. For the man who develops his art does make adjustments to his physical needs. He understands that man must have bread to live, while the other cannot understand that you cannot live by bread alone.”
— Mark Rothko (1903-1970; Portland-raised, internationally acclaimed artist)
“The arts are such an important part of the human experience. When we encourage artistic expression, we elevate human communication, and we foster understanding.”
— Esther Liberman (President, ORA: Northwest Jewish Artists)
“I paint flowers so they will not die.”
— Frida Kahlo (Internationally acclaimed artist from Mexico)
“The art of a people is a true mirror to their minds.”
— Jawaharlal Nehru (First Prime Minister of Independent India)
Why I paint and sculpt
I do not just see my artmaking as a personal expression. No one cares about one’s ruminations. But what if it is true that artists, in general, are also considered as public intellectuals, only that their medium is visual?
This is one of the reasons I pursue visual arts even if I had full-time jobs. I know I contribute to society. It’s not just for personal fulfillment.
I attended an awarding ceremony during the Metrobank Art and Design Excellence in 2006 because was important to me.
This national contest is what every artist in the country wants to conquer. I did not go to the Metrobank Plaza in Manila for someone else’s business. I was a finalist in sculpture.
In that event, I met the late Napoleon Abueva. I took pictures with him beside my artwork. What a memorable day!
As this flash in my mind, I am reminded that my fellow Boholano who was a National Artist in Sculpture, got his accolades after he went to the national capital region.
I also hope to present my artworks in the national capital region, but I only did it once in a small gallery in Makati in 2017. After that, I had a hard time entering the Manila art scene. Growing in visual arts is hard for a province-based artist.
I hope the province can cater to the needs of artists like me. And one way to do this is to create a well-established gallery in the province with a professional curator/s. The province needs to focus its resources on activities that help grow the art scene, not just on training.
To sum up, the province can develop further if it prioritizes on urgent needs in the art sector, especially galleries. If it can only create one gallery in the whole province, it can start to improve the ecology for visual arts. Branded galleries will begin to come in and invest. This way, the ecology of art develops in our milieu.
