Vignettes

Last Sunday, two unexpected visitors showed up at Pinto - Mark Justiniani and Joy Mallari (to the great surprise of Dr. Cuanang and Andy Estella). Mark and Joy are both visual artists living in L.A. Both came back, after a long hiatus, to the Philippines, for a brief visit. (Joy will be having an exhibition of paintings @ Pinto this November 26. Mark will be part of a group exhibition at the Art Center in Megamall this coming February.) They bring with them a wealth of experience, and a different set of eyes, eyes that have seen everything under the (artworld) sun.

Pinto curator Riel Hilario was also there, as well as other artists and French visitors. Over Dalandan juice and Turon, discussions about art inevitably took place, discussion that eventually became dialogue, as each person sought to understand the process by which his own art takes place, and by which art in general is viewed and understood.

I then realized that the moment of creation (where all Art becomes manifest) cannot be known - it can only be understood after the work is complete. The artist's place isn't to think - it is to do, to immerse himself in the moment of creation, totally and inspite of doubt, fear, anxiety and worry.

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We're way behind in the field of new media and new processes. In Singapore, they're looking into getting all artists of every persuasion to collaborate, hence the emergence of the title "Creative" - an all-inclusive noun for people working in design, urban planning, painting, theater, sculpture, film, fashion, sound art, etc. The collective FARM is basically working to create SYSTEMS for creative people to work together. Imagine that.

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Poetry

The Chance to Love Everything
by Mary Oliver

All summer I made friends
with the creatures nearby ---
they flowed through the fields
and under the tent walls,
or padded through the door,
grinning through their many teeth,
looking for seeds,
sweet, sugar; muttering and humming,
opening the breadbox, happiest when
there was milk and music. But once
in the night I heard a sound
outside the door, the canvas
bulged slightly ---something
was pressing inward at eye level.
I watched, trembling, sure I had heard
the click of claws, the smack of lips
outside my gauzy house ---
I imagined the red eyes,
the broad tongue, the enormous lap.
Would it be friendly too?
Fear defeated me. And yet,
not in faith and not in madness
but with the courage I thought
my dream deserved,
I stepped outside. It was gone.
Then I whirled at the sound of some
shambling tonnage.
Did I see a black haunch slipping
back through the trees? Did I see
the moonlight shining on it?
Did I actually reach out my arms
toward it, toward paradise falling, like
the fading of the dearest, wildest hope ---
the dark heart of the story that is all
the reason for its telling?

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A photo of the rosette nebula, below:

"Do not they consider that the heaven and the earth were once joined together and then we clove them asunder." - The Qur'an