The road to Tuba: Baguio picture book

MANILA, Philippines - You might say a funny thing happened on the road to Baguio City for the Shell Art Interaction Series and media familiarization tour at the Bencab museum a ways downhill to nearby Tuba, but not really, not really.

What happened was that the van riders were a bit disoriented during the ascent, or at least this one was, such that he was confused whether the approach was through Kennon or Naguilian or Marcos Highway, must have nodded off because he totally missed the lion’s head that would have signaled the steep and winding Kennon.

The delegation of media, some past winners of the Shell National Students Arts Competition, officials of the fuel firm and its public relations arm NGP were billeted for a couple of nights at the Azalea Residences along Leonard Wood loop, a comfortable boutique hotel a short ride away from downtown.

It turns out that Benedicto Cabrera, national artist, is a past winner of the NSAC, now on its 46th year. He was second place in the 1962 contest, which makes you wonder who won first. The piece was called “Blue Serenity,” and as per the press kit, “one of his early works that recalled a vivid childhood spent in places like Sta. Cruz and Bambang.” The artist was then barely out of his teens when he won the 12th NSAC, which had a spell of inactivity during the martial law years.

Prime resource person for the interaction was painter Renato Habulan, himself a post-social realist, who was to conduct an art workshop at the Bencab museum for fine arts students from UP Baguio. Habulan too is quite a character, he knows the ins and outs of the art world and where the real stories are. He was assisted by artist Thomas Daquioag, himself also twice a 2nd prize winner of NSAC in the early ’90s.

Baguio in early May is not the coolest of climes, but it provides enough of a respite from the sweltering lowlands. The gathering clouds in the distance portend the first seasonal rains, indeed agua de Mayo was just around the corner you could almost smell it.

When was the last time we saw Bencab? Probably eons ago, at the CCP corridors or elevators, him wearing his signature cap and raising his eyebrows in customary nondescript greeting. He was not yet national artist then, and the museum likely a mere twinkle in his eye. My father had given me a shirt from the UP Writers Workshop 1998 held in Baguio, designed by Bencab, same year when panelist and poet Ric de Ungria had to rush down to Manila mid-workshop because of a family tragedy.

The shirt itself has kept well, and this I wore the morning of the visit to the museum. Bencab recognized it, saying, “Ang tagal na nyan ah (That’s been a long time).” He says that every year the writers workshop has a stopover in Tuba, the artist hosting them for half a day, continuing the dynamic yet underestimated interaction among artists and writers. It’s unlikely he has designed a workshop shirt again since 15 years ago.

Interview-wise, Bencab is not the most loquacious of subjects, but he has enough information to satisfy the curiosity of art writers, which lack (the writers, not the curiosity) Habulan has lamented.

No, the boatman depicted in Blue Serenity was not Charon. Yes, those years in London raising a family were lean years, working in a flea market Chelsea side, and the winters, wow, the winters. The galleries were limited when he was starting out in the ‘60s, one of the few being the pioneering Luz Gallery along Edsa where the artist held shows, unlike the booming art scene in the region today. Yes, he returns to the archetypal Sabel occasionally, in fact the choreographer Agnes Locsin has turned the character into dance theater. Yup, he’s excited about working with metal, and is making sure that the sculpture will not be mistaken for other than a Bencab even in metal, and for which he has a team of lateros.

The museum, of course, has turned into a Baguio landmark, with a steady stream of tourists, art lovers, students, plain adventurers going through the impressive multi-level galleries, thereafter to partake of a healthy repast at the Café Sabel at basement, where there’s mountain rice to go with your choice of viand. The day of our visit Kawayan de Guia also dropped by, the young artist resembling John Lennon post-LSD.

After lunch Bencab presides over a postprandial discussion at hillside with Habulan, Daquioag, the artist photographer Pinggot Zulueta and this reporter, and finds the day auspicious enough to open a bottle of red wine from South America, why, the fog is just moving in with the month’s first rains. Agua de Mayo!

You can’t say enough about the museum, no slide show nor video clip can do justice to it, nor to the graciousness of its host. The erotica section is a class unto itself, rightfully raved about by writer Krip Yuson. There’s the bulol room of the ancients, diverse representations of our highland ancestors. The more contemporary works of Santi Bose, Tence Ruiz, Pandy Aviado, a rare collaboration by the now estranged couple Karen Flores and Mark Justiniani, a section by the couple Plet Bolipata and Elmer Borlongan with paintings and beetles, even a work by Robert Mananquil, as well one by Francesca Enriquez.

There was a time when there wasn’t such a dearth of art writers, but now you can count them on the fingers of one hand, says Habulan. Critics like Patrick Flores serve their purpose, because how else can we be understood in the international scene and academe, the far flung art houses and galleries that thrive on theory and monographs?

At the workshop, Habulan says sometimes the painting finds itself, slowly emerges out of the wash of watercolors, like daylight wanting to break in. You just have to set the image or figure against the right backdrop. Not merely landscape but beyond landscape. Not merely still life but beyond still life.

Just as the Bencab museum itself is set against a backdrop of light and shadow, the clouds moving with the precision of advancing armies. While out of the workshop came a portrait of the art writer Jasmine Cruz of BusinessWorld, or at least the very likeness, or nearness, of her. Along with a wash of other verdant landscapes and figures, an energy mix of innovative methods and next generation technology.

On the way back to Manila there was no mistaking Kennon, and there the lion’s head was repainted and refurbished, surrounded by the souvenir stalls selling jams, wines, brooms, dream catchers. In early May the cool rains were coming in like the lions of summer.