A Pinay global artist comes home

“You should follow the wind of life," says Lolita Valderrama Savage, describing one of her top three favorite paintings, “Call of the Wind" (a gently windswept European landscape) and her life philosophy. After finishing her Fine Arts degree from the University of Santo Tomas in the ‘70s, the wind whisked Lolita to Florence where she studied painting at the Accademia di Belle Arti as an Italian government scholar, cutting short a budding teaching career at U.S.T. Today, her paintings grace the collections of film director Spike Lee, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab, Nobel Prize winner Manfred Eigen, Connecticut Governor Dannell Malloy, a UK Member of Parliament, the Indian industrialist Hinduja family, a few fortunate Filipino collectors and the list goes on. At three-and-a-half years old, Lolita attached herself to drawing, recalling that “my mother would pacify me with a pencil and paper and I’d be at peace for the next ten hours." In her high school yearbook, she officially pronounced that she’d be a painter. Nature would eventually become her favorite subject. Growing up in Manila, she often stared at the sky, pondering heaven. When visiting Bulacan, she always played in mango orchards and picked fruit straight off the trees. She looked forward to trips to La Union where she could be close to the beach and she relished the adventure of finding giant snakes in Ilocos Norte while wandering the farmlands.

She fondly remembers the Fernando Amorsolo paintings depicted in the San Miguel Corporation calendars they had at home. She loved the idyllic rural scenes with beautiful women, saying “I imagined myself as one of them." As for Juan Luna and Felix Resurreccion-Hidalgo, they inspired her to visit other countries and reinforced her belief that the Filipino artist could be as good, if not better, than artists from Western Europe or any other part of the world. Jose Rizal is, however, her biggest hero. “I’m amazed at all he did… in such a limited period. He inspired me to learn as many languages as I could." Lolita‘s mentor, the respected Italian painter Silvio Loffredo (who himself was mentored by the great Expressionist Oskar Kokoschka), describes Lolita’s landscapes as creating a “little paradise… an open gentle world that one will always remember." In Lolita’s words, “when you commune with nature, you can reflect about existence and ask why you’re here." From Italy, the wind transported Lolita to Sweden where she studied with the Swedish painter Staffan Hallstrom (whose works form part of NYC’s Museum of Modern Art collection). Why Sweden? Her Scandinavian friends convinced her that nature was more captivating there. Lolita stayed in Eskilstuna (a town about an hour away from Stockholm) where she would walk to the woods everyday to paint and sometimes get lost, “it’s wonderful to be lost!" Lolita didn’t think she’d stay in Sweden for several years but she did “because of the peace of pure nature" (her Scandinavian friends were apparently right). Two of her three favorite paintings are of Sweden - one in winter (a snow-blessed rural landscape with a series of Stugor or red cabins in the distance) and Path to the Woods (a lush summer forest scene with a path evoking mystery which I mistook for some tropical place, a souvenir of her days in Eskilstuna). Among nature’s blessings, she also favors the sunset “when the perfectly round sun tears itself away from the passionate embrace of the clouds, causing fire as it descends to kiss the silent horizon." Lolita’s sister for many years had failed to convince her to move to the United States. Sweden was then Lolita’s home but love (for husband Frank Savage) was the wind that eventually brought her to the U.S. Lolita recalls that a married musician friend advised, “if you want to be a real artist, don’t get married. If you choose marriage, you’ll lose your art." For Lolita, however, “marriage and art… were both vocations. I just felt I had to respond to those two calls. It wasn’t impossible. Contrary to what my friend thought, it enriched my life." Thirty years and three grown-up children later, Frank mentions (offhand) that one of his favorite paintings by Lolita is the very same Swedish winter landscape that Lolita selected as one of her three favorites (loving hearts do think alike!). Lolita’s art is also an integral part of her children’s lives. She recalls that when one of her sons was quite small and she was packing off a painting to a buyer, he was very distressed. Her daughter is an actress inspired by Lolita’s art. Lolita admits that, even today, all her children are still a bit possessive of her paintings. She makes it seem effortless, raising three children (American style - no reliance on multiple live-in yayas!) and being the corporate wife to a global businessman while staying true to her artistic muse. Any woman who balances similar things knows it’s far from effortless. Lolita's favorite medium is oil on canvas although she does wonderful watercolors, and pen and ink too. She has also experimented with portraiture. Her style is Impressionistic (despite the fact that her mentors were influenced by Expressionism) and very tactile (her paintings are eye candy, you want to touch them). When you meet her, you’ll instantly recognize the same positive (ranging from restful to very vibrant) energy her paintings convey. My favorite painting is L’Automne a Roussillon which reminds me of Albert Camus’ words, “in the midst of winter, I have found within me an invincible summer." Lolita first exhibited in 1975 in Florence, Italy. She’s also the first Filipina to have lived and painted in Scandinavia and to have had a solo exhibit in Stockholm. Her paintings have been exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum in the U.K. and at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. She has also been sponsored by the Commune of Florence to exhibit at the Museum of Dante Alighieri. She has also ventured to the North Pole to draw. Asked if she ever doubted her art, she replied, “Why should I? It’s like doubting my existence. I and my art are one." To Lolita, “artists are born not made“ and “painting means exercising a gift, a gift to be shared," something “to give joy" and “that must be useful and beneficial to others." Lolita acknowledges that she and Frank have been blessed and because of this she has utilized her art to help others. She first became actively involved in charities while her children were in school and noticed that fund-raising was always a big challenge. So for many years now, she has used her art to help raise funds for needy children, public education and entities that support artists like the Foundation for Filipino Artists, Inc. Lolita Valderrama Savage has exhibited in the U.S., Italy , Sweden, France, the U.K. and Switzerland. She is currently exhibiting in Manila for the first time, at the Ayala Museum from February 8 to February 21, 2011. - GMA News