One must have a quest

Let me open this blog about Pinoy visual arts by writing about "Alamat ng Lawa ng Sampalok" (pen and ink on A3-size art paper, colored in Photoshop) by Gerry Alanguilan. My reasons (aside from it being a superb piece of art): Reason 1. Like the bloke in the artwork, we are on a quest. In this piece, a healthy young man is on a mission (judging by the looks of his backpack and staff). We catch him as he is about to step into a path guarded by a pair of hoary trees. Spread out in front of him is the dramatic landscape of Lake Sampalok with the mountains Cristobal and Banahaw. The vision seems to startle him a bit, as if he had just emerged from a dimly-lit moss-heavy jungle represented by the trees that frame the picture out into bright sunlight. It is as if our young man is from the past (with his tight pants with rolled-up trouser legs) and about to boldly enter the future, where, it is hoped he will fulfill his quest, and get a fashion makeover. The trees aren't just any gracefully aging perennial, by the way. Alanguilan has painstakingly drawn them to look like they came straight out of a past wild and woolly. They are not just long-lived, they are antiquities itself. But there is something solid and dependable with these boskies, like old friends that need only photosynthesis and not your money. Across the wide lake and forbidding mountains looms an uncertain future. Like the young man, this blog will embark on a kind of journey about Pinoy visual arts and its myriad forms. It could get strange. Reason 2. The artwork's appeal cuts across generations, which, hopefully, this blog can do as well. This artwork in a way bridges the gap between the "Golden Age" of komiks (the late 1950s up to the 1960s, according to the late great artist Francisco V. Coching) with the more recent Pinoy comic book brands which are heavily influenced by video game aesthetics, the Neil Gaiman-and-Dave McKean axis and manga sensibilities. Alanguilan, who gained wide acclaim for his work with the US comic book publishers Wildstorm and Marvel, modeled his style here after those of the old Pinoy comics greats like Coching, Nestor Redondo, Rudy Florese, Alfredo Alcala and others. Just look at those body-hugging pants with rolled-up legs, isn't that something that Coching used to do? So we have here an artist, used to the slick and edgy styles of US titles, paying homage to our almost-forgotten local artists. Reason 3. Being hung isn't the only thing that counts. Why start a blog about visual arts with a post that is comics-related? Like many Martial Law kids who grew up in a small town, the visual art I mostly encountered while growing up were in the form of Marcos and KBL campaign posters, calendars with their tide schedules and smiley moon phases, giant movie billboards, the giant wooden spoon-and-fork set, the giant wooden rosary, the collection of tiny bladed weapons from around the Philippines and comic books. And of course, Catholic church art with their weepy saints and Jesus portraits with eyes that follow you around the room. As for TV, we only had one channel—the Marcos propaganda channel—so I stayed away from that. I had a friend whose house had a copy of Gainsborough's "Blue Boy" but that was that. Thus, I've never put much thought into the supposed differences between art that hung in galleries and those in the pages of comic books. Reason 4. In this blog, we get a chance to ask artists what they actually meant to show in their work, and not just guess badly. And so Alanguilan was kind enough to answer my few questions about "Alamat ng Lawa ng Sampalok." Me: What was the original purpose for this artwork? Gerry Alanguilan: The "Sampalok" artwork was a preview for a comic book adaptation of the legends about the Seven Lakes of San Pablo City, which almost saw publication in 2006, but that project fell through. It's definitely something I will be working on in the future. I have a lot of projects in the backburner. I seem to come up with stories faster than I could actually work on them, which is great because I write them all down in my big black book and I can do these stories one by one in the coming years. At least I won't have to worry about writer's block when the time comes because I have all these stories written down. Me: Of all the potentially spectacular images from the myths, why choose this "threshold of a new discovery" image as a preview? GA: It's symbolic of the kind of journey that the reader will take in discovering the legends of the seven lakes of San Pablo. This artwork would have been significant to San Pablo residents [if the comic book had been made], especially to the majority who have no idea about the legends and myths about our hometown. Me: Now the characters under the "S," who are they? GA: They are characters that figure prominently in the legend of Sampalok Lake. The man holding the stick in the air is a god-like being who unleashed his wrath on the evil folks by calling upon a deluge to swallow them and their houses. Me: Cool! Are those two trees "botanically-correct" sampalok trees? (I know my Philippine birds but not trees!) GA: I did take extensive photographs of actual sampalok trees for reference, but no, those trees in this drawing are not sampalok trees. The sampalok tree itself will figure prominently in the story. Me: Thanks Gerry. Much appreciated. (View my blog at philvisualarts.blogspot.com (co-created by Jay Bautista). If you are a visual artist working in the Philippines and wants to have a work featured, just email me at philvisualarts@gmail.com. Toodle-oo)