Folkways and Unrequited Desires

Essay 7. FOLKWAYS AND UNREQUITED DESIRES

By Arnaldo Mirasol

The "bayanihan", that quintessential Filipino demonstration of cooperation, is a theme that Danny Simbulan Rodriguez returns to again and again. For those who do not know what bayanihan is, it is that Filipino practice of lending a helping hand (or should I say shoulder) to neighbors who wish to relocate their house. But that practice, which we carry over from times when nipa huts abound, may be on the wane, especially now that more and more houses are being built of concrete and other sturdy materials, and whose foundations are firmly rooted in the soil.

That's maybe one of the reasons why Rodriguez frequently revisits that theme -to remind the current and future generations that what we were in the past is worth emulating. The other reason could be plain aesthetics. The subject lends itself to stylistic variations that never fail to please the eyes. Though the bayanihan theme was pioneered and popularized here by National Artist Carlos "Botong"  Francisco, it was not him who influenced Rodriguez style-wise, but the American Regionalist painter Thomas Hart Benton.

American Regionalism is a realist modern art movement that specialized in depicting scenes of rural and small town America. Prime exponents of that movement aside from Thomas Hart Benton, were John Steuart Curry, and Grant Wood. This movement was launched in reaction to the influx, via the Armory Show, of European Abstraction. That could be the context in which Rodriguez creates. He aspires perhaps to be the chronicler of folkways still extant in rural Philippines, like the playing of the card game pangginggi, the bunong-braso (arm-wrestling), and of course, the bayanihan.

Rodriguez studied at the University of Santo Tomas College of Architecture and Fine Arts, where he majored first in Advertising, but shifted later on to Painting. When asked if he finished the course, Rodriguez revealed that he did not, because he only enrolled in laboratory courses, like basic drawing, painting, and composition, among others.

After leaving school, he hanged out with Alfonso Medilo, one of UST Fine Art's outstanding students, who'd been winning prizes left and right. Obviously a fan, Rodriguez  presumed that he'll learned much from Medilo, who brought him along to the weekly nude sketching sessions of the original Saturday Group in Taza de Oro, alongside the august company of senior painters who are now National Artists. 

They also used to visit the studio of Classical Realist painter Gabriel Custodio in Ermita, and went out to the countryside of Bulacan to paint "en plein air". These outdoor painting excursions stood Rodriguez in good stead, because his facility in doing watercolor impressions of the subject matter before him is very evident now. 

Although they had lived for a while in Tondo, Rodriguez's family was truly from Betis, Pampanga. He got married in 1982 to a Bulakenya, Cynthia Estrella, who had influenced perhaps his decision to settle in Guiguinto, Bulacan, where they now lived with their four children. 

Rodriguez took on the first suitable job that came his way when he got married, which was as an artist at Rubberworld Philippines. After a year there, April Gamboa-Villacorta, a classmate at UST Fine Arts, told him that the National Museum was in need of a scientific illustrator. Rodriguez promptly applied for that job and got hired.

Rodriguez was assigned to the Ethnology Division where he did drawings, mostly in pen and ink, of ancient artifacts and relics. I asked him what he exactly drew at the museum. Rodriguez answered:  "Kadalasan mga artifacts. Kung hindi bato, buto. Kung hindi buto, banga. Minsan diagrammatic drawings showing cross-section ng isang artifact. Minsan visualization ng proseso ng archaeological methods. " (Artifacts most of the time. If not stones, bones. If not bones, jars. Sometimes diagrammatic drawing showing the cross section  of an artifact. Sometimes, the visualization of the process of archaeoiogical methods.)

Rodriguez said that what he really wanted then was to do botanical and zoological illustrations. Anyway. despite being assigned to a job that wasn't his first choice, his stint at the museum became memorable when he got to scuba-dived with the group of French oceanographer Franck Goddio who was then excavating the wreck of the British trading ship Griffin in the sea off Basilan. The results of these underwater forays were the series of illustrations he did of blue and white porcelains, which he copied from pictures taken by the expedition's underwater photographer.

Rodriguez worked next for a non-profit organization at the Vietnamese refugee camp in Morong, Bataan. The organization, the World Relief Corporation, was sponsored by the United States' Department of State. Rodriguez was art coordinator there, conducting art workshops for English teachers and Vietnamese volunteers.

Rodriguez had exhibited thrice in the United States - in New Hampshire, New York, and Los Angeles. He can afford to paint full-time these days, especially now that his children have all finished college. His being born of working class parents had influenced his choice of subject matter. His father was a carpenter and his mother was a former farm worker. Rodriguez spoke fondly of how good they were as storytellers, of how they can describe in detail the sartin cups and plates they used, and their cooking methods. e

Memories of his childhood days in Betis is the wellspring of Rodriguez's art. His painting "Gambling Madonnas" could be an eyewitness depiction of how mothers in their neighborhood spent their free hours.

But Rodriguez's art isn't all nostalgia. He had also done a series of drawings and paintings on beerhouse habitues a la Danilo Dalena, but with the difference that the characters in Rodriguez' paintings are not people with blurred faces. They are flesh and blood people, with distinct identities, who cry when hurt and bleed when cut,  He painted men that are far from charming, and who seek solace by haunting bars where satisfaction can be had for a fee. 

The paintings in this series, although apolitical, falls within the ambit of social realism. These are powerful works, and this writer could only hope that Rodriguez not drop the series. These beerhouse paintings may not be bestsellers like the 'happy paintings' and abstracts that are so in demand these days---but they would put Rodriguez on a par with Dalena, who was a chronicler without equal of unrequited desires.

---2016