Streams Without Nymphs

Essay 16. STREAMS WITHOUT NYMPHS

By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol

BUTCH JACINTO studied Fine Arts at the University of the East School of Music and Fine Arts where he majored in Advertising. He wasn't a full-time student. Jacinto had to divide his time between working and studying, and had to take on a job as tourist guide for a shipping company to be able to support his studies. After leaving school he worked as Creative Visualizer for Philippine Refining Company (PRC). He worked in that capacity for thirteen years, after which he decided to transfer to the Sales Department of the same company.

After his stint with PRC, Jacinto put up his own company together with some partners called CDEX System. He was the brain of CDEX. He did all the designs and performed the selling functions of the company. CDEX System specialized in fabricating advertising collaterals, like brochures, newspaper ads, websites, banners, posters, stationery, etc. Jacinto is tech savvy. He is proficient in computer graphics, using adobe, photoshop, and several other programs in his design work. There was even a time when he was into conceptualizing television game shows. Jacinto left CDEX after three years and went solo. He established ADFAB,  which was in the same line of business as CDEX System. ADFAB became very successful because of its multinational clientele.

When asked which artist is his favorite, Jacinto said that he admires Fernando Amorsolo the most---an admiration shown in Jacinto's paintings which belong to the classical realist school. He was also influenced in a way and inspired by contemporaries like Danny Pangan and John Wesley Bautista, who were his classmates in art school. 

Jacinto likes to paint dark forest scenes enlivened and lightened with white streams and falls. He also does portraits and still-lifes.

Jacinto's two paintings for the "Krusada sa Kalikasan" exhibit--"Rocks and Stream" and "Surviving" are perhaps homages to the place he calls home---Antipolo. Although fast becoming urbanized, there must still be pockets of raw woods still existing there. These paintings may be Jacinto's way of preserving for posterity the image of the Antipolo he knew.

The title of the painting "Surviving" is suggestive, not only of the state of Antipolo's woodlands, but also of his own. Jacinto, you see, is a stroke survivor. Although he is relatively okay now, his limb movements have become limited. He can walk, yes, but he can no longer use his right hand for painting. But being the survivor that he is, Jacinto taught his left hand how to handle a brush---which his left hand  learned with flying colors, in a manner of speaking.

During the late 1970s, I and some of my friends here in Tondo used to trek and camp beside a river in Antipolo--in Barangay Mayamot, if I got the name right. There is a waterfall there called Bibit by the locals.The area surrounding Bibit Falls isn't dark forest. The sun shine freely on the place. Clusters of fruit trees and plants, like duhat, kasoy, and bananas can be found there, an indication that people lived nearby.

That spot in Antipolo contrasted sharply with Jacinto's two stream scenes which look as if they're still unsullied by human presence. I don't know if these stream scenes were depictions of places in the Antipolo of today or of the recent past. But the impression they gave me were of primeval forests where the only things missing for them to radiate an aura of enchantment was a maiden each---nymphs---bathing in the stream lit by fireflies and moonlight.

Butch Jacinto lives in Antipolo City with wife Mary Ann Legaspi, whom he met in school. They have four children, two boys and two girls, who are all professionals now. Jacinto sent all his kids to exclusive schools, with one even enrolling in flying school, which could be very expensive. His being able to afford his kids' steep tuition fees showed just how successful Jacinto's advertising business was. Today, Jacinto is into painting full time.

---2016