Born to be an Artist

 

Essay 33. BORN TO BE AN ARTIST

By Arnaldo Bernabe Mirasol

Many artists excel in painting even if they never took up fine arts in college. An outstanding example is National Artist Hernando R. Ocampo, who started out as a writer. Another is Lino Severino, who was a pilot, and also Onib Olmedo, an architect. I will add to the list WELEHITO N. PEPITO.

Pepito's artistic urge manifested itself early. As a child, he did doodles on any paper he could lay his hands on, and sometimes even on the walls of their house. But poverty hindered his ambition to enter fine arts college. After high school, Pepito was persuaded by a relative to migrate to Dipolog City where a job was waiting for him.

Although he was a mere all around worker, Pepito was able to support himself through college. He finished his course - not fine arts, I must add - and worked for many years as a medical representative selling intravenous fluids. When the company closed he was hired to be Sales Coordinator by another company selling dental supply and equipment. He apparently excelled in this job because his French employer gifted him with a trip to Paris and Bordeaux, where he indulged his love for art by visiting the museums there.

Successful though he was, Pepito never felt fulfilled. The craving in his heart to do art intensified. He quenched his thirst for artmaking by setting aside a portion of his salary to buy art materials and painting on his own. Since he had flexible working hours, the art galleries in the Ermita and Malate areas became his haunts. Pepito moved later on to Davao City. It was there after leaving his job that he went into painting full-time.

Pepito's early subject matter were still-lifes of fruits and tea sets, aquarium fishes, and kois painted the traditional way. It should be noted that fruits and fishes are prosperity symbols. It's no wonder therefore why the works he exhibited during shows sold so well, because the collectors would presumably acquire not only his valuable well executed artworks but also the luck they carried. Later on, Pepito added genre scenes of lumads or tribal people to his list of painting subjects.

A slight variation in brushwork can be discerned in Pepito's paintings after attending the art workshops of Tony Alcoseba and Ibarra Dela Rosa. He began to employ in his paintings the broken brush-strokes and pastelly tones so dear to the impressionists. But Pepito didn't remain an impressionist for long. He experimented and explored and tried to come up with paintings that would combine in them

the distinct characteristics of realism and cubism. What he did was overlay layers of translucent rectangles and squares on the picture planes and vary the gradation of tones of the separate segments formed. This isn't full cubism yet, but his new style is a departure at least from the classical realism he had outgrown. Pepito claimed though that these semi-cubist works are but part.of the transition phase of his career. He hinted that he'll definitely do abstracts in the near future.

A gregarious fellow, Pepito is an officer of several art organizations in Davao City, while also founding two - the Davao Watercolor Society and the Trihil Art Club. These affiliations demonstrate how selfless and committed Pepito is in advancing not only his own art career, but also that of his fellow Davaoeño artists.