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Your Light
"It began to speak back to me," painter Joselito Velasco recalls. His oil painting: “Hapag ng Pagasa” (Table of Hope) depicts the Master, sharing supper, on a slum home table of broken wooden slats. Twelve street kids, picked at random from Metro Manila’s foul warrens, surround him. The 12 slid back into slum anonymity while Velasco,who just recovered from major kidney surgery, painted from their photos. But "the picture took a life of its own,” the Don Bosco graduate found. Who really were these 12 urchins? Carrying crumpled photos, Velasco searched for them in North Cemetery, La Dakila, Litex, Yuen, Lilac and Fairlane under the bridge. "It was like spiraling into Dante's Inferno," he recalls. He tracked down all 12. That included five-year "Tinay" In “Hapag”, Tinay looks at the Master. Tinay's mother works as a maid abroad, Velasco learned. Her elder married sisters have no time for her. The drug addict father raped Tinay and is in jail. Kaya po lagging malungkot at malayo ang tingin n'yang bata ("She's always sad and has this far away look") Tinay’s auntie says. A scavenger, Nene lives in a North Cemetery niche. Her hopes of becoming a doctor to treat her insane mother are zilch. Michael cooks stew from garbage dump scraps. "Kalkal boy" Emong peddles empty bottles. The children invited the Master for dinner, not vice versa, he 1nsisted when shown "Hapag": Velasco painted 7-year old Buknoy’s far away look. Buknoy recalls thinking then of his father who'd beat him up, for failing to bring food from selling sampaguita leis. Buknoy, who eats only once a day, says: Minsan po wala akong tubo. ("Sometimes, we earn nothing."). But he tries to help three siblings." By crossing from painter to friend, "I began to know gradually who (they) were," Velasco recalls. They're the "tip of a hovering mountain of muck. Greed of a privileged few, glorified by society and media (condemns) them to being treated like mosquitoes or stray cats. (This) calcified into all facets of society." ”Hapag” exploded into reprints, art exhibit, calendars, even billboards along major highways. "This painting disturbed and excited me," Gawad Kalinga's Tony Meloto wrote. "Is it because I forgot, the many left behind?" “Hapag“ transformed my family,Velasco adds. “People were awakened. Even the children, in the painting, are now in school They have Gawad Kalinga village homes. Beyond illness, a blessing awaited. Joey Velasco’s 13 new works include ‘Manunubos’, “Paleta de Sangre”,(Palette of Blood). They’ve been exhibited from Sto. Tomas University to Glorietta 3. “His works have become so real that if the canvas were to be cut by a blade, they’d bleed,” friends say. He chose a female caddie, in one of Manila’s golf courses, as model for Maria, Ina ng Banal na Puso ni Hesus, (Mary, Mother of Jesus’ Sacred Heart). “The congregation that commissioned the painting chose her because of her Filipina features and tanned skin,” he explained. “She carries heavy golf bags and walks through all the 18 holes. Rain or shine she has to stand by her player, a slave in the fairway.” Inspiration for “Hele” (“Lullaby”) came when Velasco saw three youngsters, with Down’s syndrome, shuffle up to receive communion. “They receive the Host (with) small hands and short fingers but their touch can move the immovable…I noticed they had different shades of almond eyes…that seek goodness in people. “I painted “Hapag” to give my children a visual reminder because they didn’t finish their food,” Velasco mused before Kalayaan University graduates this month. “For the past four years, that painting was mounted on our wall. ”It became a reminder of our responsibility towards those in need. “With all the time that passed, has “Hapag” lost meaning?” Velasco wondered. “Has it retained the essence of it’s message?”, He fended off, meanwhile, lucrative offer after offer to buy the original oil. One did see him listen, from seven to midnight, to a spiel from a distinguished visitor.“Hapag” was to be a gift to this gentleman’s father: a self-effacing philantrophist. It’d be displayed in a suitable museum –open to people. “I was convinced.” And over breakfast, he told his family: there’d be a letter from the buyer. His eldest 12-year old son Marco had little interest in the arts “He was pensive.” That night, Velasco received a letter from Marco He read it to the Kalayaan graduates: “Dear Tatay: I’m sorry for writing this letter. I propose that I just be the one to buy the painting…with the promise that I will be a good man, a truly good man.” “His words hit me to the core,” Velasco recalled. “I looked at his face and his eyes which assured me, “I really mean it Dad’. An old soul in a young boy’s body unfolded before my very eyes. The message of “Hapag” radiated already before I knew it. To be a good man, a truly good man. The simplest words perhaps but the hardest ambition to follow.” “In painting, the most important element is light,” he added. ”There’ll never be red, green or blue without light. Saan nanggagaling ang ating liwanag? (“Where is our own light coming from?”) "What moves us? What gives us direction in spite of darkness? And light is one of the things that if shared, would multiply and spread.” E-mail:juanlmercado@gmail.com To see photos of Joselito Velasco ho to this site: http://superpasyal.blogspot.com/2008/09/exhibit-joey-velasco.html Very heart moving. Thank you so much! Dee |
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