When National Artist for Literature F. Sionil Jose visited UP Mindanao, last 2005 or 2006, I remember him saying, “abstract artists are like writers who don’t know grammar.” I was never a fan of abstract art, especially the ones with no representational images, but I appreciate the unexplainable beauty resonated by the lines, colors and the strokes, and yes there might be beauty but it’s unexplainable, difficult to grasp, and somehow there is truth in what Jose said.

Jackson Pollock’s painting No. 05 somehow caught my attention, the splash of the paints, the strong colors–very virile, like rage, hate, and suffering. The painting reminds me of the movie Princess Mononoke, where the gods became demons because of much rage, hate, and suffering, the painting looks like the demon in the movie–worms that feed on the god’s flesh and anguish. I’m not suggesting that the painting is ugly because it has something to do with demons, hate, or whatever, I appreciate how the artists conveys the message without even representing it with figures, just the brush strokes, the colors, and so on.

Still, I am uncertain of these feeling because it seems to change whenever I look at the painting again, I’m trying to grasp but it remains unexplainable. For someone who draws representational objects, like me, I feel insincere when I try to make abstract art. I don’t know, it feels like I’m a fish (or mermaid for that matter) out of water, I’m not even sure of my explanation to Pollock’s painting if it jives with the his idea.

an overture to my pink childhood

I have this frustration in writing I have loads of thoughts ideas and imaginations but I can’t put them into words I feel dumb when I write same feeling when your Math 11 teacher gives you a hard no not hard arduous problem on vinn diagram and you have to draw six vertiginous circles chained like the Olympic rings Huh maybe that’s why it’s called a problem because it really is problematic Well back to my problem in writing I have been trying to cure this malady I write and write and write I surround myself with people who write good and maybe just maybe I could absorb their skill in penning thanks to osmosis But why am I talking about writing anyway when this article is about me Well I dreamed of writing a novel about myself or an autobiography and this is my courageous attempt.,?””!

PS place the punctuation marks on tits appropriate place

 

Chapter One

Portrait of an Artist as a Young Gay

 

For as long as I could remember, I have been gay since five. Playing with toy guns or miniature race cars was not my game. I fancy baby dolls and I love playing with their flamboyant dresses and silk-curly-locks. Mother would pinch the part of my body she gets hold to whenever she catches me playing with my pretty little playmates, so I play with my dolls in a place where nobody could see us, we would hide behind the bushes in our backyard like the fogs of Avalon the bushes conceal us from great peril, and there we play like there’s no tomorrow. We love role playing and our favorite role is to play sister act, Whoopie Goldberg had a big part of pink-childhood. I would sing I Will Follow him at the top of lungs, then I would lead them to dance and we dance like fairies in an enchanted fairy ring. But all good things must come to an end, Mother found out about my “unmanly” deeds World War III erupted, disgust on gays fired from her mouth like atomic bombs and I felt the pain of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, my heart is burning into ashes and sparks of anguish flowed out from it. I buried my dolls in our sacred grotto, the same spot where we play, and I made a cemetery for my dead dolls (the dolls I’m caught playing with). I would weep on their gravestones until I forgot they existed.

I resorted to drawing, with it I channeled my frustrations, and the oppressions I felt in a very artistic fashion. I started with scribbles, then to stick drawings, then to Neanderthal drawings, until I reached a more human figure drawing. At first, my favorite subject was Virgin Mary, I am very fascinated with her “divine” and immaculate beauty, the powerful, the regal, and the statuesque pose seem mesmerizing. Eventually, I had enough of drawing a gazillion portraits of the Virgin, and when access to encyclopedias was available, I found a more interesting subject—nude women, this dawned my appreciation and challenged my skill in the higher levels of art.

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