An Affair with Glass and Cars

An affair with cars and glass

by Nickky Faustine De Guzman
April 14, 2014

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Glass artist Ramon Orlina creates whimsical glass display arts in various shapes and sizes, cuts and colors. Because his glass pieces evoke sophistication and class, scheming “black crows” with their “klepto” claws rush to get a piece of his shiny, shimmering works. His most controversial piece, according to the architect himself, is his 67-piece stylized bird sculpture “Wings of Victory,” which used to hang in one of Singapore’s malls until one day when it just magically disappeared.

BenCab’s Art Car “Sabel sa Beetle” (Images by Pinggot Zulueta)

Orlina has installed an interactive display system in his recently opened museum in Tagaytay, which aside from his past works, shows a compilation of local YouTube clips of these so-called “crows” stealing his shiny display pieces with ease and nonchalance. In one, a pudgy woman lurks behind the glass doors of a showroom at SM Megamall. In one swift swipe, a small jade Orlina glass sculpture vanished into thin air. Ramon says, “Nobody from the showroom has said anything, nahihiya daw sila sa’kin.” It is no wonder that Museo Orlina in Hollywood Subdivision, Brgy. Tolentino, Tagaytay is heavily guarded.

ART FOR EVERYBODY

Despite the series of seemingly unfortunate events, Ramon, or Mon as his friends call him, has chosen to showcase his legacy. The artist feels like he holds a responsibility of instigating and proliferating arts in the hearts and minds of the public. “People come here to Tagaytay for the view of the lake and volcano, horseback riding, food, and weather. And nothing for the arts,” the 70-year-old glass artist says.

In Museo Orlina, there is an amphitheater, sculpture garden, organic coffee shop, and interactive display system. This place is home to a broad spectrum of the arts—sculpture, architecture, music, installation, painting, photography, and performance—nestled in the heart of a tourist spot.

The newly opened four-unit five-level townhouse-turned-museum also serves as a testament of Mon’s ever-evolving artistry. Apparently, some critics say his artworks are outmoded, tired. “Alam mo, Mon, magaling ka. Kaya lang ‘yung mga gawa mo, pare-pareho lang,” people often say. But Mon begs to differ.

Architectonic Inspirations, Study I, carved glass and painted mild steel

Before he made it into an art form, glasses were for utilitarian purposes: drinking vessels, window glass panes, windshields. Mon pioneered the medium and elevated it as respectable artwork. From turning scrap glasses into whimsical display art pieces, the architect has definitely come a long way since he started in the ‘70s.

Every glass masterpiece mimics his playful mindset, from shiny, textured, and colored to matte, smooth, transparent, and etched. “All my works are influenced by my childhood. Lalabas lahat ‘yan later on, eh. So ’pag tinatanong sa’kin ano bang inspiration mo, I say ‘I have a lot,’ from the beginning of my childhood, my comics, my drawings. I also have a great-grandparent who could cut glass, so instead of capiz, glass ang nakalagay sa windows.”

He has also ventured into handcut Swarovski jewelry, bronze and copper sculptures, and metal installations. “I am doing other mediums—I produced a show and I also work with metals so I don’t dwell only in glass sculpture,” says the artist, whose many pursuits include fortune telling and the paranormal. (Yes, he can see ghosts.)

INTO THE GALLERY

But in Mon’s gallery you won’t see ghosts, but reflections and refractions of light through the glasshouse he bought from a friend. Contained in the 370-square-area museum are his collections of celebrated and unfamiliar glass pieces from then and now, sharing space with paintings and sculptures by Olivia d’Aboville, Betsy Westendorp, Leeroy New, and Anne Pamintuan, among others.

EVOLVING ART Glass artist Ramon Orlina showcases his evolving artistry—from prism to textured glasses—in his Museo Orlina in Tagaytay

The first floor houses the Reflections Gallery, devoted to exhibitions of various artists. While the second and third floors are treasure troves of Mon’s early pieces, favorites, and recent works. The roof deck offers a bird’s eye view of Taal Lake and Volcano. Tucked in the basement of the museum, meanwhile, is his collection of vintage cars, which his friend National Artist for Visual Arts BenCab used as canvas in painting his most iconic subject, Sabel, Ben’s melancholic symbol of despair.

Aside from glass, Mon apparently has an open affair with cars. At his office inside Museo Orlina, you’d find a bed that doubles as a cabinet, housing his collection of miniature Beetle cars. You can see the sparkle in the glass artist’s eyes whenever his eyes would fall on their gleaming fenders. No doubt about it, Mon likes anything shiny.

‘Flying’ in the water

Rediscovering the benefits of swimming

by Nickky Faustine De Guzman
April 8, 2014

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For Hungarian coach Ivan Petrov, swimming is synonymous with flying.

“A swimming pool is like a sky. You can move freely in the water, do what you want because there is no limitation. You have nothing to be afraid of. Who doesn’t want to fly, anyway?”

This being said, swimming—for competition or recreation—welcomes anyone who wants to “fly” in the water, including the elderly and the handicapped.

Petrov has handled a 66-year-old man who wanted to learn how to swim. After three months of dedication and motivation, Petrov said he became a better swimmer.

Moreover, Petrov said there is no significant difference between a regular and disabled person when he or she is in the water.

“Swimming doesn’t cause cruel impact on one’s skeletal system. The joints for instance, are not affected by gravity. There is no great impact on the ankle or spine. So anyone can move freely in the water even if, for instance, he doesn’t have legs,” he said.

In fact, the human body becomes lighter when it is in the water. When immersed to the waist, the body only holds half of its weight. While when submerged to the neck, a body only bears 10 percent of its weight, the rest is controlled by the pool. Hence, swimming also provides convenience to people suffering from stiff muscles, arthritis, sore joints, or obesity.

Petrov, however, cautioned that persons with asthma and epilepsy should inform their coaches about their health conditions. Alternatively, they may not want to swim alone.

Leaner, stronger muscles

Petrov noticeably has tone muscles and broad shoulders. Physical fitness after all, is just one of the benefits of swimming.

When one swims, he or she uses every muscle of the body, unlike in other sports.Running, for example, only requires a specific part of the body.  A swimmer on the other hand, uses every muscle and bone when in the water. The water is about 12 times denser than the air, which means that the resistance is stronger when in it. As a result, the muscles become leaner and stronger.

Coach Ivan Petrov during his recent visit to the Philippines for the ‘Cutting Through Water Workshop’ held at the San Beda College.

Healthier heart and lungs

Having a healthier heart and lungs is another benefit of swimming, it being a total body workout. According to Petrov, a competitive swimmer’s heart beat averages 180 per minute, while a recreational swimmer averages 140 heart beats per minute.

The rapid heartbeats improve the efficiency of the heart to pump more oxygen and blood in the body.  As a result, it lowers bad cholesterol and improves blood pressure. Swimming also expands the lung capacity and helps the lungs use oxygen efficiently.

According to the American Heart Association, exercising for half an hour, like swimming, reduces coronary heart disease in women by 30 to 40 percent.

Happier spirit

“Swimming is also a good way to meditate,” Petrov said.

In fact, exercising releases endorphins. The body produces endorphins as a response to stimuli like stress, pain, or fear. Thus, they are responsible for our excitement, feeling of being high, and satisfaction. In effect, swimming lowers stress and makes one’s body more relaxed like that in a yoga session.

Murakami Underground

But this underpass bookshop also has Shelley, Sheldon, Shakespeare, and more, all of them you can buy for a song

by Nickky Faustine De Guzman
April 7, 2014

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Think of Haruki Murakami’s novels as you walk through the Manila City Hall underpass. Within the chaos of it, the rows upon rows of vendors selling cheap clothes and used phones, the indifference and desperation of the streetpeople, lies a portal to other worlds.

“It’s like a scene straight out of Murakami’s novels,” says AJ Laberinto, referring to life in Underground City, the pit of Manila, just beneath the asphalt jungle. He owns the Books from Underground, the four-year-old thriving treasure trove of literary gems tucked within the Manila CityHall underpass.

(Image by Pinggot Zulueta)

“No one has thought of it, a bookshop in an underpass, where you least expect to find one,” he adds, the “‘underground,’ after all, also connotes something dubious… illegal,” or to, borrow from the literary masters, forbidden.

Not that the store is selling anything unlawful, nothing like a speakeasy at all, where everything is hush hush. If you know how to look, what it offers is rarities. Or, if you’re lucky, maybe even banned books—now that’s forbidden, which gives us all the more reason to check it out.

Among the inhabitants of the Books from Underground, in the yellowed pages of secondhand classics, are the likes of Oscar Wilde, Kate Chopin, H.G. Wells, Louisa May Alcott, John Green, and Meg Cabot. “You got to have the pulse—” started Laberinto before in midsentence he was interrupted by a group of co-eds from Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila looking for a copy of The Game of Thrones. Unfortunately for the students, all the proprietor could say, shrugging his shoulders, was “Come back next week. I don’t have it yet.” What he has to sell he knows by heart, thanks to his internal inventory of books, a list he keeps only in his mind. Here among these piles of books was not a businessman, but a book lover, a wide reader, whose lifestyle he himself considers “bohemian.”

“I like reading and collecting books, especially Russian literature by the likes of Alexandr Pushkin and Anton Chekhov,” says the 32-year-old, his eyes lighting up behind his prescription glasses and the shadow cast by his fedora hat.

This is how the bookshop started from scratch. He and a friend Winter Gabayron, 34, saw a demand for reading materials, those not required by schools. Most of the books are from their own collections, the others they get from buy-and-sell enterprises, still others from such random strangers as a boy, who once bought a complete set of The Game of Thrones, only to realize his girlfriend did not like any of them. “So he sold the set to me,” says Laberinto, waving his gloved hands.

According to him, contemporary internationally acclaimed novels like George R. R. Martin’s sell like hot cakes, although from time to time, there is a clamor for local authors. The quaint little shop, dusty, musty, stuffy, and old, houses the cheapest (P10 for magazines) and most expensive reading materials (P1,000 for autographed titles, rare books like Filipiniana).

Before a customer stole his attention asking for a copy of Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, Laberinto was saying that contrary to what we tend to think, “many young Filipinos still like to read…”

In the words of Rufus Wainright, set to the music of Burt Bacharach, “I don’t know… Go ask Shakespeare,” but by then, the man behind the Books from Underground was too busy entertaining the other customers.

Till I met you

‘He has a purpose for what He gives us. It is important that we use it to give Him glory. Burying a potential or hiding a talent is synonymous to becoming evil.’

by Nickky Faustine De Guzman
April 7, 2014

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Kuh Ledesma wears many hats. She came in the room, dressed down, in what she does not often let others see her in. This time around, instead of singing in front of a camera or entertaining her legions of fans, she talks to a canvas, unmasking the other side of her personality: the artist.  “Over the years I found out that it is not good for us to bury our talents,” says Kuh. “He has a purpose for what He gives us. God gives some people more talents and gifts. It is important that we use it to give Him the glory.”

(Images by Pinggot Zulueta)

For her, burying a potential or hiding a talent is synonymous to becoming evil, a verse from the Bible that she swears by. While in high school, Kuh painted almost every day but when she went to Bacolod for college, her focus shifted. That was about 40 years ago. She might have briefly run away from her first love, but now she’s running toward it. She’s now on her second one-woman exhibit, dubbed “The Beauty of Purpose,” which will be on display tomorrow, April 8, at Whitespace.

“My reason for painting has become clear to me. The purpose of my exhibit this year is to raise enough funds to produce a movie on healing. The title of the movie is Hilom. It is my hope that this film will expose the perils of believing in albularyos (faith healers) and to believe in the power of God’s word and the power of prayer and the Bible.”

God acts as her muse. For her, painting is an opportunity to talk about the Bible. The sacred Scripture evokes the same calmness and modesty in her strokes, showing the softness and fluidity of her lines, dots, and curves.

The Vine and the Branches 9, acrylic on canvas, 2013

One of her acrylic paintings on display, The Vine and the Branches, is composed of gold lines and curves that caress the black canvas. It looks simple, yet speaks volume. Her imposing artworks of vines, branches, and cellos represent her music career and devotion. Her collection demonstrates the elegance of black and gold and how they lend drama and meaning to each painting. It also translates how well she is connected to the Bible, her talents, and herself.

”We are to give God glory in all we do and show Him the beauty of purpose. The thing of beauty is a joy forever,” she says.

Whitespace is located at 2314 Chino Roces Ave., formerly Pasong Tamo Extension, Brgy. Magallanes, Makati City