Heritage and Advocates

Written by one who influenced everyone in my sphere....  Ok, fine!  My mother wrote this, and yes, I was there too when this all happened!  So please, syndicate as you please! :)  Thanks!

PRESS RELEASE:

Art Fun and Sunflowers

             Thirteen (13) summers ago, an artists’ group set about the apparently unenviable attempt at bringing the fine arts to the grassroots level. The move had no fore-shadowing. It was a simple plan on the drawing board – expose the arts to as many people as possible.

            With this objective in mind and in partnership with Pamplona Dos Barangay Council, the art collective Alyansang Tuklas Sining, Inc., initiated the first ever government-sponsored art workshop and exhibit in Las Pinas City. The project was dubbed Tuklas Sining Laban sa Droga, sponsored by the Sangguniang Kabataan of the locale.

           

            For the artists, it was a newly opened channel for sharing their expertise in the visual arts with uninitiated young people from a specific marginalized community. It was a time to simplify the jargon of their craft into words that are easy-to-understand.

            It was a time to inter-act with their little brothers and sisters in painting fundamentals.

            Now on its 13^th established season and by way of a DILG project, its life span verifies the worthiness of a cause: that the marginalized amongst us need not be strangers to the elements of art and beauty.

            13^thSummer of Art Fun and Sunflowers was conducted on May 24, 25 and 26, 2013 at the livelihood training center of Pamplona 2 Barangay hall. It marks this year’s edition of a program that has grown into the annual summer event at Barangay Pamplona 2, the 2^nd smallest barangay in the city of Las Pinas.

            This project has obviously progressed from its original SK objective as an avenue against anti-drug abuse. By turns, it has also incorporated the thrusts of the city government in supplementing, thru innovative programs, the major/basic services in health, education, sanitation, and crime prevention, all of which can be accessed by the citizenry at the grassroots level.

            Another concept which has also underscored this continuing summer art workshop program could be summed up thus:  that the visual arts can be a vehicle for an individual’s subliminal changes in worldview. 

            For the artists, especially to its head trainer, sculptress Netnet S. Abraham, what started as a deep-seated aspiration to make arts accessible to the masses became a second vocation.

            For all those who got involved in that pioneering project, art was not a painting on the wall, nor is it a monument at the end of LRT.  Art became an experience.

            And what started as an anti-drug abuse campaign for the barangay youth evolved into an anticipated community event. At such times, participants and organizers alike can actually feel that art IS for the masses, the people being the fountainhead of all that rings true, universal and beautiful.

           
            About a thousand students have already benefitted from this pioneering effort.  Some of them are already SK members who assist the trainer and the workshop secretariat during the participants’ three-day grind in crayons, oil pastels and acrylic.

            This year’s title additionally reinforces one other fresh approach initiated by Barangay Pamplona 2 Chairperson Romualda C. Villalon: seeding the entire barangay with sunflowers. It underscores an original idea which may yet turn this DILG enclave into a Tuscany look-alike.

             With deep pride, Chairperson “Baby” Villalon proclaimed, “It is easy to be proud about a continuing program.  We did not think it possible that the art workshop would make an impact in our community at all.  Now, we can see the paintings lining the walls of the barangay. The art workshop is a good and contributory project to Barangay Pamplona 2.”

                       

            Every summer art workshop, like 13^thSummer of Art Fun & Sunflowers, is already a harvest - in terms of program longevity and endurance, worthiness of cause and dedication of its organizers. Each series is power-proof that the noble belief in propagating the visual arts at the grass roots level is practicable.

            It is also a solid reminder of how a thing of beauty, like sunflower images now adorning the walls of the barangay, is a joy forever.

            I should know.  I was there.

           

                           

By Junette Soriano-Bax

Member, Alyansang Tuklas Sining, Inc./3/7 Poetry Society