Article about the Pasig Art Club by novelist Frankie Sionil Jose (now national artist) in the Sunday Times magazine, June 1961.
(Two overturned bancas serve as seats for this industrious group. Later, during noontime, the artists utilized the smooth bottoms of the bancas for convenient lunch tables. The other artists who sat on the other bank of the stream painted this quiet scene, minus their colleagues at work.)
Each sunshiny Sunday, during summer, a covey of artists who live in suburban Pasig pack their paint boxes and hike to the sun-baked fields and bamboo-lined creeks with which the Rizal landscape still abounds. The artists, all members of the Pasig Art Club, are no Sunday painters. All of them are professional painters who work in diverse occupations, from art directors of advertising agencies to art instructors in the Manila universities. The pressure of everyday living, however, has kept them away from their easels and it’s only on Sundays that they can really be artists.
Last fortnight, the destination of the coterie was a sitio called Ugong. Their is nothing elaborate or exceptional about the sitio which is just a few farmer homes, leafless sineguelas trees and the dead, parched land. There is, however, a small spot in Ugong, which could send slivers of joy through any landscape painter’s heart. This is a creek --- now dried up by the summer drought --- beyond wich soars a tree (see photograph) --- a mighty kamachili that has grown twisted and gnarled with the years.
Setting down their equipment on the banks of the creek, the artist went to work with gusto. From retired UP painter Morales to teenager Crescencia Bernardo who lives the same: to paint the tree. In the crystal sunlight, they worked, and paused only at noon when they opened their lunch boxes.
The painting session went on till long after noon. What the artists did all that time may be previewed in the next page and seen at the Pasig Art Club annual exhibit in July.
PASIG ART CLUB
In the late fifties we formed the Pasig Art Club with Prof. Ambrosio Morales, Col. Jose T. Angeles, Cenon Rivera, Logie Enriquez, Rod Perez, Nemensio Dimanlig and myself as founding members. On holidays we went out for landscaping, oftentimes bringing our families along for picnics. In our inaugural exhibit we had Mrz. Luz Magsaysay, widow of former President Magsaysay, as our guest of honor. During my club presidency we had Sen. Raul Manglapus as guest speaker, and Ruben Tagalog, Raul Silos and Aurora Jacobo entertained us with musical numbers in one of the club’s symposia.
With the encouragement of Ros Arcilla and Manny Baldemor, two participating sculptors, I tried my hand in sculpture. I experimented with various materials – cement, wood, ceramic, metal and adobe. I made a series of steel rod sculptures which were all snapped up by interior.
(Clipping from the program for the Pasig Art Club’s 2nd joint cultural exhibit, 1961.)
FOREWORD
This joint cultural exhibit of the PASIG ART CLUB and the HISTORICAL RESEARCH CLUB marks the 5th Anniversary of the Pasig Art Club and its 2nd joint cultural exhibit with the Historical Research Club.
The theme of the exhibit is “Rizal, Artist and Researcher,” in keeping with the centenary celebration of the birth of our national hero.
Rizal was appropriately chosen as the central figure because he was a man who believed in his people – he wrote his novels for the people, and he dedicated his entire life for their future freedom and glory.
In their efforts to bring art and the other values of our culture within the experience of the people, the Pasig Arts Club and the Historical Research Club seek to carry out, on a modest scale, regular cultural activities. This brochure with its collection of art works by Pasig artists and historical data gathered by the Historical Research Club is part of the over-all cultural effort.
The two organizations have held seminars on cultural subjects, sponsored field trips, and joint exhibits, all aimed at bringing art to the people, and there by awakening a cultural rebirth in the community.
The members of both organizations are firm in their conviction about the necessity of awakening the people’s interest in cultural values, in aesthetic appreciation, in order to offset the strong influence of materialism and to encourage the growth of artistic appreciation among the people.
It is hoped, of course, that artistic appreciation will someday result in artistic expression – that someday works of art will flourish in the community whose creativity, in reflecting various aspects of native culture, can be counted among the very best.
With the support and encouragement of the people of Pasig and their friends, the sponsoring organizations believe that someday we shall indeed see forms of artistic expression of which we can be truly proud.