ARS Longa

By Alfie Kwong

Book Reading Participants – – Spike Yabut, mc; Tom Firme, Tess, and Alfie

On the second death anniversary of Marella, the daughter of our dear friend Tessie “Bubut” Francisco Dichupa, I was treated to an afternoon soiree of reading from her latest book, (co-authored with Marella), Art in Retrospect. The source which was meant to be “An Art Retrospective in 12 Parts” consisted of a series of articles about Tessie’s art (text and images) started by Marella in 2011. However, Marella passed away before the series ended; seven articles were completed, and Tess finished the 12-part art retrospective with five articles writing about the influences that helped her create her different art works, their styles, and subject matters.

As expected, Tess’ generous spirit forbade her to “hog” the stage, allowing the lesser lights among us, to also share our art. Theodore “Spike” Yabut, author of a memoir Brown Rice Trilogy, dealing with the crucible of a Canadian immigrant and the turbulent Marcos Martial Law era in the Philippines, was asked to be the emcee. Tom Firme – his soon to be published novella, ready to be delivered by the Amazon neonatal team – read from his work about his Compostella (Camino de Santiago) pilgrimage which he cleverly juxtaposed with stories of some medieval treks by audacious pilgrims. And finally, yours truly, with some sharing of my poems from Controlled Burn.

Naturally the moment I got home, I devoured her opus, and immersed myself in some of her moving art pieces. While I had some aspirations of being a visual art practitioner myself, having endured some two years at the University of the Philippines Faculty of Architecture, until a professor’s comment, “Your water color looks more like a doodle of Picasso in his drunken state,” made me realize I was in the wrong calling.

Trees in glow, watercolour

“A painting can be a timeless representation, an interesting representation of something in our shared world. It has its start with an image that catches the artist’s attention,” writes Marella (p. 25), and this truth Tess embraces wholly in her more than seven decades of drawing. Tess has pen and paper in her purse and she sketches her eye, as a witness to the wonders she sees – a unique and special way of seeing and understanding her environment – the sketch, being “the end and start point, which all starts with a line, and drawing ends up being an interpretation of gesture, or form.”

Pigeons’ Conspiracy Meeting

The pieces contained in her 59 page book represent the important themes of her passion;  primarily among them: trees (in all its glorious shapes and life stages), pencil sketches of the places she visited (Granville Island, Thailand, and retrieval from her Philippine sojourn), nudes (mentored under Cesar Legaspi, her Philprom ad agency ally), and flowers (among others – haunting display of petals and stems that lunge at you; not quite Georgia O’Keefe but more of that ethereal quality where you could almost detect the subtle fragrance exuding from the watercolor.

Tess is 90 this year, yet her youthful eyes still gaze out at a changing world and find the soul of many objects. She is that “Ars Longa” image of a prolific life, experimenting and trying out different mediums and techniques. I remember her as a Sigma Deltan who was a cast member of the original UP Diliman production of Aloyan, a musical in which the song When You’re Away is still the standard love song for all of my sorority and fraternity acquaintances.

I am guessing that Tess sang a verse or two, honouring Marella and her fruitful life. Excerpts:

Ah Love that song within my heart

Lives on, twill be forever as the sun

And when all other loves have ceased and gone

Twill still be you, my ever one.

My heart will pray

for you with every rise and set of day

when you’re away