Art Attack

#168: Looking at the Road Untravelled

A couple of Fridays back, I was in the middle of a party and amidst the loud music, I found myself talking to someone about an alternative path I could've taken a few years back. He's a graphic designer, just like my brother, and because of a previous project together, I felt I had been able to see a side of him I could trust. He had been working in Marketing and after discussing how bad the ads are on Australian TV, I found myself opening up to him about how, as a child, I had been strongly inclined towards the arts. I originally wanted a career in Advertising. At some point, I thought that after completing my business degree, I could take up Visual Communications at the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts as a 2nd degree. But my mother, whose advice I respect, told me that working on Advertising is better on the client side because you have the decision-making authority. Marketing is the way to go. I loved it so much I never looked back. Until now.

Last Friday, I was sitting on one of the steps at Coogee Beach looking at the pink and purple horizon when I remembered this guy I took a photo of in Italy. He was by the water, painting the horizon. The thought made me wonder if I'd ever have the time, the willpower and enough talent left in me to do that. I turned to my friend and told her how I wrote this musical play more than 10 years ago which involved at least 5 original songs I composed, put lyrics on and actually played. I can't play the piano anymore. I had, what my mom used to call, a natural oido (not widow, silly me) for it but I had lost it. Sometimes I wonder if I had lost my art too and the only way I am able to express my creativity now is through simpler venues like photography and having the advertising agency churn out things for me to choose from. (FYI. Bad advertising is primarily the fault of the bad brand manager who approved it.)

Yesterday, I went to the Easter Show and found myself playing critic to some paintings on display. There were two sets of paintings I found myself being drawn to - ones that I admire and cannot comprehend how to create, and those that I admire and can actually imagine myself doing. I remember the time I used to join art contests or have my artwork on display for the whole school to see. I wasn't sent to Science Contests or Math Quiz Bees. I was always picked out for art ones. So what happened on the way to adulthood? How did I get to the point of seemingly having wasted all of the talent away?

This afternoon, I got to talk to my brother for more than an hour. He was describing this horrible horrible design created by someone who actually had more talent in the arts than we did back when we were younger. I feel his disgust. Bad design disgusts me too. My brother charges it to taste. Some people have the talent but not the taste. "I mean. Look at you," he tells me, "you have no technical knowledge in the matter, but you have good taste in design." From a Masters in Arts in Graphic Design student, that's a compliment. But in the light of how I used to share art classes and art supplies with this guy, that line seems a bit sad. Do I really have no technical knowledge in the matter anymore? I want to disagree but I cannot prove it. I don't know if I have the time, the willpower or enough residual talent to prove that line wrong.

"What do you want to do if you don't have to work?" I asked my friend last Friday. She said she wanted to travel and eat. I said I wanted to travel, to photograph the world, do missions, write, play the piano again, paint again...

My voice trailed off as my train of thought dissolved into this image of a man by the water, painting the horizon.