No more fear, pain and shame

MANILA, Philippines — She is an obsessive woman and right now, Grace Kalaw Katigbak is obsessed with making a reputation as a great artist. She has had solo exhibits in various art centers here and abroad and she is avidly preparing for an exhibit to be held in New York City probably in April.

But what is totally absorbing about Grace is her life story. It is definitely something that could be, or should be, made into a movie. Imagine this: She was abused at age four and got married at 17 to the first of her four husbands, a Chinese guy who beat and maltreated her. She also fell for about 200 men, this she revealed (but always in jest) in the narrative portion of her exhibits.

Still pretty and elegant and graceful at age 68, Grace had a traumatic life but it did not deter her from dreaming and working her way towards achieving fame, especially as a painter. “I started painting 16 years ago,” Grace told the press over lunch at Bizu Cafeteria in Promenade Greenhills.

“It was my fourth husband, a very gifted English director who encouraged me to paint, noting that I had the talent in this regard. He eventually became my creative director.” Their marriage didn’t last though, maybe because she is financially independent.

Grace was a newscaster on Channel 13 (Loren Legarda, now a senator, was a colleague) when she was younger. Pretty enough to be an actress, she was, naturally, always being enticed by directors to appear in a teleserye but “acting on TV shows or in movies never appealed to me,” she said. In high school though, she was always on stage in school presentations.

The traumas she suffered in life required therapy and so Grace went into therapy. “After my therapy, I learn to forgive and move on. I was able to forgive myself also, and finally I found my voice. That individual voice I’ve been wanting to find, and now I can use it in my paintings. I can now talk about myself, my sufferings, my traumas. I have a message to impart — no more fears, no more fear, no more shame!” she said. 

Through her paintings, Grace said she has found her individual voice and can even laugh about herself and her past now. “This was so liberating!” she exclaimed.

Talking about herself and laughing at herself weren’t easy at first but it helped that Grace attended a stand-up comedy class in Chicago and a clown class in Paris. Happy now, she intends to go to a Comic School in Los Angeles in the near future. She claims there is always a clown in her and she is incorporating that aspect into her paintings.

Also a ballet dancer, Grace said, “Dancing was my first and big passion before I got into painting. We put up Manila Metropolitan Dance Company to support Tony Fabella and Eddie Elejar. I really loved and still love dancing. I still can walk, so I still can dance at my age,” she laughed heartily.

So what other things does Grace do? “I’m also a sculptor, and a writer. I won a Palanca award for short story. I write poems, too.”

How about singing? No, no talent in that department, the irony of the fact that her late mom, Evelyn Kalaw was a soprano.