The college of weird arts
I entered the College of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines with the intention of majoring in Visual Communications. This was in the late 1970s and the “hippie” look was still in full swing. Apparently, as I found out soon enough, this was the college of the weirdos.
I have always heard that term used to describe the students whose passion for the visual arts is beyond words. Others called it the “artistic temperament” but “weird” was more appropriate. As a freshman, I believed that these people were truly and actually weird. It was not only the long hair that the guys sported. It was also in the manner of dressing, be it male or female, and the attitude.
On the brighter side, this place was also where I had the chance to stand face-to-face with the likes of Jose Joya, Napoleon Abueva, Roberto Chabet, Larry Alcala, Nonoy Marcelo, Virginia Agbayani and her colorful hats, and a host of other jaw-dropping artists-cum-professors. Seeing them in person was a very surreal experience for me. Being familiar with their works and getting the chance to have some of them for my teachers — it was totally an out-of-body experience. I suppose I was star-struck.
And then there were the resident characters of the college. During my time, I had the chance to have one for a classmate. Once, in techniques class during freshman year, we were doing self-portraits. The class was pretty quiet since drawing the human face can be terribly challenging. Then, someone screamed and we all looked in that direction. It was a male classmate whose sketch was apparently spoiled by a leaky technical pen owned by his seatmate. As we all watched nervously, he crumpled the drawing and left it on top of his desk. He climbed upon the desk, started stomping on the sketch and, to everyone’s surprise, posed à la John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever and smiled. That broke the ice for the whole class and we all started laughing. The classmate’s name: Romeo Lee.
Lee, as we fondly called him, went through several phases of weirdness. He started with his Rod Stewart phase — hairstyle, clothes, swagger and all. He then went on to his John Travolta Greased Lightning phase, carried around a boom box and played the song over and over as he danced along the hallway. Finally, just before we graduated, he settled on his punk phase.
He would show up in class with several zippers sewn on his jeans and shirt. Sometimes, he would cover his shirt with multicolored masking tapes, safety pins or various pins of popular punk bands. He also loved shocking people with his antics. From his jeans pocket, he would pull out a few pieces of day-old lechon kawali and eat them in front of us! He sprinkled his adobo with sugar.
Despite his weird clothes and exploits, he definitely had the talent. He was one of the few classmates who excelled in illustration class, the drawing of the human figure. He could draw a self-portrait or a student’s face in seconds. Even his signature back then began with a silhouette of his own face. To this day, Fine Arts students know him because he still visits the college.
I remember attending several art exhibits and what struck me all the time, aside from the marvelous artworks the students turned out, was the way they projected their individuality. Or weirdness, as non-Fine Arts people would call it. There was Jonah Salvosa showing up for his one-man show in a long-sleeved shirt, dark corduroy pants and cowboy boots. Not bad, you might say, until you see his Hello Kitty belt! In another group show, Agnes Arellano served gelatin desserts in the shape of female breasts.
It wasn’t all art for the students because this was the era when high-end running shoes began. So some students, mostly males, formed a running team. The group’s name? The Fine Arts Running Team. FART for short. Go figure.
The students also loved music and it was inevitable that some mixed music and art for self-expression. Way before I entered the college, three students formed the singing group Gentle Rain and the members were Boy Camara, Anthony Castelo and Nonong Pedero. During my time, a female art student by the name of Roro Wijangco was a member of a jazz band. She is now a popular jazz singer in Hong Kong and other parts of Asia. And who could forget the Eraserheads? Where do you think they got the band’s name?
Being called “weird” is not an insult at all to Fine Arts students. Weird is about defying what is “normal.” Weird speaks about freedom and truth, very familiar UP terms. In that sense, I am proud to be a part of the College of Weird Arts.
Several times, I encountered classmates from my AS classes who always asked the same question as soon as they found out that I was from Fine Arts. “Eh, di marunong kang mag-drawing?” I would have loved to answer that with, “Hindi. Pero marunong akong kumanta!” And they called us weird?
