From finance girl, to pastry chef to painter: Painting the town ‘Penk’

The name Penk Ching is synonymous with designer fondant cakes that keep eyes riveted at weddings and debuts. Sugar and flour confections are her canvas, for Penk uses a medium that is tasteful and edible. Her works look good enough to eat — and they are!

Now, the artist in Penk is finding another expression for her creativity. Her artworks are no longer just pretty enough for the buffet table — they’re pretty enough to hang on the wall. Either way, they are a visual treat.

Recently, Penk participated in a group exhibit of watercolor paintings at Chef Jessie’s in Rockwell. All seven of her paintings were sold! And to think she is just a babe with the paintbrush. A graduate of Business Management of the Arthur D. Little Management Institute in Boston, Penk has no formal degree in either culinary arts or visual arts. She is simply stretching the limits of her imagination and creativity — from numbers, to cakes, to paintings.

“I paint to de-stress,” says Penk, who is joining another exhibit this Sunday, Sept. 15, at the Atrium of Robinsons Magnolia. This time, she’s joining artists from the International Studies for Chinese Arts and the Confucius Institute at the Ateneo de Manila University for the exhibit entitled “Mid Autumn Festival Chinese Painting Exhibit.” It will run until Sept. 19.

***

Penk’s dream when she was a teenager was to take up Fine Arts in College. But her practical father dissuaded her from being a painter, telling her, “The only time you will earn money is when you die.”

So aside from taking Business Management, she took a post-graduate course in Economics at Columbia University in New York. Penk was hired by the United Nations, but her career as a diplomat took a different turn when the UN assigned her to Sri Lanka, which was then in the midst of a civil war. Her father again put his foot down. So back to Manila Penk went. Diplomacy’s loss was many a debutante and bride’s gain. For Penk and her sister Shen Chen-Ratilla became the go-to girls for fondant cakes among Manila’s crème de la crème. Name a society wedding, and most likely, the wedding cake was created by Penk.

Penk did not need a master’s degree for this. Penk and Shen started by baking brownies and selling them to friends and relatives. Their only training in baking, in fact, came from their Home Economics classes at the St. Joseph’s College in Quezon City. (During peak wedding season, the sisters deliver as many as five cakes a day!).

Penk gave in to her first love when she enrolled in an Oil Painting Workshop at the UP Diliman. When the workshop ended, the class convinced their teacher Lupicinio Ng, known to many as Peter, to continue mentoring their group of 12. They agreed to meet regularly at the UP Alumni Center to have lessons in Perspective, Basic Drawing, Charcoal Painting and Watercolor. After their special lessons, they decided they still wanted to meet further, so they would meet every Monday. Since Peter usually came to class in a green shirt, the group called itself the “Green Monday” artists. The group included Lea Consulta, Miriam Daway, Theresa Fenix, Marigene Garcia, Lupicinio Ng, Daniel Ratilla, Corrinne Salazar, Margie Sy and Imelda Tan.

So far, painting is just a hobby for Penk. She sometimes takes up the brush at midnight and paints till the wee hours of the morning, when the world is peaceful and quiet.

“Painting refreshes,” she smiles.

Of course, we all know how the late former President Cory Aquino found a way to recharge and pay homage to beauty through painting, which, like Penk, she took up in mid-life. Balladeer Tony Bennett also paints till now!

“For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” A Biblical verse that  rings true in everyday life. We put our passions, our enthusiasm, our energies — our heart — on what we value most. And it is never, ever, too late to follow our heart.

(You may e-mail me at [email protected].)