TAGOS SA YERO NG JEEP ANG TITIG MO HIJA

TAGOS SA YERO NG JEEP ANG TITIG MO HIJA
By: Ian V. Martinez

September 5, 2009

Oil on canvas
27.5 x 33.5 inches
Stretched canvas

There's just nothing more I can do with this. I just need to move on. I had the strangest feeling that unless I affix my signature on this piece, then I remain a prisoner of it.

Usually, completing a work comes with it a feeling of elation, but this time, what I felt was muted relief. After all those years with this face staring out at me from across the hallway, finally, I can begin ignoring it.

This piece is really a remnant of an unfinished past for me. I was just getting back to photography armed with a very low resolution vga camera from a Sony-Ericsson mobile phone, when a young girl sitting in front of me at the back of a commuter AUV (FX as what we would call it then) kept staring at me. I fidgeted, glared back, looked away, and the kid just wont break her stare, while her father who sat behind her seemed oblivious to it all.

After an uncomfortable while, I noticed the compositional quality with the sun lighting the girl from the side and her little body being framed by her father's rough casual attire.

It was an interesting sight because I saw the child squeezing into the protective embrace of her father and that seem to give her so much security as to stare at this large man in front of her, without any fear of reprisal.

I tool out my trusty white Sony-Ericsson, took a photo discretely, and went home feeling I got a wonderful shot of the scene.

But the image I got left much to be desired. As what can be expected from vga phone cameras, the picture taken is not worth putting to paper. I relegated the file somewhere in my computer with the intention of someday photographing something like that in the near future - when I have a better camera.

But some confounding idea crossed my mind and in no time at all, I had a stretched canvas in front of me, and an absolutely dreadful reference image to guide me.

It took a number of years before I finally found the confidence to complete this painting. It took so long that most of the tubes of paint I started with hardened inside their containers!

I've finally gotten this out of the way. I'm relieved.