Stephen and Martino
If ever I were asked what sculptural monument would be appropriate to memorialize the late great artist Martino Abellana, it would look like this: The old master is sitting on a chair with a sketchpad on his lap and a charcoal pencil in his right hand. In front of him sits another great man of Cebuano history, the late Stephen Gaisano. He is posing for a portrait that Abellana is doing “freehand.”
That Abellana could draw people straight on a piece of paper by sight without the mechanical assistance of the pantograph or scaling was the great magic of his art. The monument must be massive and majestic in scale as befits what they were in life. Which is not to say that that scene ever happened. But it may have. There is enough reason to believe their close friendship must have included just such a poignant moment as we can now only conjure by imagining. Men and yes, women, are easily memorialized, less so, the friendship between them.
The monument should be in bronze so no one will mistake its true value. The value of anything made with concrete is not at all obvious to the perception. They are often missed. Which was why, I felt extremely saddened to see they had torn down that old waiting shed at one of the gates of University of the Philippines Cebu campus in Lahug. By the time I saw it, all that was left were two posts lying on their sides, their rusted rebars clawing like fingers upwards for dear life. They seemed connected to the invisible arms of one drowning somewhere unseen beneath the concrete. Soon that too will disappear. And it will be as if the shed had never been there, despite all that must have happened. How many students fell in love, or mourned another 5.0 or said instead of mourning, “The hell with it”? How many hands held each other waiting for the next jeepney to come by? How many friendships made or lost?
But here let me be clear from the beginning. This is not to lay blame on anyone for that loss. These things have a way of happening all by themselves and if anyone should be blamed for the demolition of something which should have been declared a heritage edifice long ago it might as well be me for not writing enough about it or writing about it too late. I suppose only a few people realize, that the person who had that shed constructed was Stephen Gaisano and he had it made somewhat as a gift to his favorite artist friend, Martino Abellana, who started teaching in the Fine Arts program of UP Cebu in 1975 when that art program began. It was something of a silent celebration of a long friendship which predated the Second World War and lasted all the way to the artist’s death in the mid-’80s. I guess it was far too “silent” for a celebration of friendship. Easier for all of us to blame that silence instead.
I knew about the shed from the late Stephen Gaisano himself. I interviewed him in connection with a research project I headed to document Abellana’s body of art once many years ago. He received me gracefully at his home in Beverly Hills, Lahug. It was mid-afternoon and so I could shoot using just the ambient light coming from the large sliding glass door into the living room. He had someone bring the paintings out one by one and I took pictures, my camera set on a tripod. It was quick work.
We sat at his bar. He played bar tender and asked what I wanted to drink. I answered most respectfully that I would have whatever it was he was having. He smiled over the first shots. I do not remember now if we had it over ice, but I distinctly recall fine whiskey. I got quickly tipsy as he proceeded to talk about the war and then after that when he and the painter became close friends. He was not yet the Stephen Gaisano back then and the painter was not yet the Martino Abellana. They were yet young, in the prime of everything. Now, that the painter had passed away, it was obvious he missed him as he missed the olden days. I took his obvious friendliness to me for a sign of that. And it was equally obvious the both of them have had an interesting life linked inevitably to the growth and development of the city they helped personally to shape; him, in the sense of business and the economy and his late friend in the sense of art and culture. If one were to say the most obvious thing, it would be that this “place” and this “now” would be different if they had not been here.
Of course, it is clearly not inevitable that they should have been friends. The both were great men. True. But it might have been that Stephen would have had no interest at all in art and fate would not bring them together. But he did and found the expression of that interest in his friendship with someone who would prove himself one of the greatest artists the city had ever produced, thus far. This, one must attribute to serendipity or the grace of God or as the Chinese are wont to put it, good fortune. But the fact was that they had been great friends. And once, there had been only that old waiting shed to speak of that. But now it is gone. We are left only with these few insufficient words.
