Me, myself & Malang
September 9, 2002 | 12:00am
He has called himself a National Book Store artist, probably in jest over not having received yet a National Artist award. Mauro Malang Santos, Malang for short, seems like a doting grandfather in that television commercial, someone you wouldn’t be scared to approach for extra baon for school if ever you needed it.
That’s why the thought of talking to Malang was a welcome respite from the more formal interviews we’ve had in the past. The problem is what do you ask a man who has been written about countless times, whose every move seems to be documented in the newspapers?
It doesn’t help that you get seated beside the old man himself. Dressed in a white long-sleeved shirt with purple checks, he seems to have just gotten out of bed with his shock of disheveled hair and his unshaved beard. But he is quick to correct this impression.
Ever since he became a born again Christian in 1987, he had followed a strict routine that would send Malate party goers running for their lives.
"I actually sleep early nowadays, around 7 or 8 p.m.," he tells the two girls sitting right across him. "I wake up at 5 a.m., do some stretching and have a few moments to study my Bible. Then, I have some breakfast and then it’s back to the salt mines, so to speak. I work in my studio until about 6 p.m. And then that’s the end of my day."
The ordered schedule may be surprising, but for an artist who is known for his efficiency, this strict regimen is expected.
I ask Malang if he was bothered about comments that there is a Malang machine doing the work for him, turning out one painting a day. Without batting an eyelash, he quips, "Mahina pa ’yon."
He picked up the habit of keeping notes, sketches and drawings from his days in the newspaper. He left the Manila Chronicle in 1964 to go full time on his painting. He remembers well the time. "It was during the start of the Marcos campaign…"
Since then, he has been painting like clockwork, almost locked in his studio. "If I keep my studio open to all my grandchildren, I would never get any work done. And there are 12 of them."
He considers the change of pace that comes with an interview or attending art openings and other formal occasions to be a bother. He laughs, "Ito, istorbo na ’to."
The interview was part of an intimate press conference in line with Malang’s only exhibit this year, Malang: Vendors and Cities, organized by the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. The exhibit is part of the firm’s community arts program.
Curator Ana P. Labrador describes the show to be a mini-retrospective, since the pieces on display cover four decades of the artist’s works on his favorite theme of vendors and cityscapes. In a quick slide show presentation, Labrador points out the different motifs in Malang’s paintings and how they have changed through the years. Now in his 74th year, the artist has not lost touch with all of these elements, further refining them as integral units in his canvas.
As Labrador discusses Malang’s paintings, I ask him how he feels, his art being discussed as if he were not in the room. He simply smiles.
No question fazes Malang. If you run out of questions, he will ask you about your work. Since he worked for a newspaper, he grilled me about little practices newspapermen do on the beat. He gave a little grin when he heard that not much has changed since his time at the papers.
Most of the time, when the interviewees would pause for a moment to think of another question to ask him, he would just sit quietly, lost in thought. "I often get my ideas from listening to people talk, from what I hear," he declares.
Does he ever run out of ideas for his paintings? Does he ever get bored with work? What if he’s not in the mood?
"At my age, I can’t afford not to be in the mood," he admits.
Malang works with so many canvases all at the same time, it is surprising that he can complete a painting, even more, in a day.
"If I can’t figure out what to do with a painting, I set it aside and come back to it when I’m ready," he says.
He never leaves a painting incomplete. And when he signs a canvas, for sure it is finished.
The joke around the table is that even his sketches and drawings are final and complete works because he now signs them. And that they can be sold, too.
"Mr. Malang has gotten into the habit of signing and dating his sketches and drawings, which is something good for us curators," Labrador says.
Some of his sketches dating from the 1960s, all unsigned, were simple line sketches and complete drawings of mundane things. Who finds beauty in lamp posts, banana trees, church spires, watermelons or in a woman’s baro’t saya? Malang does.
Malang is quick to stress that the HSBC show is not a selling show. "Para sa mga apo ko na ’to," he declares.
Such generosity is definitely to be expected of an artist who donated 100 of his drawings during a recent auction at UP Diliman to construct a new driveway and refurbish the Vargas Museum within the campus.
"’Wag mo nang ipaalala sa akin ’yon," he tells me. "Hindi donation ’yon. Holdup ’yon!"
The room breaks into hearty laughter at the old man’s retort.
"Basta ba makatulong ako, sabi ko, pero holdup talaga ’yon," he adds.
Also to be held during the opening is the launch of the limited edition book Malang: Vendors and Cities, written by Ana P. Labrador with annotations by Malang.
HSBC Premier MasterCard and HSBC Gold credit card holders get an exclusive 50 percent discount on the book at P495, and a special 15 percent discount on Malang paintings at West Gallery when they use their HSBC credit card. HSBC Premier cardholders get a chance to win Malang paintings for every book purchased.
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