Glimpses of Mishka

The trans-generational tribe was at it again on April Fools Day, whooping it up at Penguin Gallery Café in Malate at the opening of the photo exhibit Myopic Glimpses by 18-year-old Mishka Arellano Adams.

Forty-five photoprints clustered together in seven serial groupings hung on the storied walls of the nightspot cum cultural heritage site run by photographer Ami Misciano off Remedios Circle. But the tables were all full, and the bustling crowd made it difficult for us to edge ourselves closer to the current display that’ll stay the entire month. From a distance, the images appeared like abstract constellations, with a prominent grouping on the main wall laid out as a cruciform.

Besides, getting close enough to the photos meant having to wade through a gauntlet of handshakes and high fives, as friends and familiar faces representing several decades sported wide smiles and that recognizable dazzle of anticipation for an imminent trance session.

The last time we were at Penguin was for one of those farewell rites for the beloved Santi Bose, early last December. Now it was virtually the same crowd, give or take a few – visual artists plus musicians, designers, writers, editors, dancers, film artists, and cultural workers – who all shared an affinity with the non-mainstream, but not necessarily anti-establishment, evolution of artists’ camaraderie, from CCP to Malate to Baguio and Mindoro and Palawan and back.

The featured young artist’s pedigree had something to do with it, of course. Mishka is the daughter of sculptor Agnes Arellano, our lifelong friend and sister, and Michael Adams, our benefactor for the ’80s literary produce that was the Philippine Literary Arts Council’s (PLAC) poetry quarterly Caracoa. Her parents had run the legendary Pinaglabanan Galleries in San Juan when Mishka was but a seductive gleam in the eye, thence a tot and a toddler, thence… But how time flies, and we should only turn more myopic in our observance, er, recall, of certain memory blocks.

Agnes read a poem by Mishka to open the exhibit. More friends streamed in, dipping into the celebration that would transport us all through recollections and visions of once and future friendships and alliances, with the back stories consorting with theme music, from jazz standards to the thumping world beat as provided by the Pinikpikan Band.

And as we did once and then some, a couple of decades ago when we put together the San Juan arts magazine courtesy of Pinaglabanan Galleries, we now turn Arcache-ish with our powers of observation and social litany.

Backed up by a session sextet, Mishka sang our old faves so well – Lullaby of Birdland, Autumn Leaves, Fever, Cry Me a River, Dindi, Fly Me to the Moon – as Billie Bonnevie beamed off-corner and Boy Yuchengco tripped the light fantastic beside his altar offering. It was the Spy’s Sammy Asuncion no less on guitar, Jay Maclean on keyboard, Louie Talan on bass, Fritz Barth on drums, Brandy Aranilla on trumpet, while on the flute was Mishka’s uncle Deo, himself an accomplished, San Fran-based graphic designer and photographer who had just exhibited his own works at Crowded House in UP. His son Datu, a former National High School for the Arts scholar, who has an ongoing conceptual installation exhibit at the CCP, took digital photos while the music played on.

Dancer-choreographers Denisa Reyes, Myra Beltran and balikbayan Enrico Labayen swayed along, egged on by egghead photographer Marc Gary. Flashing his patented enigmatic smile was graphic arts doyen Pandy Aviado, who briefly joined a table captained by painter-designer Bogie Tence Ruiz. Nearby, Corregidor Island’s beach café proprietress Su Llamado and daughter Lia welcomed writer Sylvia Mayuga, whose new collection of new age essays is due soon from Anvil Publishing. Bonjin Bolinao said she, too, might be working on a new book. Graphic designer Ige Ramos was all ears, but we too would soon be working together on a final (is it ever?) tribute of a book to Bose.

Videographer Gerry Gerena sauntered in without any of his growing brood, but there was enough evidence of generational bonding that soon had us, while sharing a table with film director Butch Perez, stepping up on our own whisky and wine dips. When we found ourselves intro-ing Lilledeshan Bose, our late lamented friend Santi’s writer-daughter, to Da Marcelo, the equally late Nonoy Marcelo’s son and veritable clone in terms of talent, nay, genius, somehow we felt like Michael Jordan is in his last eight games of the regular season.

But back to Mishka. She says of her concept for her first show, Myopic Glimpses: "I didn’t start this project with the intention of doing an exhibit at the end of it, but just as a new experiment in a medium that I had never used before, a digital camera. The (macro) lens gave me a new perspective and I started focusing on very small details. I decided to do the show when I had already accumulated a number of shots.

"I have the simplest intentions in doing this exhibit. I am not trained in the art of photography; it is simply a medium that is perfect for my concept. All I am trying to do is to show you the beauty that I have seen in my life. Most people are very busy and may not have the time to notice these small details in their everyday lives. The works are not about fine art, but only about what I want to share with you."

What Mishka did was to stroll about their expansive, quasi-communal Blue Ridge digs cum sculpture garden, studio and party place, and train her new camera on the sand and stones, Billie’s altar, a hanging sarong, and ferret out in close-up the images that spelled beauty for her.

She had grown up amidst beauty in all forms, from art to friendships. When she was nine years old, she started attending boarding school in Sussex, and eventually finished at The King’s School in Canterbury with A-levels in art, Spanish and theater studies. That was last July. Now she’s back home for a good long spell.

Oh, in May she reunites with her Dad Michael (author of the novel Land of the Spoonclunkers) in Morocco, after which she plans to backpack her way, together with boyfriend Ariz Guinto, sound engineer for Razorback, to Marrakesh, Fez, and parts of Europe.

They’ll be back early July, as Mishka hopes to get into the UP College of Music to major in voice and/or composition. Already she’s been composing her own songs, from light jazz to ballads, and writing the lyrics in both English and Filipino. She’s also taking guitar lessons from Sammy Asuncion, the master guitarist who happily moonlights as a musical director for Pinikpikan.

Mishka’s well-received gig at Penguin was not her first time to face a crowd as a vocalist. In school in England, she had performed with a jazz trio since she was 13. She’s jammed here with the WDOUJI, and Boots Silverio at the recent jazz festival at Monk’s Dream. She performed at Alliance Française for the Valentine’s Day offering "French Kiss," as well at a musical tribute to former President Fidel V. Ramos last month at the National Museum, accompanied by pianist Jay.

At 18, Mishka’s barely starting out as an artist possessed by the lures of beauty, those that startle us with highlights leaping out from the humdrum moments of everyday myopia. And yet the future beckons with bright lights, as with the smiles of good cheer from the Penguin tribe last Tuesday. It was a gathering that can never be said to suffer fools only too gladly, only ourselves. And when seven-year-old Jaz Duoforte, son of percussionist Jose Duoforte, joined the Pinikpikan Collective, and started thumping jubilantly on his own gift of skins from Billie Bonnevie, we all know that the torch-passing was assured, if only for the cause of an ever moveable feast.