More on artist-daughters

Our column last week on artists among friends’ daughters drew many positive reactions, not just from their parents. As a follow-up, we should add more names to that list. But before we do, we must say that Ani Almario had her name inadvertently dropped from last week’s list, so that we wound up referring to her anonymously. Sorry, Ani.

Now, among those we forgot to cite was Melissa Nolledo-Kristoffels or “Mimi,” daughter of Blanca Datuin-Nolledo and the brilliant language writer Wilfrido “Ding” Nolledo, who passed away in Los Angeles some years back.

Ding was among the redoubtable posse of literary stalwarts who manned the weekly fort at the Philippines Free Press in its glory days in the ’60s and ’70s. Among his colleagues then were Quijano de Manila or Nick Joaquin, Kerima Polotan, Gregorio Brillantes, and Jose “Pete” Lacaba — no stronger bunch of regular writers for a national weekly magazine there ever was.

Before he passed away, Ding was working on a new novel and several stories. Only appropriate that barely two years later, it was his Seattle-based daughter Mimi, who has joined art exhibits as a photographer, graphic designer and digital artist, would represent her Dad when his posthumous collection of stories was launched by UST Publishing House over a year ago.

Speaking of Kerima Polotan, a byline our younger generation of writers may not be too familiar with now, she too has raised a daughter who has followed not only Mom’s but Dad’s footsteps. Apart from her weekly socio-political commentary, meaning biting essays and occasionally scathing satire, Kerima was a distinctive fiction writer whose novel The Hand of the Enemy still resonates in our memory, and who competed with her husband and fellow writer, Juan Tuvera, for the early Carlos Palanca awards for short fiction in the 1950s.

Well, their daughter Katrina Tuvera (a.k.a. “Kimi” Tuvera-Quimpo) has herself been writing outstanding short fiction, and in fact penned a novel, The Jupiter Effect, issued by Anvil Publishing last year, and which has been gaining critical acclaim.

Another notable fiction writer, Singapore-based Nadine Sarreal, is the daughter of our friends Gloria and Joe Rodriguez. Gloria is of course well known among the literati as the lady behind Giraffe Books, an independent but indefatigable outfit she established after retirement from the publishing firm New Day. Many writers owe their first books to her abiding faith in the Filipino literary writer.   

Adrian and Tetchie Cristobal have raised a fine brood of lovely daughters and one charming (and heckuva good-looking) son, Adrian Jr. or “Che,” who now heads the Intellectual Property Office under the Office of the President, a.k.a. GMA. Among his attractive sisters are the soprano Stella Cristobal and the soul singer (also a soul sister to many writers, including yours truly) Celina, who herself writes and serves as a publications editor.

Some weeks ago, we found ourselves at the Exchange Bar of the Richmonde Hotel on a night when it wasn’t our fave babe Girl Valencia who was the featured singer. Rather was it a lady whom we found quite loud and brassy in her musical renditions. We stayed on only because a couple of guests were requested to come onstage and “jam” with the pianist. Indeed, Tetchie and Stella Cristobal not only drew more applause with their impromptu performance. They also kept us riveted on our seat while poaching on the absent Pete Lacaba’s whisky bottlekeep. 

The brilliant singer-composer Cynthia Alexander used to be another crawling tot we’d stumble over at her parents’ place, off Cubao. Writer Joe Ayala and poet Tita Lacambra Ayala, both also fine visual artists, proceeded to relocate to Davao City, thus lending their progeny more substance and spirit of place, or at least an element of indigene pride, than perhaps what Cubao could offer. Now Cynthia performs everywhere to much acclaim, just as her brother Joey is doing — with poetry serving as their lyrical commentary and narratives. 

Mishka Adams, whom we introduced to the public in this space when she was but 18 and a budding jazz singer, now does regular gigs in London where she’s pursuing studies, this after her “discovery” by Candid Records, which led to the best-selling CD album “God Bless the Child.”

Mishka’s Dad is the British businessman Michael Adams, who bankrolled the Philippine Literary Arts Council’s poetry journal Caracoa well through the 1980s, and himself wrote a novel, The Land of the Spoonclunkers — to add to many other titles manifesting British writers’ fascination with our islands. And Mishka’s Mom is the sculptor Agnes Arellano, who by the by is having a two-person exhibit, “Angels & Goddesses,” together with Duddley Diaz, at the Galleria Duemila starting this Saturday, June 9. (On another aside: Duddley is this year’s Maynila Patnubay awardee for Sculpture, an honor deferred since last year owing to his absence then.) 

Last Saturday, we failed to get back in time for a grand christening party at the Coconut Palace, or what must surely have been a merry affair with many old buddies. Actress Lara Fabregas, daughter of our friends Jaime and Bing, both award-winning thespians, was back in town from the UK, to introduce her husband, Scottish businessman Philip Lynch, and their son Dexter George. They’ve been in Boracay since, and are flying back to London tonight. Hope we get a chance today to turn over our gift of a Swiss bank account.

Oh, let’s not even get into friends’ artist-sons, nearly all of whom seem to have become musicians or performers. A quick list, however: Lara’s brothers, percussionist Minko, actor Paolo and guitarist Mateo; Pete Lacaba’s and Marra Lanot’s son Kris, poet and filmmaker; Erwin and Nitz Castillo’s son Diego, rocker-heartthrob with the popular band Sandwich; Conrad and Tita de Quiros’ son, guitarist Miguel or “DQ” of the band Mantikilya; and Jimmy and Mercy Abad’s Diego, guitarist with the rock band Too Late the Hero, now renamed The Love Band. And we ourselves have to take pride in having a virtuoso of a jazz guitarist in firstborn son Aya, and a budding saxophonist and rapper, with the hip-hop group Ampon, in 18-year-old Aric. 

Then of course there’s Da Marcelo, a graphic artist and carbon copy of his illustrious erpats, Nonoy Marcelo. Da and I worked together recently on a couple of komiks bios for the recent political campaign. We must have had the right chemistry, or chemical exchange (oops), as both of our clients won, heh-heh.

All this is really by way of leading up, not down, to a precocious artist of a granddaughter — of our lifelong friends Butch Perez the filmmaker and Laida Lim the writer. Their only daughter Padma, now an anthropologist, we recall to have attended the National Writers Workshop in Dumaguete, as a creative writer, together with artist Santi Bose’s daughter, then a poet and now a physician, Diwata (who was in turn followed in that workshop years later by younger sis Lilledeshan, poet and musician; both are in the US).

Padma’s daughter “Fifi,” or Feliz Perez, who has been writing and reading spontaneous poetry since she was 12, has mounted a photo exhibit billed as “Napuwing” at Cafe by the Ruins in Baguio, on show until June 13.

Feliz has taken after her Mom, academically: she’s a senior in Social Anthropology at UP Baguio. As a high school junior, she won a nationwide essay contest sponsored by the Knights of Rizal. Now at 21 (an “EDSA baby,” says her Lolo Butch), she’s working on a book and a video documentary “on the charming cultural exchange between the Ibaloi pony boys in Wright Park and the lowland tourists who visit Baguio.”

Her photographs span a wide range of subjects, including travel pictures, animal portraits, and landscapes. Feliz has been taking pictures for most of her teenage years, but this is her first public exhibition of a collection of photographs.

In the spirit of apo-stolic devotion, we congratulate and wish this young girl well, in her poetry, photography, and video pursuits. We’re sure she’ll outdo us all.