Painting the town happy

Like the expression on your face when you’re caught off-guard, your painting reveals the very heart of you.

A painting is a joy to behold and, it turns out, a joy to create.

Ask Gina "Manay Gina" de Venecia, who after the death of her youngest child KC, is learning to rise above her grief ("Like a royal phoenix, the monks tell me," she confides.) and still find meaning in life. Ask Bibi Lopez-Yu, who lost her 19-year-old son after he accidentally fell from the railing of a 27th-floor condominium unit. Ask Menchie Abalos, wife of Rep. Benhur Abalos, who lost her 20-year-old daughter to a deadly intestinal infection. Ask Precy Meneses, who lost both a daughter and her husband (Bulacan Mayor Ricky Meneses) to aneurysm in a span of two years.

Ask 89-year-old Azucena "Mama Nene" Vera Perez, who lost her son Bobby, then 26, to endocarditis in 1977 and her granddaughter KC to a fire, but who continues to look at the bright side of life. Mama Nene’s optimism is expressed so succinctly in her favorite painting – a riot of bougainvilleas in her garden.

Gina, Bibi, Precy, Menchie, Mama Nene and the other members of their painting class come together every Monday to paint in a cheerful studio at the Vera Perez gardens in San Juan. They bond for two to four hours – with their own inner selves, with each other, and with their Creator, who guides their hand. They leave their classes with a certain calmness, and a certain lightness despite the burden of their grief.

"My garden is so beautiful," Mama Nene told me when I dropped by the painting class, conducted by the patient and inspiring Jeffrey Consumo (also the teacher of former President Cory Aquino). "And I often think, I want people to remember me whenever they see beautiful flowers."

Of the dozen or so ladies in his painting class at the Vera Perez gardens, Mama Nene is singled out by Jeffrey or Jeffconn as "the best of the best."

"She painted on the spot (without a picture as reference) on her very first day in painting class," recalls Jeffrey of his 89-year-old pupil.

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It was Cory Aquino who suggested the painting classes to Gina in 2005, as she was struggling with her grief over KC’s death in December 2004. Cory recommended Jeffrey, under whose guidance she took up painting in 1996.

Mrs. Aquino found her Wednesday painting classes (with close friends and relatives) therapeutic, and she would emerge to be a prolific painter. She hoped painting classes would have the same healing effect on her dear friend Gina.

Jeff, a Metrobank special awardee for painting, describes himself as a "can opener."

"I just open the can, so to speak, and help draw their talents out," Jeff (who may be reached at 0916-6032332) says humbly. "Call me a guide, not even a teacher or a mentor."

Gina’s close friends and sisters set up their painting class, but Gina was still too grief-stricken to attend. Mama Nene set the example and started attending the classes religiously. "Just because I’m already old doesn’t mean I cannot embark on something new in my life," quips the articulate Vera Perez matriarch, whose bedroom, just like her paintings, is abloom with flower arrangements ("Flowers are my weakness," she smiles.).

In January this year, Gina, who had established a foundation for bereaved mothers called INA (for Inang Naulila sa Anak or "mothers who have lost their children") followed Mama Nene’s lead and took up the brush herself.

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At first, recalls Gina, "My paintings reflected my pain."

Her paintings would be filled with butterflies, her personal symbol of KC, because butterflies live fleetingly, but fully. But Gina’s love for life still showed, because her palette would consist of bright and vivid colors. Nothing gloomy or depressing, notes Jeff. Her strokes and accents would be strong, attesting to her inner strength.

Gina then started bringing in the members of INA to her painting classes.

"In helping others cope with their grief, I found myself becoming stronger. How could I not be strong when they all look up to me for strength and guidance?" she says, as she joins Bibi, Precy and Menchie in picnic tables in the garden, where they take their lunch break.

"The pain seems lighter when it is shared," says Precy. She, Bibi and Menchie say the painting classes help alleviate their pain because they have something to focus on, leaving little room in their consciousness for grief. "Even if the pain comes back after class, at least for a while, we were spared of it."

Gina confides that when feelings of sadness suddenly "attack" her at night, she dons her apron and takes up the brush and faces her easel. The anxiety subsides.

According to therapist and STAR columnist Dr. Nina Halili-Jao, painting and other art activities are therapeutic because, "they help release tension. And when you finish creating something beautiful, just looking at it boosts your self-esteem."

These days, the dominant figure in Gina’s paintings is the phoenix, a mythical bird that sets fire to itself and rises from the ashes.

Rising from the ashes of grief is what Gina and the members of INA are trying to do, by the grace of God, the love of family and friends, and a little help from the magic of oil, acrylic and canvass.

Happiness, indeed, paints a beautiful picture. And a bereaved mother’s struggle to bring back the colors of her life is the most poignant portrait of all.

(You may e-mail me at [email protected])