Wonder Woman

Life begins at 89.      

When Elena Roces (a.k.a. “Gelena” and “Tita Morita”) turned 89 this month, her staff, some of whom have been with her for over 60 years, gave her a poster of Wonder Woman with her face superimposed on the super heroine’s face.

It wasn’t exactly a hyperbole, or a work of her staff’s fantasy. For Tita Morita, at 89, is no doubt a wonder woman.

A mother of three and a grandmother, she keeps eight-to-12-hour days at her workshop, getting down on her knees or up on a stepstool to paint giant screens and doors in vibrant and arresting colors.

She designs homes for friends, cooks and bakes for them, crochets, sculpts, paints. She also used to bake wedding cakes and design wedding gowns. Her childhood dream was to become a tailor, and in many ways, she has achieved her dream. For she patterns, cuts, and virtually sews together pieces of art with precision and perfection.

A mutual friend invited me to see Tita Morita’s home, an art gallery-cum-workshop in itself. The centerpiece (literally) of the home is a floor-to-ceiling mural of cement art — where fish, octopus and other underwater creatures are sculpted and molded in wet cement, one by one, and embedded on the wall circling the powder room (which is in the center of the receiving area). More amazing are the thousand of pebble-sized cement balls embedded around the sea creatures, like pieces in a giant mosaic.

All around the living and receiving rooms are thousands of semiprecious stones — tourmalines, turquoise, malachite — in their pristine form, looking more like rocks than gems. Tita Morita collects them from all over the world, and some of them end up on the doors that she designs.

She is a believer in functional art. “I enjoy seeing art. Touching it. Feeling it. Even my nievera (refrigerator) has artwork on it,” Tita Morita quips. She was nicknamed “Mora” as a child because she was (and still isn’t) baptized. Eventually “Mora” became “Morita.” She is a niece of the late freedom fighter Chino Roces.

“If you had a Picasso or an Amorsolo, you would probably encase it in glass because you would be scared it would gather dust or dirt,” she continues. “But if you painted on your door or table, you can interact with your work of art every day!”

An undeniably quirky lady, Tita Morita redecorates her home every couple of years, saying, “You change clothes, so why not your art?”

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From the living room, we retreated to Tita Morita’s dining room, which has a panoramic view of a verdant golf course. The base of her glass-topped dining table is a naked woman in stone, and she jokes that men like to rub their feet on the woman while having their meal (talk about interaction!).

Tita Morita served us lunch of cocido, with chorizo and chicharon floating amidst the cabbage pieces; fresh green salad with fresh mango slices and baked lapu-lapu with her own home-made garlic mayonnaise. These recipes she taught to Lydia, her faithful cook of over 60 years now. Tita Morita and Lydia have travelled the world over, and have lived in Spain, England and the US. In England, both of them went to the Vidal Sassoon school of hair styling.

Tita Morita’s dining room and kitchen are dotted with crocheted doilies and coasters. Her powder room’s guest towels are also trimmed with crocheted borders. At 89, Tita Morita still crochets, even if she has had a couple of corneal transplant operations.

Elena Roces (a.k.a. ‘Tita Morita’).

(She jokes that her last corneal implant came from a male donor, so she probably sees things from a male viewpoint from time to time.)

Her cousin Sylvia says Tita Morita’s creativity knows no bounds. When Tita Morita lived in California, she blanketed the roof of her home with potted flowering plants and so from above, the roof looked like a floral painting.

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From Sept. 7 to 11, Tita Morita will exhibit her works in a one-man show (her second) of doors, furniture and objets d’art at The Gallery, second floor, Greenbelt 5, Makati City.

“I invite you to touch these functional art pieces and share the rewarding and sensual experience of creating art and living with art… through objects we see and use each day.”

I had a peek of the pieces she will exhibit as she invited me to her workshop and showroom, where she spends most of her time. To get to her showroom, one must ascend two flights of stairs and this 89-year-old wonder woman did it without pausing to catch her breath! Some of her artists were waiters at her restaurant Tita Morita’s, which sadly has closed down. Even her driver helps her attach accent pieces to her doors, some of which have abstract geometric designs.

Truly eyecatching are these “artsy” doors, which are a symphony of acrylic paint, tiles, stones and wood. Her locks are imported from Spain, no less. We often take doors for granted but they are essentially the first and last thing we see in a house.

Her lacquer screen dividers are hand painted, as well as the back rest of her chairs. Each door, chair and table is one-of-a kind, like the artist herself.

Truly a wonder. (You may e-mail me at [email protected])