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member, Human Development and Harmony Cluster, Pamayanang SanibLakas ng Pilipinas
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1. Total Human Development and Harmony Through Synergism 2. Holistic Health Care and Medicine 3. Deep Ecology and Harmony with Nature 4. Sense of History and Sense of Mission 5. Civics and Democratic Governance 6. Culture as Community Creativity 7. Light-Seeking and Light-Sharing Education 8. Gender Sensitivity, Equality & Harmony 9. Reconstructive/Restor-ative Justice 10. Associative Economics, Social Capital and Sustainable Development 11. Synergetic Leadership and Organizations 12. Appropriate/Adaptive Technology 13. Mutual Enrichment of Families and Friendships 14. Human Dignity and Human Harmony: Human Rights and Peace 15. Aesthetics Without Boundaries: 'Art from the Heart' . |
‘Starting Strokes’ Project By Prof. Ed Aurelio C. Reyes English Literature professor at the International Academy of Management and Economics (I/AME) in Metro Manila, and Executive Convenor, Sanib-Sining Movement for Synaesthetics
Republished in
LightShare
Digest issue
No. 3, Sept.-Dec., this excerpt comes from an article written and first published as the “Foreword” to
Starting Strokes: A Bouquet from a Business School, published for Sanib-Sining in 2004 by the SanibLakas Foundation. The 90-page pocketbook was collection 36 initial literary pieces by 24 undergraduate students of I/AME. The Credo of Synaesthetics may be downloaded from
<http://saniblakas.faithweb.com/7-flames.htm>. LOLOI, a friend and officemate, approached me one afternoon to ask a simple question, with a facial expression that carried a mixture of embarrassment, hope and fear: “Ding, is your artistic talent an inborn thing?” When I nodded, his whole face became a portrait of disappointment, and he sighed. “Oh! So, there’s no more hope for me…” Then, his face changed again and blossomed into a broad smile when I added something very important: “It’s inborn in everyone!” I had him in mind when painter Marz Zafe and I were writing that very first draft of the Credo for Synaesthetics, which later became the foundation for “Sanib-Sining.” Along the salient points of that Credo, Sanib-Sining now holds a regular ArtJam session, which is part of a much larger ArtJam process , to tear down two kinds of walls that have been built regarding aesthetics: the high wall between the artists and the so-called “non-artists,” and the set of high walls dividing up the seven or so “forms of art.” The Credo of Synaesthetics asserts that “all humans are artists.” And there are two kinds—those who know that they are artists, and those who don’t. Loloi must have had an inkling of that fact when he asked me if he could still develop himself as an artist. Of course, he was disappointed to see me nod about my talents being inborn, but regained his hope when I said it’s in everyone. What we have to do is help discover and develop it in everyone who would care to avail themselves of such basic human faculty from within. When he asked me the question, Loloi was appreciating the cover illustration I had made for an issue of the magazine we were working on as part of a team. And he equated the word “artist” with a person who makes illustrations or paintings. I had to remind him that he was already a developed artist, not in visual arts but in literary writing. And developed artistry in one form proves the soul talent within; it’s in the techniques that can take at least some enthusiastic and patient practice to develop. Knowing that you have it in you is the first step. This has been the logic of the Sanib-Sining ArtJams, both the sessions and the broader process – we seek to draw in everyone we can to help them discover their own talents within. Once encouraged by any measure of initial discovery from actual experience, the budding practicing artist can start discovering more one of one’s own inner self.
This is the period where negative social pressure is most harmful. Many of those who have not discovered their own artistry have the habit of subjecting their friends to discouraging hecklings. If they could only realize the effect of this on a person’s life and self-esteem, they would do it only to their enemies, never to their friends! When the students of my English literature class at I/AME turned in their poems I had made them compose under time pressure during the earlier half of the class period, my original plan was to call them to come up one by one to read these poems to their classmates. But I remembered the usual behavior in circumstances like this – one would read, heckling would start before the reading of the poem could even begin. And heckling would continue throughout, and the most ambitious classmate (most ambitious to be the class clown) would heckle the loudest. Then when someone else starts reading, the victim of the first heckling session would gladly join the hecklers. Para makabawi (to get even). Net result to be expected by the end of the period: every single piece of poetry , and every heart that commanded the pen-wielding hand, shall have been grossly insulted. No, I was not going to let that happen. Although the pieces were far from perfect (does that word exist at all in the world of aesthetics?), just skimming over them earlier, these poems were a set of precious gems produced under time pressure by a set of business-school undergrad students, most of them at first try. I was not going to allow any heckling that would make them discourage one another from discovering where these gems were really coming from – right from deep within them. (And I was going to make them attempt some short-story writing after the midterms.) No way! I was not going to risk that! And so I decided to do the poetry-reading myself, saying their names only after the applause accorded each one. I read with all appropriate power and emotions I could muster on the spot, because I had to show them that each one’s work deserved my utmost respect, and deserved theirs, too! It was actually difficult because I had to grapple with their handwriting, but it was well worth the effort. The business school I refer to here is the International Academy of Management and Economics in Makati. I/AME has reason to be proud as a business school that forms fully-human managers, economists and entrepreneurs who are really in touch with their aesthetic inner selves. Of course, the Humanities have to take the back seat in academic load, but there are many ways to enhance an academic community’s “human side.” Long after graduating, may these students rightfully infect their workmates in usually-cold atmospheres prevailing in many business and economics offices that look at people as mere statistics, not as humans who can have their own “starting strokes” as good as the pieces in this collection. And we can hope that when at least some of these students shall have reached some heights as accomplished writers or even best-seller authors, they would remember that they did some of their starting strokes in a classroom at I/AME in Makati.
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