Tag: May 16, 2011

FOR THOSE who speak the language of the brush and canvas, this Lenten season was all about offering the fruits of their talents to the true Master, so visual artists in Manila and Bulacan took part in the annual Kristo exhibit, a show of various works that interpret the passion of the Christ.

BY GIVING awards to and considering nominations for gag shows and variety shows which contain scenes that imply sex, violence or oddity, does the USTv Awards remain faithful to the same Catholic attitude and plan of action it was founded on seven years ago? Has it allowed commercialism to have the upper hand in determining its winners or is it simply illustrating the students’ freedom in their TV program preferences?

WORKS of the late religious painter Joey Velasco were featured in a Lenten exhibit organized by the Dominicans at the Museo de Santo Domingo in Quezon City last April 17 to 24.

Velasco, a businessman who later became a religious artist, started painting when he was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2005. He was known for using a French technique called “Grisaille” to give emphasis to subjects like Christ and innocent street children, which are set against a solid dark background.

Velasco’s paintings comprised “social problems” and “spiritual experience,” said Gigi Lastimosa, administrative officer of the Joey Velasco Foundation.

A MORE intensive workshop and profound understanding of the nature of cinema as a mirror of reality propelled the second year of Cinevita Film Workshop last April 2 to 10.

The workshop was organized in lieu of the Cinevita Film Festival, the Varsitarian’s annual film project that started in 2007. The workshop was also part of Varsitarian’s advocacy of espousing film as a tool for meaningful expressions of life.

THE ARCHITECTURAL firms of Thomasians Felino Palafox Jr. and John Patrick Anthony Buensalido made it to the top five of an architectural design competition spearheaded by the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) for the construction of the Artists’ Center and Performing Arts Theater.

Both structures are part of the CCP Complex Master Development Plan, which proposed seven iconic buildings: Museum of the Philippine Arts, Cultural Resource Center, CCP Film Complex, Contemporary Art Museum of the Philippines, and Popular Arts Theatre.

The planned structures intend to provide world-wide facilities and spaces for core programs of the CCP because it is currently inadequate for the demands of the arts community.

THOMASIAN Ronald Ventura took the art world by storm when his work “Grayground” sold for a whopping HK$8.4 million or P46.9 million, setting a new record for the highest bid in its category at Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Paintings in Hong Kong last April.

Bidding for “Grayground” started at HK$ 300,000, and it finally settled in the hands of a phone bidder at HK$8.4 million or US$1.1 million, which which is 24 times more than its original “high” estimate.

Ventura made use of graphite, acrylic, and oil on canvas for his mixed-media oeuvre, which measures 60 x 155.75 inches.

KOREAN opera singer Sim Sung Hye, who majored in Voice and graduated cum laude last March at the Conservatory of Music, held her farewell graduation concert titled Sempre Librera last April 29 at the PhilAm Life Theater in Manila.

Joy, as her peers fondly call her, is a business administration degree holder from the Philippine Christian University (PCU).

“I was supposed to enroll here in UST the first time at the College of Commerce, but then there were no more slots,” she said. It was after finishing her business course in PCU that she realized her true passion and studied at the Conservatory.

WHILE approximately 3, 000 Thomasians sought shelter on campus when typhoon “Ondoy” made its brief but powerful visit in September 2009, P2 billion worth of infrastructure—including 27, 000 public classrooms—succumbed to the might of one of the worst storms in recent memory.

But a non-government organization picked up the pieces—quite literally, plastic bottles and other recyclable materials—and turned them into classrooms.

The MyShelter Foundation, which promotes eco-friendly construction, thought of using these “trash” as walling materials for classrooms that would be part of the project aptly called “bottle school.”

THREE lawmakers, including Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, had revived calls to once and for all open the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) as an alternative to the rising costs of power sources.

But the tsunami that swept an estimated 14, 000 lives and a $14.5 billion worth of infrastructure in technology-savvy Japan has made them think twice.

While some experts see the possibility of finally putting the $2.3-billion BNPP to good use, one of them said “it’s not a good idea to push the project through” because the Philippines “is not ready for it yet.”

Not ready

ABIDING by its centuries-old evangelical mission, the Order of Preachers again reminded Catholic faithful of the message of Holy Week in the annual Siete Palabras (Seven Last Words) at the Sto. Domingo Church in Quezon City last April 22.

Organized by the Dominican Province of the Philippines and attended by hundreds of Catholics, this year’s Siete Palabras had the theme “Ang Pasyong Mahal sa Buhay ni Juan.”

In the first of the seven last words of Jesus, “Ama, patawarin mo sila, sapagkat hindi nila nalalaman ang kanilang ginagawa (Father, forgive them, they know not what they do),” UST Rector Fr. Rolando de la Rosa, O.P. started preaching by telling penitents to remember what Jesus had done for them amid all the sacrifices of Lenten season.