Arts I

     My parents would always say that I was already drawing way before I could even write my name. For the farthest as I can remember, I was always interested in creating art. I have always had the drive to create. Taking up different hobbies from sketching, digital art, crocheting, jewelry making, clay sculpting, and painting, just to sum up those I did during the quarantine, just to fulfill sudden bursts of the lust for creativity in my life.      Creating something one may call art has always made me feel fulfilled and somewhat productive (even though sometimes it may be to the expense of procrastinating on academics). Getting to see and getting to hold of something that you made that was just once a blank piece of paper or a ball of yarn gives me a feeling of purpose and fulfillment I cannot seem to find from anything else.      With all the art forms I have tried, I have always fallen back to one. The artistic practice that has resonated...

     176 Gifts/176 Dispossessions by Angelo V. Suarez and Donna Miranda is an eye-opening essay on a phenomenon we Filipinos blindly and continuously negligently allow. The article conveys the exploitative acts hidden in the cultural generosity of the collecting class. Seemingly unconditional gifts are given by those of power to maintain and garner their dominion over the public. They are using Art as an instrument of their so-called philanthropy to disguise their dispossession and to flaunt their hoax generosity.      Patronage, to put it simply, is to give and to support. A patron of the arts is for the arts; however, that statement seems very far from the reality of art patrons in the Philippines. As expressed in the essay of Suarez and Miranda, Art Patrons in the Philippines focus on the investment they gain as it perpetuates their own power and influence. This means continuous money filling their pockets despite the hurt it may cause people of oth...