Baybay City City Mayor Carmen L. Cari and Sangguniang Panlungsod Member, Hon. Ernesto Butawan enjoys the paintings during the Formal Opening of “Dinhi sa Baybay”: First Group Art Exhibit of the Visual Arts Association of Baybay (VAAB)
PAINTINGS THAT MAKE OTHERS’ DREAMS COME TRUE
The newly-organized Visual Arts Association of Baybay City (VAAB) put up its first group art exhibit at the Knights of Columbus Building as part of the 2017 Fiesta Celebration of the City of Baybay.
Eleven (11) local artists, some of whom are winners of regional, national and international competitions agreed to put up the exhibit dubbed as “Dinhi sa Baybay” to feature breath-taking sights around the city from December 8, 2017 to January 5, 2018. They also want to help the Special Program for the Arts (SPA) students and pupils of four (4) schools in the city which offers SPA on Visual Arts. These include the Baybay National High School, Plaridel National High School, Baybay North Central School and Bunga Elementary School.
The artists include Marvin Alidro, Buen Joseph Andrade, Lito Caña, Mizael Cerna, Domingo “Bebot” Flandez, Architect Pauline Cari Perez, Rico Palacio, Dazzilyn Palermo, Dicoper Pernites, Billy Pomida, and Prof. Jude Nonie Sales.
The SPA is a Department of Education (DepEd) Program where talented students undergo screening to determine which of the SPA programs will they take. The choices include Dance, Theatre, Media Arts or Visual Arts.
According to Prof. Sales, the Consultant of the SPA for Visual Arts at the Baybay National High School, “Under the SPA even the students who come from disadvantaged families are given the chance to express their talents, thru the special classes that is being offered by the school, where the students undergo a series of lectures and workshops.”
He added that, “During the Regional Festival of the Arts (RFA), students from the different schools that offer SPA, from the different divisions in Region 8, compete with each other and for almost four (4) years, SPA students from the City of Baybay have been declared as Champions because they have shown their best in either of these categories: Dance, Theatre, Media Arts and Visual Arts. Hence, the need to hone their talents more.”
Realizing the need for logistics to support the dreams of the SPA for Visual Arts students of the City of Baybay, because the arts materials are very expensive, the artists agreed to donate twenty percent (20%) of the sales of their paintings to buy art materials for the aspiring young visual artists of the city which will be distributed during the visual arts training-workshop which will be conducted by the artists themselves.
They also agreed that a portion of the funds that will be raised from the art exhibit will be used as initial funds for the organization and will be given to the Knights of Columbus as their share for allowing VAAB to use the building for free.
It could be recalled that in June 13-30, 2017 six (6) of the said artists, which include Caña, Cerna, Flandez, Perez, Pomida and Sales (also known as Hugpong Sabado: Baybayanon Artists Group) also put up an art exhibit dubbed as “Arte sa Diyes”: An Art Exhibit for a Cause, as part of the 10th Charter Day Celebration of the City of Baybay. They were able to raise funds which they used in the conduct of the Visual Arts Training at the Conference Hall of the Baybay City Division on June 30, 2017 where more than a hundred SPA students had undergone hands-on training with the artists themselves.
Participants of the Training-Workshop on Visual Arts in action at the Conference
Hall of the Baybay City Division. (Photo Credit: Architect Pauline Cari Perez)
Both art exhibits were facilitated by the City Information Office of the City of Baybay. (Marissa Miguel Cano, City Information Officer III, Baybay City, Leyte)
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