My Advice to the Graduating Class pt. 4

Then the second part of the advice goes like this, “…and do not do anything that will end your life.”
This advice covers the part that one should avoid things like suicide, drinking and driving and again doing drugs. This could include life threatening situations where you entangle yourself with some serious problems that would involve deaths and killings.

Though the advice covers these kinds of life situations, I also would like to emphasize more on the suicide side. This is because, time will come in life that problems will get the best of us. Our plans might no longer be possible that we just want to end it all, surrender to all the things that are negative. This can happen to anyone, even to the best of us.

So when I say that ,”… do not do anything that will end your life”… in a way I also mean that my students should not give up on their plans and dreams in life. Suicide is ending your life, ending your plans.
I do not want my students to give up. I do not want them to surrender or lose hope. I want them to keep on fighting.

I want them to always find new creative strategies to solve their problems so they can reach their dreams. I want them to know that problems always have solutions, it just being creative enough to look for new ways to solve it.

So that is it, that is my advice to our high school graduating students. For me, it is a good advice because it covers a lot of things and it deals with what they may encounter in their lives in the future. This advice may not even be heard, may not even be read. But I still feel that it is worth my time to write about it.

So again, to the fourth year graduating students, I say, ““Do not do anything that will ruin the plans of your life and do not do anything that will end your life.”

cebu city, cebu, Philippines, cebu writer, cebu blogger, cebu art, cebu music, cebu music scene, midweek music sessions, bangbang, paltik, cabangbang, noel, bangbangthe13th, Philippine art, Philippine politics, Philippine society, Philippine entertainment, Philippine sports, paltik

My Advice to the Graduating Class pt. 3

So what is my advice then to the graduating class?

After all the ideas I had, after thinking about it a lot, I would choose this one. “Do not do anything that will ruin the plans of your life and do not do anything that will end your life.”

I chose this advice because it covers a lot of things, first of all, it tells the students that he or she should have a plan, a goal, a dream that he or she should follow. Having a plan in life is very important. People should focus on his/ her plans, stick with it and stop procrastinating or making excuses in fullfilling it. You can change your plans along the way or strategies but the fact is, having a plan is important.

This also means that anything that may destroy her or his plans, he/she should avoid it. This includes getting someone pregnant, getting pregnant or delving into drugs and many other disastrous things.

Such an advice is real because I have seen a lot of people’s dreams crumble because they got themselves pregnant or got someone pregnant. It becomes difficult for those people who are tackling those problems to continue with their dreams and plans of life because they will now have to prioritize their time and money in rearing a child and supporting a young family.

The advice though does not mean that one should not have sex or that one should get an abortion. That is another topic all together.

Delving into drugs is also a dream destroyer because what if you become addicted to it. Now that would mean everything in your life will then be going nowhere. You could go to rehabilitation for it, you could kill someone and get imprisoned, or whatever dangerous effects related to it. So drugs and pregnancy are a no-no.

A person, a fourth year student can have new and different experiences in college or in life but the caution here is that one should avoid the things that are hard to solve or hard to escape from. Stealing, drugs, getting someone pregnant are things that curtail responsibility and big consequences. It will not be an easy problem to just get away from.

If you want to try new experiences, there are a lot of things one can do. Travelling, learning a new talent, making a band, starting a new business, trying out fun but safe activities such as go-carting or going to zip-lines are just a few new things to try.

Small new problems that curtail no heavy consequences could mean failing an exam, failing a class, breaking up with a boyfriend/girlfriend or even shifting to another course.

So first part of the advice, “Do not do anything that will ruin the plans of your life…”

cebu city, cebu, Philippines, cebu writer, cebu blogger, cebu art, cebu music, cebu music scene, midweek music sessions, bangbang, paltik, cabangbang, noel, bangbangthe13th, Philippine art, Philippine politics, Philippine society, Philippine entertainment, Philippine sports, paltik

My Advice to the Graduating Class pt. 2

Now, when it comes to the fourth year high school students, which has a different situation to college, I would offer a different advice. Again, I would like to remind the reader that all of this stuff is just in the realm of imagination; I am really not giving any speeches. I am no highly successful individual I am just an ordinary man.

When I was thinking about this, a lot of things came to mind which also means a lot of advices came to mind as well. One was that I could tell my students that they learn to appreciate art and support the local art and music scene. In a way, this was important but when it comes to talking about life, this was truly not a good advice. It was only applicable to art and not applicable to the many things they would encounter during college and after college.

Next was that, I also could tell them that they should live a creative life. But again, this could be misinterpreted because much of them will not be taking any art related course. Yes, I know creativity as we have said is not related to art but it could be misinterpreted and the advice could also be limited. I think if I would give this advice, I would make it sound this way, “Always be creative in solving your problems.”

But again, the same problem to the previous advices may arise because such an advice can be misinterpreted. This is because they might in a way try to solve their problems by creatively escaping it because I do believe problems are supposed to be faced head on and you just look for new strategies to solve it and not escape it.

Solving problems does not mean escaping it, blaming someone for it or not solving it and wait for it to go away which usually does not happen.

So in the end, I scrapped the idea of giving that advice.

So what is my advice then to the graduating class?

Due to the constraints of time and space, I will tell you all about it tomorrow.

cebu city, cebu, Philippines, cebu writer, cebu blogger, cebu art, cebu music, cebu music scene, midweek music sessions, bangbang, paltik, cabangbang, noel, bangbangthe13th, Philippine art, Philippine politics, Philippine society, Philippine entertainment, Philippine sports, paltik

My Advice to the Graduating Class pt. 1

In a way, the possibility of me giving advice to fourth year high school students or any graduating class is nearly impossible. Usually such speeches are given to the High School Principal, the Adviser, the Dean or to any highly successful individual. But it was nice to think about it, I felt that I had something to say about it. So even if such a chance will never happen to me, I just wanted to write it down. It clears the mind anyway.
First of all, if this advice was for the graduating class of the fine arts students of U.P. Cebu, this would be the advice I would give which in a way was the advice we understood were given to us by our teachers when my batch graduated from college. It went like this.

No matter where you go, no matter what you do, continue to become an artist.

Such an advice meant that there will come a time that will not continue painting art and having exhibits. Especially in these trying times, the situation will come that we will no longer be visual artists. But it does not mean that we should stop being an artist. This is because we can still be artists, but have different mediums. We can still be graphic artists, be fashion designers, writers or musicians. It is a different medium but we are still out there creating and expressing ourselves.

Second, the advice also means that we continue to live a life of passion and always be creative. Passion and creativity are things not only limited to art. It can be related to business, teaching, sports, leadership and even living a life of advocacy. No matter where we would go, the advice meant that we should live a passionate and creative life.

So again, to the graduates of the Fine arts course of U.P. Cebu, I say ,“ no matter where you go, no matter what you do, continue to become an artist.”

cebu city, cebu, Philippines, cebu writer, cebu blogger, cebu art, cebu music, cebu music scene, midweek music sessions, bangbang, paltik, cabangbang, noel, bangbangthe13th, Philippine art, Philippine politics, Philippine society, Philippine entertainment, Philippine sports, paltik

Learning How to See Art

Aside from teaching my students the skill of drawing, there is also another thing I
want them to learn. And this is the skill of learning how to appreciate and see art.

Such skill is important especially when they grow up and their social lives force them to start visiting art exhibits and buying art. So when that time comes they will not be ignorant when it comes to art.

Appreciating art, teaching them what is beautiful and all–can be taught. They don’t need to master it, they don’t need to become very serious art critics about it but at least they learn the basics to use later on. And if they want to pursue such studies, they can read books about it and also take humanities courses in college.

To be very simple about it, appreciating art is just easy. It is all about describing what you see, interpreting it and judging if you like the piece of art work in front of you or not.

Describing art would involve obviously the giving of a description of the art work. Stating what colour it is, what shape and texture as well the medium used. In appreciating art this is the first thing to do.

Then next to describing art is interpreting the work. Interpreting usually involves learning how to look at the symbols used. Though the artist has its own interpretation of its work, critics and audience can also see something in the art work that the artist might not see or planned to show.

To be really good at interpreting, audiences also need to know the history of the artwork and the artists. That, though, may take time and we can just let the critic do that type of work. Knowing the history of the artist and the work is essential to truly understanding and knowing the language of art.

Describing an artwork and interpreting it are connected so much so that if the description is lacking, the interpretation will also be lacking. I had one student who did this to me, it was as if she was trying to escape the lesson. The lesson was about learning how to draw their hands and she did not do it well. I gave her a small grade because it lacked effort on her part.

She tried to defend herself by interpreting that she was drawing a farmer’s hands that is why her drawing looked dirty and hard.

Aside from not following instructions because she was supposed to draw her own hands, she also drew a smiley tattoo on the drawing, which, if I’m not mistaken, was supposed to make her work cute. But the thing is, farmer’s hands do not look cute, their hands have the wrinkles and creases borne out of struggle. So her interpretation was wrong because the description of the drawing and the interpretation did not connect. She was just trying to make excuses.

Then the last part of appreciating art is judging it. This usually depends on the audience tolerance on a lot of topics. That is why learning how to see art is also learning about yourself. If you examine an artwork and decide that you do not like it, this will reflect on your own views about life and all. If the message of the work offends you then the audience will have to ask themselves why they are offended.

So in a way the most important thing about appreciating art is that you get to know something about yourself in the process.

Well, that’s it for now.

cebu city, cebu, Philippines, cebu writer, cebu blogger, cebu art, cebu music, cebu music scene, midweek music sessions, bangbang, paltik, cabangbang, noel, bangbangthe13th, Philippine art, Philippine politics, Philippine society, Philippine entertainment, Philippine sports,

Learning How to Draw and Becoming an Artist

It was while I was just sitting around school, that a fourth year student (her name is Irina Gabasa, I think she is a junior champion golfer) approached me this question, “Sir, because all of us are learning how to draw, do you want us all to be artists?”

So far, this was one of the good questions that I got from a high school student. So good that I have given it a name in tribute to the student who asked it, I named it the “Irina Gabasa question”. It is a very challenging question and I am very glad a student asked me this. Again it is a very challenging question which I also have a good answer to.

Though I gave my student an answer, it was very short at that time so I like to share to you my answer and explain it much further.

This was my answer, I answered my student with a “no”. This is because learning how to draw and becoming an artist are two different things.

Learning how to draw, is just that, a skill or a talent. You can master it, you can even make it a hobby but you would not be called an artist for it. You are just good at drawing.

Learning how to draw is important to being an artist but it is just the first step to being an artist.
And this is what I want to teach my students, the skill of drawing. Because learning a new skill especially like drawing is very important. With your drawing skill, you can use it to make other projects for your class.

Then it is also can be another admirable characteristic for you. A lot of people admire people who can draw, so in a way it is plus points.

Teaching them how to draw is also good for them because they don’t need to go and spend more money to join art workshops during summer or weekends. They can just learn it in high school, so this is good for them. It saves them money and time.

So, that’s it. I just want to teach students how to draw, and because they are fourth years I do not even expect them to take courses related to art like architecture, advertising or interior designing. Especially since they come from rich families, usually their parents want them to take business courses. That is fine by me as long as they learn something from my art classes. All is well and good.

cebu city, cebu, Philippines, cebu writer, cebu blogger, cebu art, cebu music, cebu music scene, midweek music sessions, bangbang, paltik, cabangbang, noel, bangbangthe13th, Philippine art, Philippine politics, Philippine society, Philippine entertainment, Philippine sports,