*Art and art patrons

While I was googling my name earlier for vanity's sake [yes, i get that state of mind a lot, too :-)] I came across this blog post by a fellow coffee-drinker at Bo's Coffee(Capitol), Karlon, about my art event in Casino Espanol. He writes for a local daily here in Cebu; a columnist. I didn't invite him then, knowing he was more into police upbeat matters or Arnis or local judicial topics and the likes. But, a common friend of ours whom I invited brought him along. Hope he enjoyed the soothing music by the quartet, the salsa dance numbers by the Cebu City Dancesport Team and the fine food and wines we served during the aesthetically-full night of "female forms" in canvas.

Here's his full write-up about the said event:

I went to a nude painting session at the Casino Español yesterday evening (Sept. 30).

It was organized by Jaq Siwala, a fellow habitué of that Bo’s Coffee branch across Cebu Doctors’ Hospital and offered everything that nude painting sessions promise – art on display.

It was a classy affair.

An acoustic band played soft jazz on the riser in that rather large second-floor room; left from the stairs case and then straight.

People were semi-formally dressed and wine, one simply must serve wine in affairs costing P1000 a ticket, flowed.

Beneath the riser was a chair. And on that chair, a model – stoic in expression – revealed and revealed all.

Painters, no, artists, stood facing her. Hard at work, they were, capturing the scene into lines and whorls of ink over canvass.

We, the audience, stood too, hard and unmoving; mesmerized by the regal disclosure we had been blessed to witness.

Ah, the fine line between ogling and art appreciation.