How to begin,
My big problem is how to begin.
In 1960, I was 10 years old. I was grade four at the Ateneo Grade school.
Fr. Luis Candelaria had been promoted to Headmaster after Fr. Cervini died.
Progressive was the mind of Fr. Candy. He began inviting Art teachers to develop an art program at the Ateneo.
First came Mrs. Virginia Agbayani, and along came a fresh graduate from UST, an architect by the name of Valeriano Fajardo, Jr., a recent graduate.
He was friendly, likeable, and very formal.
He taught us drawing.
He would walk around class, and peer over our shoulder asking what we were drawing. He’d ask questions, curious about one’s process.
The next year, Mrs. Araceli Dans was hired to start a program, an extracurricular activity at that time, which she called The Art Club. Anybody interested doing art could join.
I promptly signed up.
The class was held after academic subjects were done for the day, After 3 p.m. or so.
The club quickly increased in number.
Mrs. Dans brought in two of her students from PWU on Taft Avenue. She was then the dean of its College of Fine Arts. The two were Ben-Hur Villanueva who was to teach sculpture, and Brenda Fajardo, sister of the architect, who was to teach the younger members of the Club (grades 2-4).
Brenda had just graduated in 1959, from UP Los Banos, B.S. in Agriculture.
Methodical all her life, she began planning her future. She began collecting a hope chest for her future wedding
In Los Banos, she met the love of her life, Ramon Cruz, who was also taking up B.S. Agriculture.
Methodical all her life, she began planning her future. She began collecting a hope chest for her future wedding.
Related story:
Brenda Fajardo endures through her art and teaching
She was 10 years older than I, so she must have been 20.
After her graduation, her mother placed her in the class of Araceli Dans at PWU to learn painting and art, to keep her occupied for she had rheumatic heart.
Although she was not responsible for us, she was easy to approach, and approach we did to ask questions about technique, different ways of painting and drawing, and collage. Questions about linoleum cut, and woodblock.
We were fascinated that she studied Agriculture. She always obliged us. She told us her lessons in artificial insemination, how she had to wear gloves until her kili-kili, insert the semen, pull out her hand full of shit.
Great introduction to art, right!
She taught for three years, until she got a Fullbright Scholarship to take up Masters in Art Education in Wisconsin.
When she came back, we were already third year high school.
She applied for a teaching position and was readily accepted. The high school also had an Art Club. She was assigned to teach all the first and second years, so she was very busy,
Upon graduation, Ditas Rivera, the music teacher, and Brenda proposed to our class a trip to Mindanao as a familiarization trip/vacation before entering college. There were only two takers: Boy Saulog and myself. Plus a teacher, Rafael (Bing) Azanza. We flew to Zamboanga, Dapitan, Cotabato, Bukidnon, Cagayan de Oro, Iligan, Marawi, Davao, all in two weeks. It was a great learning experience, exploring the cities and jungles of Mindanao. Ditas took us to the island of Basilan, where her family had a coconut plantation. Miles and miles of coconut trees lined up geometrically, an awesome sight to behold. The mangroves were everywhere, as if ready to eat us up in our kattig.
A tropical paradise!
Brenda kept a sketchpad and kept drawing landscapes and seascapes.
The next few months, I got busy, having joined PETA.
PETA launched the first summer workshop which involved Paul Dumol and Tony Perez. They invited me to join them.
So Brenda transferred to the Humanities Department at UP. Why she transferred I can only speculate.
I figure it had to do with her fiancé, whom she waited to come home from the States. Secretly, she found out that he had gotten married.
In the meanwhile, concerned for her, I invited her to design the sets and costumes of Halimaw, a political satire in the form of a musical, assigned to me by Cecile Guidote in PETA.
I moved to UP for college. For my elective, I enrolled in printmaking classes, taught by Ofelia Gelvezon Tequi. When Ofie moved to Paris, I inherited her class. I began teaching in the Fine Arts,
Brenda and I were members of the PAP (Printmaker’s Association of the Philippines). We were busy joining group shows. She had her own printing press at home, so she invited me to work in her studio. I printed many editions in her studio.
Brenda eventually became the chair of the Humanities Department. She invited me to teach art appreciation classes in her department. That was how I got to teach humanities. It was an enjoyable experience.
It was at this time that I gifted her with a deck of Tarot Cards, suggesting that she might do drawings of the series
It was at this time that I gifted her with a deck of Tarot Cards, suggesting that she might do drawings of the series. I told her I loved her drawings especially the Pontormo studies she did in the States. Beautiful pen and ink drawings based on the studies of an Italian Mannerist artist. She said she would share the cards with her sister, Maryjoan, who was into the occult etc.
That was how she began to work on the Tarot series. The first ones were individual studies of the personae of the deck. She began coloring them with colored inks, not watercolors. They were stunning. The color palette was reminiscent of Indian paintings, a pastel study in grays, cerulean blue, pale pinks, and olive greens.
When Martial Law forced Cecile Guidote into exile, we reorganized PETA. I became the artistic director of Kalinangan Ensemble. I again involved Brenda in the production of Paul Dumol’s Kabesang Tales, casting her in the role of Hermana Bali, a minor role, but which she did with gusto and relish. Little did I know that I had launched her new career as an actress.
Brenda threw herself into a whirlpool of activities. Her involvement in PETA became increasingly serious when she took over the planning and training of the group.
Aside from her pedagogical responsibilities at UP, she simultaneously worked on her PhD!
She put on weight waiting for her loved one to claim her at last. She became a Dona Geronima, the mythical lady of the Pasig in the cave in Jose Rizal’s novel, El Fili, abandoned by her lover.
I knew her manic activities were a result of her personal frustration over her condition as an accidental spinster, caused by an absent fiancé. He was the bullshit lover who disappeared ni hi ni ho!
Many years after, the scoundrel finally wrote her a letter of apology and came knocking at her door. Brenda kept her cool, but she blocked him entrance to the threshold of the house. She kept her icy stare, looked directly into his eyes, and began to address him formally. In Hiligaynon. The canalla did not comprehend a word she uttered but understood every nuance of her statement. A delicious moment of theater. She told him he wrecked her life, did her tremendous injustice, shattered her being into pieces, that she could not forgive him, hated him, hated him, hatedddd himmm. And then she raised her voice, and shifted to English, “Get the hell out of here, you fucked up little prick.”
Father Pollock clutched his rosary and whispered breathlessly, ‘Have faith, Brenda! Forget him. He’s full of shit! He’s a fucked up little prick!’
She uttered the line with so much intensity that her voice resonated to Carmel Church, then traveled all the way to Katipunan to the Jesuit Residence where all the Jesuits heard it but did not recognize the voice, except for an old Jesuit hearing the confession of an eight-year-old boy reciting a litany of bad thoughts in the Chapel. Hurriedly giving the lad absolution, Father Pollock clutched his rosary and whispered breathlessly, “Have faith, Brenda! Forget him. He’s full of shit! He’s a fucked up little prick!”
Because of the damage and emotional tsunami that Brenda experienced, she lost her faith. For the longest time she could not enter a church, any church. And she was heard to quietly whisper, there is no God.
But God has his way with us all.
Yes. How to begin anew.
I don’t know if it was the death of her mom, or the death of Maryjoan , that slowly awakened her, that slowly brought her back to her senses. But Brenda began to pray again.
Slowly, ever so slowly.
Honors and awards came her way.
Commissions and grants came her way.
She traveled to foreign lands.
Then she had her first major heart attack.
She needed a by-pass.
Several by-passes!
The days passed ever so slowly.
Then she was given the news.
Ramon Cruz died.
She dressed up and drove to Los Banos to bask in the glory she had been waiting for so long, to attend the wake of that withered prick, and spit on his coffin.
She expected to triumph at last seeing him dead.
But something unexpected happened.
She saw faces of her friends
Everyone who is here today,
Smiling at her,
Wishing her well.
Farewell my lovely.
Your nobyo did you a favor.
You became the compassionate woman.
A woman the world loved
Instead of loving one man,
You became a friend to many!
You were given abundant riches
loved by many, many,
so many friends.
Who now bid you goodbye,
accompanying you with showers of prayer
and LOVE!
21 September 2024
Brenda Fajardo, Filipino visual artist, teacher, printmaker, theater artist and community organizer, passed away Sept. 14, 2024, mourned by the Philippine arts and culture community where she left her imprint on.
