Patches
Eric ‘Nui’ Cabales turns dreamland Kayama to reality
By: Georgene Rhena P. Quilaton Tambiga
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| Shaped by time. Artist Eric Cabales, famously known as Nui, tells his exclusive audience about the materials he used for a mix media installation that from afar is actually the sunset in Kayama, Ibajay, Aklan. |
There is a queer place where the past, present and
future meet. That place is a house of art where a people's culture is
installed, appreciated, and preserved ready to be passed on to the next
generation.
There are many such places around the world and even in
different parts of the country. But I haven't seen one in San Carlos until
September 15, Saturday.
At the heart of Barangay 5, where walls of houses kiss each
other and residents could hear the neighbor snoring or shouting an early
morning invective, one spot seems out of place, yet it is also perfectly in
place.
Kayama is an art gallery that symbolizes the crux of Eric
Estampador Cabales' career as fashion designer, painter, photographer, artist,
son. It is on a spacious lot that Nui (as he is famously known) and his
siblings bought last year as a gift to their late father, Saqueo. Perfectly
situated beside the Cabales family's home, the lot incidentally also has a
rotting wooden house and a huge tree.
After divesting the house of its rotten parts, Kayama, the art
gallery, emerged from the languid dreams of the artist Nui. He had long dreamed
of putting up a gallery where he could display his works, a rather large
acquisition from all the years. But, he had postponed its birth until after the
death of the man he calls father, mentor, inspiration.
Thus, Kayama is more than mere photographs or installations. It
is the story of the Cabales patriarch, Saqueo, and the patch of land he had
often came back to when he was still alive. The original Kayama is in Ibajay,
Aklan, Saqueo's hometown. It is a patch of land where the river and sea meet, a
dramatic union of brackish and fresh waters. It is a patch of land that keeps
changing but where life seems to go on and on and on…
A patch of land, a patch of land! A piece of dream, a path to
reality!
All these and more are found in Kayama.
Happily, there is nothing in it that shows death or morbidity
although it was created from the well-spring of grief. All it has are stories
of the Cabales family, created from fond memories and preserved forever in a
larger-than-life mix-media installation made of everything from a 1952 notebook
page to dozens of keys, the locks of which can never be found again.
Refreshing, as a word to describe how I feel now that there is
a house for art in San Carlos, is an understatement. It is such bliss that
there is now an escape from our blatant realities of living in a mundane town.
That escape is the gateway to a reality still, but at least I know there in
Kayama the reality of our culture, our past, our heritage is magnified, dignified,
and beautified.
What a shame though, that no government or education official
even cared to take a peep despite the invitation.
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