Vincent Navarro felt relieved as he arrived in a New York address on Oct. 30. In one hand, he held a map on which he had placed his faith; he only had a Nokia 3310 which had no map app. The other hand held his luggage and a box of four portraits.

 

He had become a culture-bearer, with the World Youth Alliance inviting him to speak in three days, on Nov. 2, about his fine arts thesis on recycling, using coffee grounds as a visual arts medium. With the promise of a government refund, he booked the cheapest flight with borrowed money.

 

The 21-year-old flew in from Manila on his first trip to the West. No one picked him up. He decided to take the subway—because it was cheaper—and, after following the route he had planned at home in Baguio, earned a spot in the art fair beside artists from Kenya, Mexico and Italy, and other countries.

 

In an experience he now dubs “surreal,” he found in the conference site the name of the Philippines under his name.

 

Portraits

 

The portraits are part of an assemblage of 10, which earned acclaim as college-wide best thesis of University of the Philippines Baguio in 2012.

 

“I was simply making a tribute,” he says, adding he never expected his 44-page “Exploring the Potentials of Used Coffee Grounds in Artmaking,” to win the award.

 

“The work Cordillera farmers invest to produce the best coffee beans is immense,” he says.

 

“I didn’t even care about graduating as much as finishing the thesis,” he recalls of his set, which joined a corpus rendered in dull colors—colors he views as “theatrical and ravage.”

 

In 2010, on a visit to Tublay town, the artist saw farmers skillfully plant mountainsides to coffee. Mudslides triggered by storms undermined agriculture in 2009. The coffee planting was meant to revive agriculture.

 

Coffee production is now a livelihood for the people, Navarro says. And they consider an array of factors, short of scientific, to ensure quality harvests.

 

Navarro went around Baguio to solicit coffee beans, now ground and drained, from gourmet shops. He sought ways to save for the arts what would have gone to the dump.

 

Method

 

Navarro perfected a method after almost two years to make coffee an art medium.

 

He washed the oil off the coffee grounds and roasted them to alter their hue. He dried them to prevent them from growing molds or rotting, the biggest hurdle he had to clear.

 

He meticulously glued the coffee grounds to draw major facial features such as age lines. He placed other details using a mix of the oil and mordant. In three months, he was varnishing the last of the collection.

 

Playing up tactility and staining power, the portraits should evoke “drama and nostalgia,” says Navarro. He encouraged viewers to feel his works with their hands.

 

Made to look like ID pictures, the 2 x 2 feet sepia portraits have gone around the world—in Germany and New York, for example. The 10 portraits are together only as photos on aggregator websites such as BuzzFeed.

 

Navarro’s thesis galvanized support for his foreign trip. Those who saw them shelled out cash for his New York pocket money. Stretching the limits of his medium, he combines it now with traditional works such as oil on canvas. He also plans to make larger, grander portraits.

 

“The farmers were happy and overwhelmed to reach the Big Apple,” Navarro says. “They were uplifted and encouraged.”

 

As a child, Navarro says he bought only second-hand coloring materials, using earnings from selling plastic bags and flowers.

 

“I just follow my heart,” he says of his works. Art books and catalogues he brought home prove that mantra can be rewarding.