It was a year ago when we first sat down to lunch at Le Coude Rouge, our French “canteen” at Alliance Française de Manille (AFM).

It’s a practice I established when I volunteered to manage the Total Gallery six years ago, soon after I came back home and was invited by Marivic Rufino to join the AFM board of directors.

I prepared the gallery’s program of exhibitions and invited the exhibiting artists to a working lunch in preparation for the exhibition of their work, usually a year in advance.

This time, I had invited Juvenal Sansó, Betsy Westendorp and César Caballero: AFM’s “Spanish Connection.” We were going to discuss their June 2012 exhibition.

I have known Sansó for many years, and in the years we both lived in Paris, we would occasionally go to the cinema and have dinner. He had last exhibited at the AFM Gallery in September 2008, on the occasion of his conferment as Chevalier dans l’Ordre des arts et des lettres by the French government.

Because that was a nonselling show, he gave a generous contribution to AFM’s Philippine artists residency program to send Filipino artists to France.

I met Betsy Westendorp when she had just come back from Spain, at about the same time I came back from Paris, and would often see her at art openings. She was a familiar figure on the Manila art scene, having painted elegant portraits of many of the country’s beautiful women, and having had numerous exhibitions.

I was introduced to César Caballero a few years ago by Olivier Dintinger, AFM’s director at the time. Although relatively new to the country, César was a prolific painter who had held exhibitions in several Manila art galleries. Neither Betsy nor César had had an exhibition at the Total Gallery, and I wanted to get to know them better.

Loud and lively

It was interesting to experience the dynamics between artists of very different personalities. The conversation was loud and lively, peppered with jokes and lots of laughter. They shifted from English to Spanish and back to English, apologizing to me.

After an excellent lunch of simple but good French home cooking, complemented by generous amounts of red wine, I tried to get their full attention and have them settle down to work.

Suddenly, in her soft but firm voice, Betsy looked at me with her large, beautiful eyes and said, “Deanna, you are very brave to plan this exhibition with two octogenarians who may not be here next year.”

I smiled and said, “Of course you will most certainly be here next year and many more years after that! I’m sure of it!”

By mid-afternoon, we had decided on the June 5 opening, on the theme of the exhibition, which would be their travels to different and well-loved places, the show’s title, and the number of pieces and sizes of the paintings to be exhibited.

On April 13, a Friday, I gathered them all again for a repeat lunch meeting at Le Coude Rouge. It was time to ask them to submit the high-resolution images of the paintings they wished to use in the invitation. I also needed to know the number of works each of them would be exhibiting, to make sure there would be enough wall space. The lunch meeting was every bit as rowdy as the first time.

At this point, I had to be my most diplomatic self, to tell them that I wanted to modify the show’s title, to call it “Voyages” instead of “Bon Voyage.” I did not want people to think that they were at the “departure lounge” and already saying goodbye!

Two of the three artists readily agreed, and the third, after some hesitation, also did. And so, “Voyages” it became.

Sansó was not altogether happy about exhibiting the series of drawings he had agreed to. He admitted that he had mixed feelings about it, and I proposed that he exhibit the drawings plus some paintings.

The next day, we all met in Sansó’s house, and chose some 10 beautiful paintings, all vintage Sansó, dating from the 1950s.

The deadline for the submission of the other requirements came. Sansó, an accomplished writer himself, gave lots of material about himself, his work, his travels.

César likes to jokingly say that he speaks several languages, all of them badly, and so in his inimitable style, he sent an essay he wrote about himself. He also sent me a lovely quotation from the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa about voyages:

“Sometimes…and my dream is sad

in my wishes exit….

Far away a country…where

happiness consists

solely in being happy….”

With the sensitive soul of a poet, Cesar wrote:

“Gypsies call it ‘luongo dromo,’ referring to the never-ending voyage, to the nomadic sensation that we all feel inside, life travelers… Unfinished business…we start our trip at birth and our experiences are part of this incomplete trip…part of the search for something new…”

Gentle reminder

So, I now had all the material I needed from Sansó and César. I was just waiting for Betsy to send me her paragraph. I sent her a gentle reminder, and she replied that she was so sorry but she did not know how to write about her feelings about her work. Could I please help her?

I entered Betsy’s apartment, in a building practically next door to mine in Makati. In the mellow light (so as not to add to the afternoon summer heat) of her large, spacious salon, she had laid out on the huge round dining table all the evidence of her long artistic life: scrapbooks and albums of press clippings and photographs of her numerous exhibitions.

On another table was her open Mac, on which she had apparently been working.

She told me she was preparing for a big exhibit, and the show would consist only of her cloud paintings.

We sat down to chat. For two hours we talked, and she told me about her life, her marriage, her family, her painting. She said she would have to leave for Spain soon after the opening of the AFM show with Sansó and César, to be with her only sister who was gravely ill.

I listened intently to her stories, and in the end remarked that although she had experienced some difficult, even tragic events in her life, she remained a happy and positive person.

I also told her how impressed I was that unlike many people her age, she was such a “techie,” with a Mac, scanner and printer.

Later, because I had told her how much I loved her tortilla de patatas, she sent me a link on YouTube that featured a Spanish chef demonstrating the recipe!

She laughed and said, “I am really young inside, it’s only outside that I’m old!”

So that’s how my press release morphed into the story you’ve just read. It all goes to show what special and endearing creatures artists are, and how dearly I love them!

Deanna Ongpin-Recto is president of the Board of Directors of the Alliance Française de Manille (AFM). She also directs its art exhibitions program and manages the AFM Total Gallery. It was at her initiative that the Alliance Française de Manille-Philippine Artist Residency Program (AFM-PARP) was established in 2010. The PARP sends one Filipino artist a year to France on an all-expenses paid three-month residency grant. In 2011, the first PARP grant was awarded to printmaker Ambie Abaño, and this year to sculptor Riel Hilario, who will take it up in October.

“Voyages” will open with a reception on June 5, 6:30-9 p.m. at the Alliance Française Total Gallery. The exhibit runs until June 28.