...therefore I am: FIDELIS BALAGTAS BELDA: MIXING ART WITH MUSIC

By Arnel Mirasol

Fidelis Balagtas-Belda earned her Bachelor of Music degree major in Piano and minor in Voice from the Centro Escolar University's Conservatory of Music in 1986. She took further studies in Violin and Voice Concentration in the University of the Philippines. Even before finishing her music studies, Des (as she is called by friends) was already teaching. She was also an on-call artist, an organist, and a choral conductor then.

Des now teaches Music in Isidore de Seville Integrated School in Malolos, Bulacan, and offers tutorials in her home music room FBb Studio.. She also taught before at the Centro Escolar University Malolos, La Consolacion College, St. Rita College, Lord's Angels Montessori, St. Joseph School in San Pablo, Laguna, and at the American-owned and run Scoula dei Bambini di Sta. Teresita.

But Des had lately decided to mix music and art. Although she already had an inkling of her artistic talent when she was in grade one, she only recently chose to devote much of her time to painting. But Des did it with a vengeance, one must say - because she has become very prolific. She is capable of turning out in a day several watercolors of her favorite subjects, which are flowers, pets, and rustic scenery.

Des, a newcomer in the art scene, had joined only two art exhibits so far, both with the Kapentura Art Group, and both of them this year. She was with the Kapentura Art Group when it participated in the Bonifacio Global City's Art & Appetite event last May. Des calls that event her debut as visual artist. She also exhibited two pieces for Kapentura's Krusada sa Kalikasan show at the Artasia Gallery which opened last November 8. Des is a regular at Kapentura's Monday sketching session at the Starbucks in Robinson Malolos. She also goes on plein air painting excursions with the group at a farm in Barangay Dakila, Malolos, Bulacan.

The farm belong to the family of fellow Kapentura member Nemencio Macapugay (Nemie), who is also a music teacher and painter like Des. They were former choirmates, and it was him who rekindled in Des the desire to return to art making. They worked in the same music studio years before, where Nemie, who was concurrently a comics illustrator and cartoonist, taught classical guitar. That was where Des saw Nemie painting during intermissions in their work. Years passed, and when they chanced upon each other again, Des recommended Nemie as music teacher at Isidore de Seville. They also acted as facilitators in a workshop, where Des handled the Music class and Nemie, Art. Des sat in in Nemie's class, and it was there that Des innate artistic talent was honed. Nemie recommended Des to Kapentura leader Danny Pangan, who, when he saw Des' watercolors readily accepted her as member of the group.

Although Des expressed admiration for the works of several painters, like Vincent Van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, and Pablo Picasso, her two paintings at the Krusada sa Kalikasan exhibit clearly showed the influence only of Matisse - with her fauvist-inspired color scheme and naif formal qualities and rendering. Her mixed-media painting below, Kaunlaran at Kasarinlan (Progress and Independence), depicts the dichotomy between the rich and the poor, between the high-rise dwellings and the barung-barongs (shacks). But the title of this painting could be quite puzzling.They seem to denote not a current state of affairs but an aspiration for the future. What Des meant perhaps is independence and self-reliance will only come about if the poor are no longer poor. And she seem to add that the trappings of progress exclude stinking waterways clogged with garbage - primary traits of waterways clogged with slum-dwellers on their banks.

Her other painting, Marine Paradise, show the creatures that make the seas a pleasant place to see, to fish, and to dive in. This painting seem to be more direct to the point, in a manner of speaking, because of its plain depiction of beautiful marine life. Or, is it? Her use of beads, sea shells, gift wrappers, corrugated papers, ribbons, buttons, styrofoam, earphones, computer chips, and other electronic materials as collage material would make us wonder and think otherwise, because they are all junk materials - trash that mindless people throw into the sea. So, this painting also makes a powerful statement after all - an indictment, in fact, of man's wasteful ways.

Des' husband is Samson "Sammy" Belda. They met in Manila while they were still in college. Des calls both Malolos, Bulacan and San Pablo, Laguna home, because although she was born and raised in Malolos, she and Sammy have a house in San Pablo where Sammy in turn was born and raised. Her idyllic roots and present day milieu could not but be conducive to her music and art making. So, it's not puzzling why Des the painter is very prolific. Des and Sammy has an only child, Miguel Mari, who, although he can draw and play the guitar, can't be categorized as a bona fide artist yet. He is more into sports, being a full athletic scholar for tennis at the University of the Philippines, Diliman. That facet of Miguel Mari also makes Des proud, because his athleticism is another proof of his taking after his mother : Des herself was a tennis player when she was sixteen, and a triathlete years later. But Des is quick to add that Miguel Mari also took after Sammy, who also excels in tennis. Both father and son, in fact, always win in tournaments, especially if they are partners in the doubles competition.