turo ni tito: July 2019

Henry Leen A. Magahis Master of Arts in Philippine Studies

Sining sa Bansa De La Salle University-Manila

“Jack of all trade, master of none. First a disclaimer. My students have discovered this blog and they might think that what I write is gospel truth. Worse is they might find an argument that they think they can use, for some reason or another, against their teachers. So, to set the record straight, it is NOT. As a matter of fact, I write and open it to feedback to get another view in the hope that somebody would tell me if I am wrong and reenforce my thinking if it is right. Not that I will accept anything thrown my way, though. Just so I can think about it some more and decide whether my original stance is right or definitely off tangent. So there. I hope that clarifies everything. Now, on to blogging.”

Rolando S. Delos Santos

Visual Artist, Educator, Poet and Musician

Rolly delos Santos, or more popularly known for his blog persona as Tito Rolly, is recognized more for his humor and witty personality more than anything else. Born in Manila in 1957, it can be said that he inherited his talents from his parents Celestino and Herminia, now both deceased. He inherited his love for painting from his father and his penchant for music from the mother, the daughter of a judge in Angat, Bulacan, who was also a composer and a fantastic violin player. His greatest influence in the visual arts stems from a very supportive father who would buy him paint and brushes for toys. His love for drawing started when his father caught him tracing pictures from magazines for a school project in his elementary years. When his father saw him doing this, the father asked the son why he was doing that. The son said he does not know how to draw and asked the dad to draw him a carabao. The father asked the son what the animal looked like and the son willingly described how the animal looked like. What his father said after the vivid description caught the son off guard. He said: “So you know what it looks like. Now, draw one.”

In college, Tito Rolly started with a course in AB English as he did not really know what he wanted. All he knew was that his friends were in this university and had to go there to fit in. After two years of painstakingly queuing up for enrolment, he surrendered to his first love and decided to change courses, tried his luck at the University of the East School of Music and Arts and got in. Armed with a degree of Bachelor of Fine Arts, major in Advertising, he graduated in 1981.

He was employed as a Researcher in a printing press publishing a book on Tropical Medicine for a year until he was employed as a graphic artist at the then Audiovisual Center of De La Salle University. After three years of doing instructional materials and library design, he was offered to teach Art in De La Salle Zobel by the then principal, Mr. Edgardo S. Cadlum. This started his life as an educator. To date, he has served the school for thirty years both as a teacher and as part of the administration. Set to retire in two to three years from now, he is currently the Institutional Art Coordinator, a position which he has held for more than four years. He was also once the Lower Years Level Coordinator, a position somewhat similar to the Prefect of Discipline.

One of his dreams is to one day write an autobiography thinking that it is only in this way that his children and the future generation would get to know him. A way to immortalize his views, so to speak. His book starts with the following:

“Heroes are not born; they are made as a result of circumstance. They are not chosen; they become one because of a strong, moral personality with a compelling passion to act according to what their minds and hearts dictate. They are lucky, for in the end, they are immortalized by writers and artists who glorify their deeds. But it is not only great men who are worthy of remembering. Max Ehrmann in the Desiderata posited that we all have our own stories to tell. It is too bad that we cease to exist in this world upon our death. Unlike heroes, we ordinary mortals do not have the luxury of having a plethora of great story tellers to tell our tale.”

His creative juices are not confined to the visual arts. He also tinkers with writing prose and poetry. Although having discovered writing at a very late age, he discovered this craft through the internet. He enrolled in an online university based in the US called The Writers Village and from there learned the art of poetry. From here, he has gained friends, one of whom paved the way for him to travel to Canada, give a poetry reading at the Serendipity in Steveston in 2001. All his creations are kept in blogs, his repositories for his creations – www://titorolly.blogspot.com for his views on anything and www://yllor.blospot.com for his poetry

The Wall

formidable-
laden with heavy artillery
shows its might

snobbishly
repels unwanted
guests

mute witness
to many crimes,
crevices draped

with dried blood
of gallat men
in war

in peace
hides lovers
at nooks none can see

scribbling their
names inside
a broken heart

baked under the sun
stitched with a bow
of a naked boy

on its floors
rubbers of every
sizes, different kinds

to me
it is a
cultural parapet
separating you
from me
i strike this barren wall

with hammer
of peace, understanding
and love

It can be said that he has started marrying his interests. He has began uniting the mediums in his works which he hopes to have a soul all their own in the future. He aims to make his paintings as poetic and his poems as visual as they can possibly be. He continues to search for metaphors that would enable him to do this. With his impending retirement, his focus would be nothing but his art and with all those practices he had been getting while being employed to obtain mastery. One could feel the passion in his art, elemental, calculated but not arrogant, callously meticulous and vibrant with life. It may take a while but soon, one can feel the mystery of his art.

It has also been a tradition in DLSZ to have Tito Rolly design the stage for graduation. Here, he exhibits his creativity in design. One will know that his craft is not confined to a single medium like a canvas or paper. He treats any flat surface as a means to express, albeit unabashedly, what he feels at the time without any qualms about what his audience would feel.

One could sense that his stage designs are works in an art gallery. With painted panels of wood and a luscious floral design and vibrant lighting, a stage is born. Each and everyone would be awed by the design urging them to have their pictures taken in it. His rich imagination always impeccable, one wonders how he manages to do a simple rectangle could be designed as lovely and as wonderful as he has done.
Heeree are some of the stage designs:

I find myself lucky to have befriended this creative talent. A good father to his four children, all of whom have graduated in De La Salle schools, a good husband to his wife, Nitz, an intelligent teacher who has a wide range of knowledge in his head, a good conversationalist who can talk about almost anything, be it intellectual or just plain guffaws, a good guitarist, a true friend who shall be with you through hell and high waters, and most of all, a fine artist. In one of his spare times, he sat in front of me and playing with watercolour, not his actual medium, just toyed with my head and came up with my portrait. With Tito Rolly, every time is playtime. All one has to do is be caught up in one of his games.