Yolanda Palis: An Artist Painting Boldly with Her Life
by Lisa Graves

"April" acrylic on canvas 20" x 14"

"You can't be neutral on a moving train," progressive historian Howard Zinn has observed, and I would add that neutrality is extremely over-rated, if it even exists at all in my field, the art of politics, or in the domain of Yolanda Palis: the politics of art. Feminists have keenly noted that the personal is political. Yolanda's paintings are indeed personal and political.

Many of her works—bold, dark, and imaginative—contain unintentional yet fundamentally purposeful images of faces—the faces of her family, including her sister who "went missing" during the Marcos regime. The oil allusions to her lost as well as dispersed family from the Philippines manifest themselves somehow no matter how abstract or how representational her paintings are intended to be.

In my eyes, her works are beautiful, and sometimes disturbing, mysteries. Perhaps you will see this too, through the magic of computer imaging. But, at the end of the day, Yolanda paints for neither you nor me. She paints for herself—what she sees, what she feels, without artifice or need for approval, fortune or fame. It is art for art's sake, in expression of her humanity, her personhood as a woman, a Filipina, a worker, a citizen of the world, a lover of peace, and a fierce advocate for fairness and respect. She is to her core an artist, tapping the creative spirit most of us have repressed since we were children coloring freely on some scrap of paper.

"Organic 2" acrylic on canvas 20" x 20"

I tell you this at the outset, because I am decidedly not neutral about the bold paintings of this new artist. She is one of my dearest friends, and although she calls me the benefactor of her art it is truly the other way around. Yolanda began painting this year in part to help me close the gap between intention and action, when I mentioned that it would be wonderful to take an abstract painting class offered by the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC. Above almost all else Yolanda is a person of action, a woman of consequence—impossible to ignore, unable to be silenced, although she is sometimes a person of few but well chosen words and gorgeous laughter. She is a painter, a poet, a playwright—all in her "spare" time.

I did not know she had not painted before when I told her about the class. It never occurred to me that she had not painted before. And the first time for class that we put paint to canvas, I tell you, she was brilliant. The stroke of her brush and the palette knife, her choice of color, her willingness to just express her life in the paint—it was like second nature. Her creativity captured the attention of our class and inspired us to let go of our inhibitions, our effort to satisfy some external definition of art or beauty. The paint just seemed to be an extension of Yolanda's life, her spirit, even as the creative process was both a struggle and a joy. I am so proud to have been a witness to the emergence of this brilliant new contributor to the world of visual art.

"Untitled" acrylic on canvas 30" x 30"

Up to this point, I have done my best to describe Yolanda's paintings but I believe it is impossible to convey in words what is conveyed or can be felt in paint. i recall that performance artist Laurie Anderson said that "writing about art is like dancing about architecture." That sentiment is one I respect. A painting must be explored with the eyes, not words, to be true to itself, just as a play must be performed and not just read to be realized. A peach or a mango must be eaten to be understood and enjoyed.

So, let us stop with words describing one person's analytical impression of another's abstract expression. Let us not waste this time with some egotistical academic critique or what I would call a counter-productive or self-defeating "comparathon." Let us enjoy looking at Yolanda's art and let us use words for their better purpose. Let us learn about this artist, in her own words, a pursuit I find most fitting, given the title of this important journal of the Filipino diaspora.

LISA GRAVES: What do you miss about your home in the Philippines?

YOLANDA PALIS: The mountains. The Pacific Ocean. I nearly drowned in the sea but it was so beautiful growing up by the water.

LG: Did you paint those mountains and the ocean as a child?

"Lisa" oil on canvas 30" x 18"

YP: No, I didn't draw or paint as a kid. I started writing poetry, rhyming in Tagalog when I was 12. My poems were about nature and how similar vines and flowers are to people'if you nourish and take care of them they will flourish.

LG: Hmmmm, yes that is true, but didn't you even doodle?

YP: I loved to doodle! Squares and circles. I always wished that I could draw. I still think that. I have such appreciation for drawings that look realistic.

LG: Did you want to be an artist when you were growing up?

YP: I wanted to be a lawyer, like you, or an actress. I wanted to be everything I saw but I never thought I would be what I am now, a world traveler.

LG: When did you begin traveling the world?

YP: I left my country at 32 and I have not lived there since then.

LG: What surprised you first about seeing other parts of this earth?

YP: How much people are the same except for the color of their skin. Everyone wants to stay alive, find a job, and make friends. We all want these same things and yet people fight each other and divide each other so much.

LG: What country did you go to first?

YP: I went to Austria—Vienna, Salzburg, the German Riviera . . . .

LG: What struck you about that country?

YP: The mountains are so beautiful! They are so close'right in front of you! But then I moved away from the mountains to Paris.

LG: What about Paris?

YP: There are no words for Paris. . . . There is a way of saying this in French: "Ça ne se dit pas, ça se vit!!" In other words, you don't say you like Paris—I do love it—but you live Paris. Just like you don't say you're happy, you live it.

LG: Well, I have to go live in Paris with you, at least on vacation one of these days. Why did you leave Paris?

YP: I wanted to start a life. What better place was there in the world to start a life than in the United States? Everyone came here to start, to have a fresh start.

LG: What struck you about the US when you arrived?

YP: The museums! I love the museums of New York City! I loved going to the Whitney. It has some of the most outrageous exhibits. You would go and see the performance art and ask yourself, "Is that art?" It challenged you.

LG: Were you surprised?

YP: What surprised me was that America had a reputation'that people from other places readily believe'that it was not cultured, that there was just consumption and no real culture. That was proven wrong.

LG: Were you still writing poetry when you came here?

YP: I was more into writing short stories.

LG: When did you write your first short story?

"Organic 1" acrylic on canvas 20" x 20"

YP: When I experienced my first heartbreak I was 21 and still in the Philippines. I still have that story, although the pages are yellowing. That was when I discovered how words can make their way to places where you are hungry for those words—not only in your brain but in your body. You hunger for positive things you want to hear. He would tell me "you have a lot more to share with the world" and that is what I was left with when he left. I think I still believe him. . . .

LG: I do. When did you write your first play?

YP: In late 2001, after 9-11.

LG: It was terrific! That was your first play, the one about peace that was performed at the World Bank and around Washington, DC?

YP: Yes, it really was, although I did write a very short play when I was a student. It was about how important it was to express oneself correctly in other languages, English in particular. I still have that small play in my head. The teachers liked it—that was how I became notorious in school!

LG: There are certainly worse ways to become notorious! Why did you use the format of a play to respond to the devastation of 9-11, when you had been working on short stories as your artistic outlet?

YP: Remé told me I had to write it. She said, 'You are so good at dialogue!'

LG: You are! She was your benefactor in that play and ultimately directed it at the World Bank too. . . . Not only is the dialogue great but it really conveys the message of the importance of dialogue, of listening to each other to try to find solutions to the problems we face, personally and politically. Did you do any drawings or paintings about 9-11 too?

"Martial Law 1972" oil on canvas 28" x 22"

YP: My first drawings were around the time I met you in 1995. It was after my mother died. When I got home I just started drawing. The drawings just came pouring out of me. There were faces. I still have these drawings.

LG: When did you create your first painting?

YP: With you! It was the onion assignment for class this year.

LG: No! That's impossible! Your onion was so abstract and sensuous. The way you applied the paint with the knife. . . I'm stunned. It was so good I just can't believe it was the first time. It seemed like you must have been painting your whole life and you were just encouraging me by taking this basic class with me! Wow.

YP: That was my first. It's true.

LG: What a remarkable emergence of your art, your painting, Yolanda! Congratulations on having the courage to paint your heart, to paint with your whole self. What a gift that is. It is so freeing for others to witness you, opening and expanding your life with your painting and inspiring others to do the same. So, what inspires you when you are painting or writing?

YP: I like to work in silence. I think I can hear my soul when it is quiet.

LG: What is your favorite color?

YP: Do I have one? All white.

LG: Your paintings often leave space to be surrounded by a rough white border. . . I wonder if you were to be reborn as something else, what would it be?

YP: I would love to be an eagle. It has eyes that see so far and wings that can take you almost everywhere you want to see.

LG: What words would you use to describe yourself?

YP: [pause] That's weird: 'compassionate.' I have never thought of myself that way before. Ordinarily I would say 'generous.'

LG: I know you to be both compassionate and generous! What sound do you love most?

YP: The sound of a piano or crystal glasses clinking.

LG: What sound do you hate?

YP: Metal scraping.

LG: What word do you love?

YP: I can't pick just one!

"Joy" acrylic on canvas 36" x 36"

LG: What word do you hate?

YP: I love words too much to hate them.

LG: What is your favorite curse-word?

YP: Can we print this? 'Oh, sh'!' [ellipses originally, she would not say it.]

LG: Who is your favorite writer?

YP: Oh, it's sentimental. Frost. My first poems were about nature, you see. And Rothko, not the painter, too. I do like the painter. You can get into his paintings, his space. It is glorious to be enveloped by the colors. I like Klimt and his colors too.

LG: What is your greatest hope?

YP: I want to live to see the day that there is no war going on anywhere in the world, that there is peace.

LG: What is your greatest fear?

YP: That we will all die in some stupid, senseless war.

LG: I think a lot of people share that fear, especially after 9-11. Times of war and loss can make you think about how we can make the most of the gift of every single day of life? What is going to be the next thing you conquer, Yolanda, your next artistic challenge?

YP: There is no next. I am just always trying to improve every day, like today.

LG: What are you working on today?

YP: A play about domestic violence for the World Bank. I want to convey how important women are, how they hold up and support all humanity.

LG: But you are going to keep on painting too, right?

YP: Yes! I was so surprised by painting, that I could actually paint. That was very unexpected. I think people should explore abstract painting. It gives you the freedom to do, freedom to be, freedom to feel, freedom to create, without rules or boundaries.

LG: Thank you, my friend!

YP: Thank you for suggesting that we paint!

YOLANDA PALIS's poetry appeared in Babaylan: An Anthology of Filipina & Filipina American Writings (Aunt Lutte, 2000) edited by Eileen Tabios & Nick Carbó. Her play, Where Peace Begins, written in response to 9-11, toured D.C. from November 2001 through November 2002. It was presented in spaces at federal & city agencies, university campuses, and public libraries and had performances at both The World Bank and at the International Monetary Fund. It was professionally produced and staged by Qbd Ink: Friends of The Performing Artist at The Writer's Center in Bethesda, MD during weekends in August 2004. Yolanda's penchant for activist theatre prodded her to write an AIDS theatre piece staged by Remé Grefalda and presented to World Bank audiences, creating a 'street theatre' motif out of open corporate spaces. Their next collaboration is The Hidden Face of Violence, a shadow play combining voices and silhouettes. Yolanda works at an NGO in
Washington D.C.

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