I’m so happy to share a new acquisition: this still life by Ray Gomez.
I’ve been looking for a hyper-realistic still life but featuring food or food items for a long time. I wanted this to adorn the living/dining of the halfway home (Manda condo). For a while, I was looking for seafood or fish as subject, even galunggong or tinapa. I even took this pic. And I wanted to commission an artist to render this.
Art pieces featuring Still life not very common lately. So I have been on the lookout for years now. And finally, a trip to a gallery in EDSA Shangrila yielded this beauty by Ray Gomez. And the subject - bigas (rice grains) in a bilao strikes a chord on my heart strings.
I was a freshman in UP when a series of events led to my coming out to my mom. It was a particularly hot Saturday afternoon. And she was in the kitchen, in front of a bilao of bigas such as this, cleaning the grains of tiny stones and black grains as she talked to me. She calmly asked me about my friends, whether they were …
“…gay, Nanay, yes they are… we are all gay.” I finished the sentence for her.
Pause. Deep breath. “Are you okay with it? Do you want to seek counseling?” She asked.
“No need for that, Nanay. Not anymore. I would have wanted that before. But I am ok now. I am relieved that you already know.”
The conversation went on about how she accepts me and loves me, no matter what I am. And how she still wants me to have a relationship with Jesus.
I look at this piece and I am taken back to that time, a time when I felt how lovingly Nanay accepted me, her gay first son. The humble task of “Pagpipili ng bigas” will always be special to me.
