Mambabatok Acquisition

 I guess you can say it was love at first sight. On our trip last month to the east coast and back, we stopped at a Filipino Community Center in northern Chicago that was having a display of local Filipino art work. I learned about it through an artist friend of mine that I have known for nearly 18 years. Our goal was to just see my friend's work, she is an extremely talented artist, and to check out others with ties to the Philippines.

There was a lot of great work hung up on the walls but the one above was the one that grabbed my attention and that of my wife as well. It is an oil painting entitled Mambabatok which is the name of a traditional Filipino tattooist from the northern Philippines. Not only that, but the person in the painting is none other than Whang-od, perhaps the most famous of them all and is still alive and doing these traditional tattoos at 106 years of age!

We admired the painting with embroidered tattoos and then moved on but kept gravitating back. I noticed that the label next to it mentioning the artist's name and biography, also stated it was not for sale. Many other artworks were for sale but just not this one and I guess I could understand why an artist might not be able to part with it.

Later, in a conversation with my artist friend, I mentioned that painting and the artist and offhand, said we would be interested in purchasing it if someday it were for sale. My friend, talked to the artist (who was also a friend of hers), and found out she would indeed be willing to sell it. Introductions were made and a price was agreed upon. But the art show was to continue until August and so we had to wait until then to complete the deal. The show ended, the deal proceeded and a day later, a heavily bubbled wrapped box arrived on our doorstep and the following day, this painting was hung up in our living room as seen above. 

We love it and for now, it is one of the few exceptions to our rule of only hanging our own artwork on our walls. Seeing that it is an original oil painting and connected to us in culture and in friends, I'm okay with that exception. My only complaint is that it isn't signed... at all. So I will probably make up some sort of tag with the name of the piece and the artist's name as well and tuck it in the frame on the back of the painting for some future person to discover at some estate sale decades from now. Or perhaps someday it will be selling for millions at Sotheby's. Either way, I won't care because I will no longer be here.