ASP Antiopolo Community

Art Beyond the Canvas, Stories Beyond the Brush

It was in early 2018 when I first met the members of ASP Antipolo. We met at a restaurant in Pasig. Tita Andeng Ynares and Tito Ljay Sumulong had facilitated the meeting for my brother, who wanted to teach the kids photography, his passion. I was barely 10 years old at the time and was just tagging along for the gimmick and the free food! Plans were made that day, but just as my brother was getting into the activity, COVID happened. Needless to say, their plans basically came to naught.

Fast forward to 2022. Manila was finally beginning to take steps gingerly out of one of the world’s harshest lockdowns. My brother had kept relations ongoing with ASP Antipolo, albeit minimally, throughout the lockdown, and my best friend Frankie and I had started to join in at some point during the pandemic. We became somewhat familiar with the group, so when my brother left for university abroad, Frankie and I decided to take over the project in our own way. We met with the people from ASP Antipolo to propose this project.

What we wanted to do was simply to form a group that loved creating art and to share one weekend a month with the same kids. It was our hope to form a relationship with them as friends more than just as mentor and mentee. Because Frankie and I took art courses in school, the plan was to share and teach the ASP kids about one celebrated artist a month. In so doing, we hoped to broaden their art horizon and perhaps inspire them to discover new genres and styles. Thus, Kind Kanvas was born.

Thankfully, ASP Antipolo was very receptive to our proposal. So in January 2023, we held our first group workshop at the Antipolo City Hall. We met the 10 children whose works we are showcasing in this publication for the first time. The first piece we did was a collaboration. We tried to make one artwork that flowed together, although each of us contributed a separate sheet. Looking back, it was a good team-building exercise as well as a chance to see the artistic strengths of each of the participants.