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| Kalinga woman 14 x 11 inches, oil on canvas, 2019 |
The Kalinga rice minnowing song that appears on Music from the Mountain Provinces is illustrated on YouTube with a vintage photograph of a bare chested woman in a field. I may assume the field is a rice field and the (young) woman is from the Philippines. David Blair Stiffler recorded the song in the mid 1980s in the Kalinga province of the mountainous northern Philippines. The photograph, that I used for the painting above, in the video is certainly not his. The photograph is much older from a time that it was deemed alright to fetishize exotic women. The woman in the photo is quite young perhaps not older as fourteen. Stiffler recorded the Kalinga women inside a bamboo stilt house, whre they certainly had their chests (breasts) covered. I doubt it if women would be working bare-chested in the field at the time the recording was made, or long before that.
I have commented before on the colonialist's attitude towards the exotic, and earlier yet I vowed not to paint gratuitous nudity. This was almost exactly ten years ago and I believe I've been respectful to any individual performer (and all human beings) since. As a middle-aged white male I do not shy away from addressing important issues that come with posting content on the internet. I believe that any (questionable) private feelings one may have as it comes to race, sexuality, violence, or status is culturally induced and to alter one's mindset that will disallow biases will also alter one's inner feelings. We can learn to be a good person. The right education. Don't get me wrong, this is not a pamphlet for ignoring or overcoming one's passions or desires, what is intended is to learn respect. Restraint is commendable when it involves affecting other people without their consent. Relations are eskewed when one party does not have a voice.
The woman in the photograph could never consent to this painting. In the context of the photograph the relation between photographer and model is also one of a clear slant in which the photographer is dominant and the model without a voice. I am aware of the erotic appeal of the photograph and painting, and that this appeal is the true object of the work, and that the ethnographic interest is an excuse. The Philippine woman was selected not to represent agricultural practices in her culture but for her (sex) appeal. She was (no doubt) selected by the photographer for her looks and how they would reinforce the (western) audience's sense of the exotic. The photo was selected by me not because it illustrates the particular song in the top 100 but to indulge in exoticism and to use the opportunity to address it too. As a teacher that I am, I won't miss the opportunity to tell my audience all about it.
The woman in the photograph could never consent to this painting. In the context of the photograph the relation between photographer and model is also one of a clear slant in which the photographer is dominant and the model without a voice. I am aware of the erotic appeal of the photograph and painting, and that this appeal is the true object of the work, and that the ethnographic interest is an excuse. The Philippine woman was selected not to represent agricultural practices in her culture but for her (sex) appeal. She was (no doubt) selected by the photographer for her looks and how they would reinforce the (western) audience's sense of the exotic. The photo was selected by me not because it illustrates the particular song in the top 100 but to indulge in exoticism and to use the opportunity to address it too. As a teacher that I am, I won't miss the opportunity to tell my audience all about it.
