NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

  Last month, Tun Adriano Baza Pangelinan, a pioneering Chamoru artist and former professor at UOG passed away. I met Tun Adriano many times over the years, primarily when I was an art major at UOG. Tun Adriano was always an intimidating figure. My art professors such as the late Joe Babauta and Ric Castro, were both confident and outspoken, but became very circumspect and respectful when Tun Adriano was around. He wasn't the first Chamoru to paint or draw in a modern sense, but he was one of the first Chamoru artists to blend artistic styles from famous European movements like Fauvism and Impressionism with local culture and life. That blending and refusal to accept binary choices was pioneering. It wasn't too long ago that Chamorus felt that in order to achieve anything in life they need to give up their culture, their heritage, their island. This was part of how the United States entered into Guam, filling the island with demoralizing ideas in that wha...

  I don't paint as much as I used to, but I'm still an artist gi korason-hu. Achokka' ti mamementa yu' kada diha, manhahasso yu' todu tiempo put pinenta yan atte.  I have been inspired by many artists over the years, especially when I was an undergraduate and graduate student at UOG. At that time, I was painting a great deal and displaying and selling my artwork around the island.  One of the biggest influences on me, and something which made me the butt of a great deal of "måtai na pepenta" na jokes, was my looking up to Jean-Michel Basquiat.  He was one of the consummate bohemian artists, who challenged artist norms in his time, was used by the artworld during his short life, and then died.  When I first created an email account for myself in 1998, I was so enamored with Basquiat, that I didn't use my name, but instead blended our names together. Rather than mlbevacqua, I instead entered mlbasquiat. ...