Artist Tina Borja Heiter on Brainard’s Book of Sketches

I am shar­ing a let­ter from my artist friend, Tina Bor­ja Heit­er about my recent book, Mag­i­cal Years: Mem­o­ries & Sketch­es, a book that col­lects sketch­es inspired by my child­hood in Cebu.

Tina was my class­mate at Mary­knoll Col­lege and she is is now a res­i­dent of Switzer­land where she exhibits her art at the Galerie am Schanzen­bgraben.  Tina has a web­site at http://theheitergallery.webs.com.

I am grate­ful to Tina, an accom­plished artist, for her kind com­ments about my work. ~ Cecil­ia Manguer­ra Brainard

~~~

Dear Cecil­ia,

I love your new book – Mag­i­cal Years: Mem­o­ries & Sketch­es.

I am impressed with your sketch­es and the way you wove them around the lit­tle child­hood sto­ries or snip­pets of your life as a child in her grow­ing up years. As a provin­ciana, I can relate very much to your expe­ri­ences as shown in your sketches.

My grand­par­ents had a gaze­bo, not by the beach but in their gar­den (I inher­it­ed the house and gar­den) where they held court and served merien­da in the after­noon when my par­ents and oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers who worked for my grand­par­ents gave their reports of the day. They brought their chil­dren and so we cousins played in the big gar­den sur­round­ed with man­zani­ta trees and flow­er­ing gumamela (hibis­cus) bush­es. When the man­zani­ta trees were sea­son, we would climb them against our par­ents’ wish­es, to pick the sweet lit­tle cher­ries (the fruit as we called them). There were geese roam­ing around tend­ed by a young ser­vant try­ing to keep them away from us.

My Mom always kept a pig in the back yard too, to be fat­tened up for a spe­cial occa­sion. We had cats and pet dogs although I did not like them real­ly, but the boys did. We used to play paten­tero in the streets with the neigh­bor­ing kids when the sun went down. I played jack­stone with my girl­friends, and I was allowed to play with one doll at a time – not a col­lec­tion of Bar­bie dolls or toy gad­gets the kids have now.

The girl play­ing the piano could be me. I remem­ber dur­ing my first recital, my moth­er missed my per­for­mance because she could not get away from the office ear­ly enough. You know what, the piano teacher, a nun, made me play again for my moth­er, so unfor­tu­nate­ly, the audi­ence had to lis­ten to my music twice. If not for your book, many oth­er rec­ol­lec­tions of my own “mag­i­cal years” would have been lost because of the hec­tic lives we have today. I appre­ci­ate and thank you for that.

If I were a grand­moth­er, I would give this book to every grand­child of mine so they would know about our “Mag­i­cal Years” as soon as they learn to read. This is a more sophis­ti­cat­ed and mod­ern book com­pared to what we used to read as our primer: Pepe and Pilar. Let the young peo­ple learn that the lives of their grand­par­ents or per­haps their par­ents as chil­dren were much sim­pler then, but we were hap­py and contented.

Your sketch­es are excel­lent! I almost can’t believe how quick­ly you have arrived as an artist when you were only toy­ing with the idea the last time I was here — although Baby C. and I real­ized how good you were get­ting to be then.

For me, it was worth the cost of the book not only as a friend and a fan of your nov­els, but because your Mag­i­cal Years is real­ly special.

I am always so proud of you,

Tina (Bor­ja Heiter)

~~~

MAGICAL YEARS: MEMORIES & SKETCHES by Cecil­ia Manguer­ra Brainard
(PALH 2020), 37 pages, book size is 8 x 8, hardbound
ISBN 9780971945890
Spe­cial Lim­it­ed Edi­tion ‑Each book is signed and num­bered by the artist/author
43 Sketch­es in reed and pen and ink by Cecil­ia Manguer­ra Brainard, (hb) $45.00
Con­tact palhbooks@gmail.com for a copy.

Ama­zon also has copies:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0971945896

More links re Mag­i­cal Years:

http://palh-books.blogspot.com/p/magical-years-memories-sketches.html

https://www.facebook.com/Magical-Years-Memories-Sketches-by-Cecilia-Manguerra-Brainard-103538341189030/

 

Tags: Philip­pines, Cebu, book of sketch­es, reed draw­ing, pen and ink, childhood