Author's Note. As an adventurer and traveler, I have met many artists in big cities. This is a sequel to a previous StarGazer article, Three Pinoy Artists — the Fourth Pinoy Artist.

Rome, Italy. Circa 1985. It was hard hitchhiking in Italy because motorists preferred to pick up soldiers in uniform than long-haired Oriental backpackers. It took me the whole day to hitchhike from Firenze (Florence) to Rome, which was only a few hours ride by car.

I did not have the address of a good friend, Jimmy Resurreccion. I had an ingenious plan. I looked for Pinoys at Rome's central train station and asked if they knew Jimmy. After about 15 encounters, an attractive Pinay replied, "Ah, si Mang Jimmy. Good friend ko yan." She scribbled his address and off I went.

Jimmy and I hugged and I met his family, a pretty Italian wife, and two kids, a girl and boy.

ME — Your middle name is Hidalgo. Is it true the great painter Hidalgo is your grandfather?

JIMMY — Felix Hidalgo Resurreccion. Great-grand uncle or something.

ME — It's in your blood, that's why you're so good.

JIMMY — I just arrived from Poland. I hate Polish women. They are so aggressive. They all wanted to rape me.

ME — Because you're so sexy.

JIMMY — Sabagay (True.)

ME — Ulol (Crazy). It's no longer rape if you give your consent.

JIMMY — Sabagay. I have been commissioned by the producer of the movie, The Agony and the Ecstasy, starring Charlton Heston as Michelangelo. I was asked to do replicas of frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel for the movie set.

ME — Wow, big time. Big pay. Not an easy job doing frescoes.

JIMMY — Kayang-kaya (Peanuts).

ME — As far as I know, you're the only Pinoy who can do frescoes.

JIMMY — I had to ask for a leave from my job.

ME — Doing what?

JIMMY — Restoration of Medieval churches. It's a five-year contract, extendable.

ME — Wow. Big pay.

JIMMY — Yes, that's because not all artists can do restoration. You have to have a sense of history. And there are elaborate techniques not every artist knows.

ME — So, sitting pretty ka na.

Jimmy's wife Anna cooked a massive dinner for me. It began with pasta, which I thought was the main course. It was the appetizer. After dinner, the five-year-old daughter gave me a hand-made heart-shaped mini-pillow with the words, "Ti voglio bene" (I love you). I was in tears.

The next day, Jimmy gave me a tour of Rome on his motorbike. Like a true Filipino motorist, he beat red lights left and right. He brought me everywhere — the catacombs, the colosseum, the "three coins in the fountain" fountain, everywhere.

In a previous StarGazer column entitled, Three Pinoy Artists, I dubbed Willie Layug the "Michelangelo of the Philippines." I changed my mind because Jimmy is more the "Michelangelo of the Philippines" since he did replicas of actual Michelangelo frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Like Michelangelo, Jimmy was doing sculptures and paintings all at once. He showed me a sculpture of an overly obese nude woman with multiple folds around her waist. That would probably go for half a million dollars in a New York exhibit, although I am not an expert.

When he visited Manila, the government (I think during the era of GMA, if memory serves me right) gave him a red carpet treatment. He had a VIP suite at the Manila Hotel. In gratitude, he donated a mural to the hotel.

I will never forget the late flamboyant Jaime Hidalgo Ressureccion, who loved Polish women, and who gave a Pinoy adventurer a red carpet tour on a motorbike of Rome, one of the centers of the Italian Renaissance.

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