The ‘in between’ man

“That painting is in fulfillment for a promise I made four years ago to a friend who was part of a group that established Love Yourself, an HIV advocacy group,” he reveals. “They are constructing another branch, and it’s going to be bound for that. With the current onslaught of the HIV infections amongst our population, I felt so many things could have been avoided if only we learn to ‘listen.’ I myself have had first-hand experience in helping some individuals in seeking medical help for their being positive, and it dawned on me, I just simply listened to these individuals and the difficulty they were going through, and it helped me to help them.”

At the opening of “Reyna Elena, Libertad…” artist Daniel Palma Tayona cuts a formidable figure, with a bald head and a leather jacket, looking like an action star, far from some characters of his works, ready to challenge the status quo.

“Frankly, I would like to step into that role. To use a naive ‘semi-Pinoy’ style, a la genre format, and tackle themes an urban gay male like me can tackle. My friends say I am ‘in between’ as a gay man, not effeminate that strong-headed straight men would feel uncomfortable or even condescending to be around with, and gay enough that effeminate gay men can talk with me honestly without too much of the sexual innuendos when het and gays are together,” he admits.

Not all regions of the visual arts are male-dominated though. Predictably, women and LGBTQ artists are concentrated in children’s book illustration, which many may consider “soft” or “non-serious.”

“Coming from the children’s book industry, which is mostly populated by women and gay men—only a few straight guys are in picture books; Jomike Tejido for one—I see myself as one of those artists to break that glass,” Tayona remarks.

He now joins Jason Moss, another artist who originally began as a children’s book illustrator, in making inroads into the fine arts, but his roots and heart remain in children’s books.

“When I was in grade school, I used to cut the back covers of my father’s Reader’s Digest magazines—RD always had a featured artwork for their back covers—and I would put them in frames and hang them on the wall beside my bed. I would imagine my small corner was a tiny gallery/museum,” Tayona reminisces. “In college, I would save my money to buy these really nice hardbound children’s books with the golden Caldecott Medal stickers at National Bookstore. If I remember correctly, they were priced not more than 200 pesos.

They were stacked at the bottom shelf, and nobody really paid much attention to these superbly illustrated and written books. This was way back in the late 1980s, back when people weren’t paying much attention to children’s books, and there was hardly a local children’s book industry to speak of.”

He specially remembers the first book he bought—The Dessert is Theirs by Byrd Baylor.

“I just got back from a college tour abroad, and I had some money—1989, I think. I saw that book, and I thought how exquisite the cover was, and how the artist and the writer seamlessly created a wonderful piece of a book. I have given my book collection to my nephews and, to this day, the Caldecott books I had are still in their shelves at their home,” Tayona relates. “I guess these books put me on a path to being a visual artist, a book designer and children’s book illustrator. I even told my brother that someday our last name will be in books, and children will recognize it. It eventually came into fruition, and I would sometimes joke with my publisher that kids might think that the artist who made the book might be dead or really old. Why not? I used to think that the authors/illustrators whose books I used to read as a child were that, dead and/or old. I consciously decided to be an illustrator first, because of the children’s books I collected in college, before I was a fine artist.”

After finishing Tourism and Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, Tayona began as an editorial illustrator for business magazines.

“The publication that gave me my first break was World Executive Digest. They’d send me articles, I’d read through it, and I would talk back-and-forth with my editor—faxing sketches, narrowing ideas, and deciding on the final direction for the illustration. Once the decision has been made, I’d do the illustration in a day or two, and have it sent by courier to them,” he reveals. “That initial foray into editorial illustration opened up other assignments, from advertorial to product illustrations, until, with enough material for a portfolio, I opened a small graphic design office. Things were going well for a year until EDSA 2 came. I made some bad business decisions with some individuals who ran away when the government then was impeached. Business gone, money gone… depression set in, but in between everything that was happening, I was doing work for children on the side. You could say making works for kids saved my sanity.”

In 1998, he illustrated the book Bugtong, Bugtong: Filipino Riddles, by the late children’s book author Rene O. Villanueva, and more people began noticing his work.

“Between the years, I did graphic work, opened my small practice, and then lost it. I was doing other small works for children, sometimes paid for, a lot of times not. But it brought me joy and a better understanding of myself as an artist,” Tayona says.

Tayona himself would write the sequel to the Bugtong book, Bugtong, Bugtong 2: More Filipino Riddles, published in 2013, and helped create more children’s books. In 2005, he joined Center for Art, New Ventures and Sustainable Development or CANVAS, a nonprofit organization which, among other things, promotes children’s literacy and publishes children’s books. Eventually, he became its creative director.