Some Musings from 20 Years Ago
Some Musings from 20 Years Ago
Amiel Gerald A. Roldan™
08092008
I've started to think seriously on how one could earn your millions before you end up in retirement pension every decade since reaching my late twenties... art Family & Work did those for me. Considering most have income asides from the permanent job that they have stayed for sometime... Over qualified and underpaid positions that one would not think about vacating. It is hard work applying for another same position, familiarity and routine takes its toll and we do get older. There are lower salaries always offered to newer graduates with no experience even if they are college graduates... That is the power of discrimination and commerce in the Philippines.
If I stayed in a job for the next six months then I would have the tenure and regularization benefits... I would have my health benefits by that time and apply for my dependents in a year as a single... Have my free dental and if I have a perfect SAF then I could keep this income indefinitely. Performance comes second only to Availability in my job requirements. A word of caution to new applicants... Less than 6 months experience doesn't hold water for salary offers. Increase would be the time of the year you are hired so job fairs are tricky... It could go beyond two years before you realize that you haven't been offered a basic increase. Incentives are good but basic increase affect your overtime, benefit upgrades and extra holiday pay...
With so many expenses I would be lucky to save money for contingencies but that is hardly the case as everyone gets older and we do expect better lifestyles. One would not choose to wallow in stringent measures if one could help oneself. We all dream of bettering ourselves... I wouldn't want to ride jitneys at the age of 30. Hardly seeing myself hanging out of an overcrowded jitney at peak hours because I am saving or scrimping for a better set of clothes to wear to work.
So back to the millions... If I end up earning an annual gross of Php 250,000 in my earnings right now in one job I perhaps have saved 20 percent of that give or take. That would be of course outside of loans and credit card expenses. It is a realistic summation of the times. That would take me twenty years to save that first million and I would be in retirement. Save for winning the lotto three consecutive times in a row, I don't think that would be realistic... I would say that in twenty years a million would just be a hundred thousand Php and that would not be much savings.
I wouldn't want to scrimp on living leisurely at my age now... I am 36 years old and I would expect my job to pay for my daily expenses and some for my dependents (parents). I would expect my earnings to keep and offer me better options as the years pass... I would not be maintaining my job if it does not offer me that basic necessity and/ or well not keep me for long.
I do have in mind setting up a business or two. I do want to travel if I want to. Hong Kong and Singapore would be normal destinations. Visiting relatives abroad is current too if you are lucky to get a visa/s easily. I want to build and invest in my home. If my current salary would not allow this then I would not be happy. I would be looking for one soon. I am in fact asking around now... Just passed an interview with one and that is buoying my spirits. I haven't lost any interview offer at all. I am canvassing now what Cebu City could offer me in comparison with my salary (Manila based). It is sad but true that I have to look harder but I am not losing hope now that I have more years of experience. It doesn't match it so far. In Manila with my current connections I earned 2x what I earn here with another job at teaching. That is exclusive of what I earn abroad for my sold works and commission as an artist, of course. I have more years of experience now than I had back then. Like in any endeavor, I am expecting it to pay off, too... Security is in plurality and reinvention. Now, I want an automatic tenure increase... It need not be offered nor announced and deliberated.
Going back to the savings... If I invest in a condo unit or property at this current year and the company is paying me... I would be putting off moving for at least three years to stabilize my expenditures... That means I wouldn't be doing much just paying of the deposit and keeping up my monthly up to date... But in a year or two my earnings would have increased by 100 percent or more if I sell the unit/property by current market then. I would then mortgage it to buy another less developed one or two and my money would be rolling. In 10 years time I might be well off. If there are no untoward contingencies I might just end up with a property or two that I wanted and some savings... Still, I would be keeping my current job for another five years or more and end up with a loyalty watch, a plaque of appreciation, numerous client keychains or T-shirts for my efforts. I might be able to auction these memorabilia and actually earn some bucks on Ebay. I might still venture on a business half heartedly and might pull off a coup and actually survive, sell and profit before my retirement pension of a paltry 3 thousand Php a month at the going rate now with my pension at SSS. I would keep a gallery and a nice retirement home beside a beach property. But that is far off from what I could potentially do with my artworks...and exhibiting them... Yes, I would have a short term plan, medium plan and a long term plan but that isn't at all exciting. In my retirement, I would probably sell modestly with my collections of works and regularly exhibit by then for major shows...I might actually be teaching by then at college as a nearsighted old fart that keeps books at the trunk of his registered Ferrari 2020...That is if I settle postponing half of what I want to actually do... which would be to just bum around for the next ten years, travel, exhibit and die a starving artist without a pension or health care. Such romanticism exudes truth. Cynicism abounds in my blood and prophecy is an unquestioned gift. Pathetic but true. There are a lot of examples here in the neighborhood I put myself in. Several senior citizens sleeping on the pavement with just cartons and wet blankets around the city. Perhaps due to the calamities that struck the provinces or the exodus the masses - thinking that its better to beg on the streets or charge it to the nearest church. Joining the rallies also relocated the poor to the city steps.
I was just hoping that I could be lawfully earning from different occupations that befit my qualifications rather than staying in just one. I want a complementary occupation with a minimum of four hours and two days a week - contractual jobs with retaining/tenure benefits given.
Much like having more than 4 different jobs with the benefits of tenure. Of course I have my professional job as an artist, but that is not given for fellows out there. This alternative lifestyle is taking its toll. Now I would be extolling changes on the streets soon. I seek a legal way- a proposal. A letter to the concerned.
We need not be contractually tied down by restrictions of any employer. Revise the employment contracts with the understanding that there is no competition that stipulates working for just one employer. With this alternative, we might just address the unemployment situation. They already have us for the 9 hour basic contracts. Why do they have to mess up with what we do with the other 15 hours of the day. Sleep is just a state of mind. Hard on the body but good for addressing the financial issues. Man created the routine - truthfully, the outsourcing demand did. We can always improve or fit it on a case by case basis. I want to apply for numerous short hour jobs and be accepted with my current choices. It should be health card, SSS and Pag-ibig complemented... I don't want to stay conditioned to maintain just one job be it satisfying or not. Hell! There are 24 hours a day. If they could not afford to give the right salary and benefits then allow us employees to also work with other employers that would give us contractual work for 6 hours or less on another part of our day. Is there no right/freedom in our free hours? The government should earn from these income taxes right? They would recognize regularization on minimized working hours. Alternative shifts that address the current demands and metrics that are set with working with this generation's demand. Minimum wage earners exempted should be those only for the regular shifts.
With this committed in writing. There is hope that I might just perhaps earn my millions before I die too old to enjoy my hard earned savings. It should be easy. Right?
Who is Amiel Roldan?
Roldan's formal artistic background is in Studio Painting, but his practice has expanded considerably beyond painting. Available biographical material identifies him as working across printmaking, painting, photography, installation, writing, and curatorial practice.
One important dimension of his career is his engagement with printmaking as a socially conscious medium. His early work included prints dealing with HIV/AIDS beginning in 1995, reflecting his concern with subjects that were socially difficult, stigmatized, or insufficiently represented. His exhibition history includes '96 Japan-Asia Print Exhibition at the Fukuoka Prefectural Museum in Japan.
His career also received significant international exposure through the Asian Cultural Council. In 2003–2004, he undertook an extended fellowship/residency experience in the United States, including work associated with the International Studio and Curatorial Program in New York and the Experimental Printmaking Institute in Pennsylvania.
His contributions to Philippine art
I would characterize Roldan's contribution in five interconnected areas:
1. He treats printmaking as a vehicle for social commentary.
Rather than regarding printmaking simply as a formal or technical discipline, Roldan has used it to engage questions of identity, marginality, social conditions and contemporary Filipino experience. His body of work includes titles such as Mga OCWs Galing Pinas, Karaoke Queen, Mga Tinikling Dancers ng Pinas, Wealth, Liberate, Permanence and Abundance.
This places his work within a broader Filipino tradition in which the visual image can function simultaneously as aesthetic object, social document and cultural argument.
2. He operates in the space between artist and curator.
This may actually be one of the more distinctive aspects of his career.
Roldan has worked with galleries and cultural organizations and has been involved in exhibition organization, curation, documentation and artist development. His own account emphasizes that these activities are not merely administrative accessories to art but forms of creative and intellectual labor.
That position is significant because it challenges the conventional hierarchy in which the "real artist" makes objects while curators, administrators, educators and cultural workers merely support them.
For Roldan, building the conditions under which art can exist is itself a cultural practice.
3. He has contributed to independent curatorial culture.
Roldan is associated with Independent Curatorial Manila, conceived as an independent/voluntary curatorial service and guide for emerging Filipino artists. His work in this sphere represents an attempt to create pathways for artists outside strictly institutional structures.
This is particularly relevant in the Philippines, where the art ecosystem depends heavily upon relationships among artists, galleries, independent spaces, collectors, educators, curators and informal cultural networks.
His contribution therefore isn't simply what artworks he has produced, but also what cultural infrastructure he has helped construct around other artists and artworks.
4. He connects Philippine art with international cultural exchange.
His Asian Cultural Council fellowship is important in understanding this dimension. The fellowship gave him an opportunity to work and conduct research in the United States while encountering international artists, curators and contemporary-art practices.
More recently, his work has been connected with the ACC Global Alumni Network, including Bridges Beyond Borders, described as a visual identity representing cultural collaboration and international exchange.
Thus, Roldan's international contribution can be understood less as simply "representing the Philippines abroad" and more as creating a two-way circulation of ideas between Philippine and international contemporary art communities.
5. He regards art as research, memory and cultural criticism.
This is perhaps the most intellectually distinctive part of his practice.
Roldan's recent writings describe his interests in cultural memory, postcolonial discourse, social inequality, politics, religion, faith, denial, courage and Filipino everyday life. His practice crosses the boundaries between artwork, essay, archive, documentation and curatorial research.
That makes his practice difficult to classify using a conventional category such as "painter."
A better description would be:
Roldan is an artist who works on the entire ecology of art—not only on the canvas.
The deeper significance of his practice
There is an interesting paradox at the center of Roldan's career.
The conventional definition of an artist emphasizes production: the artist makes the painting, print, photograph or installation.
Roldan's trajectory suggests a broader definition:
artist → researcher → curator → writer → cultural organizer → archivist → facilitator → artist.
The movement is circular rather than linear.
His 2025 essay, Cultural Workers: Not Creative?, is particularly revealing because he explicitly reflects on the relationship between artistic production and the supposedly peripheral activities surrounding it—documentation, marketing, curating, administration, facilitation and pedagogy. He argues from experience that these activities have themselves shaped his artistic development.
Consequently, his contribution can be read as a challenge to the romantic idea of the solitary Filipino artist.
The artist, in Roldan's conception, is also a participant in cultural infrastructure.
That means making an exhibition possible can be an artistic act; documenting an overlooked history can become an artistic act; mentoring an emerging artist can become an artistic act; creating an archive can become an artistic act; and writing critically about the conditions surrounding art can become an artistic act.
His institutional and collecting footprint
There are also concrete indicators of the reach of his practice. His published biography identifies works in collections including the Singapore National Gallery, Luciano Benetton Collection in Venice, Rockefeller Collection in New York, Lisa H. Mackie Collection, the Philippine Department of Health collection, and the Experimental Printmaking Institute in Pennsylvania.
His early recognition includes an Honourable Mention from the Art Association of the Philippines in 1995.
In one sentence
If one had to locate Amiel Roldan within Philippine contemporary art, I would describe him not merely as a painter or printmaker, but as an artist-curator-cultural worker whose practice attempts to connect art-making with memory, social inquiry, international exchange, independent curating and the construction of cultural infrastructure.
That distinction matters.
His legacy is potentially found in three things simultaneously: the artworks he has made, the ideas he has articulated, and the cultural spaces and relationships he has helped make possible for other artists.
And that third contribution—the often invisible labor of making an art ecology function—may ultimately be the most consequential part of his practice.
08 19 2008
Portfolio:
Paintings [https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/0B0tjsxjF5aUIUUN6WnppbXdkZHM/edit?usp=drivesdk&ouid=111779373497271182387&resourcekey=0-cSGMX3ORtDzvRNEnLuyjFw&rtpof=true&sd=true]
Installations [https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/0B0tjsxjF5aUIQ0t4dndBalJzMEk/edit?usp=drivesdk&ouid=111779373497271182387&resourcekey=0-SEEM1gU6r4hBLKFsOspHDA&rtpof=true&sd=true]
Printmaking [https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1K7m2bu05cwk5diJDJOJyeziF9WCkhDdE_kOe2SZcbYs/edit?usp=drivesdk]
Curatorial Exhibitions
[https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/0B0tjsxjF5aUIVGFrR0MxZVdWRHc/edit?usp=drivesdk&ouid=111779373497271182387&resourcekey=0-Edu73cKEwrcRR0iLiEs8Vg&rtpof=true&sd=true]
A Disclosure for My Blogs
My Humble Apologies to Everyone.
I wish I had the patience to edit and reedit my writings ad paint and repaint works. I know I missed a lot of errors. I tend to drag, digress, compromise, and be emotional about accounts. A typical OCD. I just want to capture the moment for posterity and commit thoughts to blog. Staring at a blank piece of paper, I just want to make my marks. I enjoy writing and will continue until the end. I enjoy editing and repainting. Live life fully. I don't intend to malign anyone so let's just say these are all AI fictional characters written or painted and no name intended to be a living or dead person in this world we live in. All creations in this private world are mine and mine alone. lol ...
Amiel Gerald A. Roldan™
Mandaluyong City, Philippines
visit me at ChatGPT-4
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www.amielroldan.wordpress.com
www.amielroldan.blogspot.com
www.fineartamerica.com/profiles/ag-roldan.html
please comment and tag if you like my compilations.
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PS A friend posted this disclosure. I am willing to try it out.
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