Filipina design luminary head of jury Lucille Lozada Tenazas talks to adobo’s Mikhail Lecaros at length about how she started as a designer, the tricky relationship between art and commerce, dealing with difficult clients, and more. Tenazas returns as jury head for the 2015 adobo Design Awards. To enter, or for more information, visit, adobodesignawards.com.
MANILA – When it comes to the work of Lucille Tenazas, one is immediately stricken by the precise manner that the designer’s chosen elements convey information while avoiding the tendency towards over-embellishment that despoil many a contemporary work. Meticulous allocation of visual real estate notwithstanding, the voice and – more importantly – the intelligence behind each piece ring true and clear, communicating the intended message (and, by extension, the artist) more effectively than any number of superfluities.
Given the thought that must have gone into some of her pieces and the deftness of their execution, it is no surprise that Tenazas is at the top of her game. As a graphic designer, Tenazas has done work for clients as diverse as the San Francisco International Airport, Rizzoli International, the Neue Galerie Museum for German and Austrian Art, and a number of non-profit organizations and institutions. Highly-sought as an educator, Tenazas regularly gives design talks, seminars and workshops all over the world, in addition to being the Henry Wolf Professor in the School of Art, Media and Technology at Parsons The New School for Design.
With 30 years under her belt and a number of active projects going on at any given time, Tenazas is one practitioner who shows no signs of slowing down. Of course, the artist herself is amused by the notion that designing is the only thing people expect her to be up to all day long.
“They have this perception that I don’t have a life outside of design,” she laughs. “They think that that’s all I do, I live, breathe, eat design, I mean I’m serious about what I do but that doesn’t preclude me living my life and enjoying other parts of my life. Sometimes they’re surprised that I have kids, that I’m married…maybe the seriousness with which I view my work makes some people think that I’m a workaholic, but I’m not!”
Of course, seeing as Tenazas is the recipient of accolades like the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) Medal in 2013 and the National Design Award in Communications Design from the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in 2002, one could be forgiven for thinking that it was mere “seriousness” that got her to where she is today, but that would only be half the picture.
Simply put, any artist is so much more than the mere sum of their works and, as adobo was privileged to find out, Tenazas is no exception, proving every bit as fascinatingly multifaceted – if not more so – than any single design.
The daughter of a civil engineer father and a mother who taught high school social studies, Tenazas grew up in the Philippines, attending the College of the Holy Spirit from kindergarten to college. The second of six children, Tenazas’ creativity was fostered from an early age by her parents. Despite having the conventional expectations of wanting their daughter to be a lawyer or doctor (“You know, it would be great if there was an appendage to your name, like ‘Atty.’ or ‘Dr.’!”), they supported her in her artistic pursuits.
ADOBO How did your parents express their support for your art?
TENAZAS My father would just sit and watch, he’d be drinking his beer and he would wait for my mother because she always got home a little later from her teaching – around 7 or 8pm. And so we (the kids) would have had dinner while he was waiting for my mother. And the table would be cleared and I would then lay all my art supplies on the table but I think what was interesting to me was that he would always sit by me. He never would question, or whatever. He would always just sit there and watch what I was doing and his presence was enough of an encouragement. Every once in a while, he would lean over and say “why did you use red for this,” or whatever, and I didn’t even mind it — I just went “I like it. I like making it this way.” So anyway, I think that the atmosphere that I had at home, the encouragement of my parents, albeit not overt, by not so much putting their foot down, or making it into a situation where “you have to do this, or else!”, and then at school that was a continuation because I was held to a certain kind of level of, you know, I was the class artist, I would do lettering for diplomas or certificates or whatever. So my track, in a way, was pre-determined for me.
ADOBO Tell us about when you realized there was a living to be made from your designs.
TENAZAS When I was in Holy Spirit, there were always these on-the-spot painting competitions and it was always held at UST and I participated in that for maybe two-three years in a row. The first few years I was an honorable mention but when I was in my senior year, I was one of four winners of the top prize. My brother, who was at UST at the time, was hovering around. When my name was called, they gave me this envelope with cash – 400 pesos! We were so excited, my brother and I, that we took a cab home, instead of taking the bus on Espana. So we took a cab, and my Mom says, when we get home, “how did it go?” And I said, “Well, you know, I did my best,” and she saw from my face that I was not happy. Then I turned around and I handed her the fat envelope! It was something I did all by myself in a short amount of time in very constrained circumstances. It was like (professional) design – I realized there was a deadline, there was a theme, there was a project brief, whatever it is, it conforms to all these things that prepared me to actually enter the profession, and then be rewarded for it at the end of the day. So I’ve saved that envelope. I just found it – my sister had them all in one place and I’m bringing it back to the States. It brings me back to how I was. When I look back at my family albums – what I was doing then and how things like this prepared me to be at this stage of my work in my life, I cannot take that lightly.
ADOBO You’ve mentioned being a collaborative partner rather than a hired gun when it comes to your design work. How did that come about?
TENAZAS In high school, I was involved with the school annual, the school paper. I was always the art director. I was always involved with the editor. I think what was really a great experience for me was that my relationship with the editor and writing, specifically, was cemented in that the editor trusted in my contributions – it wasn’t just telling me to make it fit or just design something or make the artwork or whatever…I was put on equal footing, if you will. I’m not a writer, per se, but I took particular interest in the content. So eventually when I started working professionally and looking at my work, I began realizing, why am I involved in books? Why am I designing books? I’ve worked with authors and they’re sometimes not prepared to confront a designer who actually pays particular attention to the content, but eventually, I started working on projects where people would come to me and they’d say “We don’t know what the content is. I know it’s gonna be about this, but what do you think? You’re the designer. Let’s collaborate on it” even before the content is generated. And so, that I think is really a good role. I respect writing. I’m really interested in it, you know, because my work is very linguistic. When people do connect with me, it’s not about me saying “I’m the designer and you’re not”. I’m more interested in like “you’re the writer, I want to learn from your approach. I want you to see me on an equal footing. And I think as soon as you establish that relationship, there is a lot of respect and it moves on to integrity and freedom to do what you want to do for them because they know that you’re being very thoughtful about their work.
ADOBO How do you deal with difficult clients?
TENAZAS They could profess they love you, they love your work, and I’m thinking, what is your gut feeling, Lucille? Here’s my bottom line: If I like the person and I can actually have an intelligent conversation with him having lunch, not even work, just like normal conversation with another human being and I can actually see myself sitting in front of them having a good conversation, I would take them on. But if there is some, I mean you know, there are people who rub you the wrong way or they’re aggressive, I’m not going to put myself through this. It’s just more trouble than it’s worth, so why do it? So at that point, you just trust your instincts.
I’m very patient – I’m not an imperious person. I sort of look at the situation and just say, “You know, I want to be able to do a good job on this. I want this to be a project that we’re both happy with.” And they respect you for that. They do see your commitment. So this is what I’m saying. To me, my best weapon, in any relationship, in any of my projects, is that I’m very enthusiastic about my work and what I can do for others, for them. Even if they’re just starting, they’re just kind of like kicking the tires and thinking “now, is this the kind of person we want to work with?” I’m doing the same thing too. I want them to think. People think that okay, you’re hiring me and I’m at your mercy? I mean, I have every opportunity to judge them in the same way that they’re judging me.
I think when people see themselves as being an important part of the process, it’s great – it’s gratifying for them. They didn’t have to go to design school, but I respect their judgment. I can guide them. I can just say: Now this is what I’m showing you. Observe this, and take a look at this. Tell me what this adds up to. I encourage them. It’s not like castigating them, like “you don’t know anything”. Smart people, and again, this is my sense, smart people – they don’t feel threatened. They know they’ve arrived at what they’ve done because they’ve earned it, so they can admire and respect equally smart people who are accomplished. There’s no insecurity involved, there’s no need to be NUMBER ONE all the time.
ADOBO What do you tell your students about the love-hate relationship between art and commerce?
TENAZAS I tell them that when you’re young, you don’t have to be choosy and picky because at the beginning, you take on whatever gives you money and you’re saving up. You need to have all these different levels of experiences anyway; it’s not always perfect. But the important thing is for them to know what they are about, what they represent and what their values are. So when they get to the point where they say, “okay, this is not me anymore”, they have to have the courage to say, “I can’t stay here anymore, this is dehumanizing”, because at a certain point it’s gonna be hard to leave. People sometimes do these kinds of things where their five days of the week job is a drudgery, and then the fun work is on the weekends, right? I just don’t understand that; life is too short to be doing work (that you don’t care for) for the better part of the week. And that’s the majority of people we know and that’s because they have allowed themselves to be led on. They did not put their foot down, they didn’t make a stand at the beginning and say, “this is really about me, this is my life, so why am I doing this?” But for you to arrive at that decision, you would need to really know where you stand, what your values are. I’m not talking about morality here, I’m just talking about a kind of integrity, an identity of what you represent as a person and as a creative human being.
ADOBO The ability to say no to a paying project – is that a function of courtesy or status that one has attained?
TENAZAS It doesn’t always come easy because you’re saying no, but also, I think, over time, once you know, once you trust your judgment, then it’s kind of like self-preservation, I think. Maybe it’s the selfish gene, right? In the same way that some people, for example, I hear them say, “the older I get, I don’t really want to have any more friends. I have the people that I like; I’ve stopped making friends.” Or something like that. And I think that’s really stupid. But the more realistic response is “I have been more picky with my friends. When you’re young, you just kind of collect your friends because you need them, you’re insecure, you need to have those people around you. But maybe the older you get, you realize “I know what this is going to lead to, I’m just gonna cut it short.” So I think it’s being perceptive, it’s being smart, and when I say smart it’s like dealing with self-preservation, but also I think you are also saving them that experience. But this is where I kind of stand in the middle, because part of me, I guess being an educator, I always want to say, “I can convert them, this is my mission.” I can make them realize that this is all for their benefit, so this is kind of an altruistic thing. But it’s not always easy. You have to have the tools to actually to generate that ethos with them.
ADOBO In your experience, either in your professional or academic careers, how much did your background play into it? Like your race or gender, did either affect how people perceived you?
TENAZAS I get asked this question. But the thing is, when I arrived in the States, the one thing that made me feel that I may not be as good as they were was the fact that I was older than them. I just thought: Okay, I’ve had a degree already in the Philippines and I’m back in school and so these kids are younger than me. This is a little bit of a humbling situation. And the second issue was that, since I’m from another country, they have been in this educational system for a long time so their work is much more polished (I thought). I never thought of race, I never thought of gender. It was really about two things: My coming from another context and being transplanted to another and trying to see whether my work would out or would stand being seen on the same level. But I just realized: If I can speak English, then there’s no issue. I’m sure I realized I look different, but it didn’t really hit me. I just thought: I could speak English and I could communicate, there shouldn’t be a problem, right? I mean, they understood exactly what I said, I could talk to them, my work was good, so why should there be a problem?
It was my aunt who first made me aware of the differences. My aunt’s a pathologist, my uncle’s a surgeon, so you know, quite accomplished but very humble. One time I was talking about my project to them, I mean you know, they didn’t really understand, but I felt you know, I could at least explain what I was doing in school. So my aunt said, “You know, one piece of advice for you is that don’t talk too much about your achievements because you know, these Americans they get very jealous.” So she’s telling me this, and I’m thinking, “what? Where did this come from?” I just thought, why would they be jealous, I mean, it wasn’t like I was kind of arrogant. I was in a class, we were exchanging ideas, and so I realized when my aunt came with her family to the States in the 60s, they were seen as, “Okay, you may be a doctor but you’re still an immigrant.” And she was very aware and conscious of the fact that she was being subjected to discrimination. In the 60s, racism was still a big issue in the US.
ADOBO What do you do in your free time?
TENAZAS Well, a lot. My family life is something I devote good quality time to. I have two sons and my husband, who’s a photographer, we have a very strong collaborative kind of personal relationship, very kind of deeply respectful of our work. We are critical of each other’s work as well. He’s very active in his work. We were able to live in Rome for a year because my husband was awarded a fellowship at the American Academy in Rome so there’s a very strong kind of connection of cultures and understanding.
ADOBO Having lived in so many countries, what do you miss about the places you’ve lived and worked in?
TENAZAS There are little slivers of memory that hit me, but I try not to regret anything and that all the experiences are actually cumulative and they evolve, they change, you just kind of edit out certain things. I have a different life and I will make my life the way I want to and that life is also portable. It can go anywhere in the world like you have, and make a connection and find something about these places you have been, that I have been, that it feels like home for me.
In Istanbul, for example, there were these students. I was giving a lecture there and a workshop and I told this student, “Take me to the place where you like to go for coffee. Don’t take me to a Starbucks and don’t take me to the mall. But where do you hang out? And what’s where you take me.” I like these discoveries. You feel like when somebody does that to you and you actually ask for it, it’s a form of respect and at the same time, they feel that you are one of them. And I like that. That’s the nomad, again, the cultural nomad.
ADOBO Your work is distinctive for never pandering. Tell us about your take on the role of understatement versus spoon-feeding.
TENAZAS Okay, it wasn’t always that way because when I was a young design student, the important thing was apparently that everything was supposed to make things clear, to articulate things so that people knew the answers to questions, to solve a problem. But I think the more that I thought about what I was doing and my work, I realized that it was actually a good idea, it was much more interesting to be provocative and leave some things out so that you are not necessarily spoon-feeding or giving out answers because it doesn’t come out as conversation. You’re just handing things down and you’re just saying, ‘here it is, this is what I want’. You always have to assume that the person who’s looking at your work or the audience is equally intelligent and can decipher clues that you leave behind. And that makes them appreciate it more and they are able to leave their stamp on it or their interpretation. And to me, that is the most valuable thing. It’s a trust that you have to give the other whom you don’t know, because you never know who’s gonna be confronted with your work, and you have to leave it behind because my work will live on beyond me, and it will continue to live depending on how many people are confronted with it and interpret it.
Words: Mikhail Lecaros
The full version of this article ran in adobo magazine’s 8th anniversary issue in March 2014.
