The transient caffeinated art of Mel Aguinaldo
by Rome Jorge
It is religious art that is devotional, meditative art, transient, much like a Tibetan Mandala. Like Buddhists artworks, these are also meticulously rendered with the most impermanent mediums, its fleetingness making the craftsmanship all the more precious. But instead of colored sand decorating the ground with circular designs, Mel Aguinaldo’s latest works are decidedly cosmopolitan and Catholic: portraits of the late Mother Teresa—most recently canonized on September 4 by Pope Francis as Saint Teresa of Calcutta—rendered in coffee, creamer, and brown sugar atop black table mats inside cafes.
Aguinaldo, a creative director at Campaigns and Grey, has long envisioned and involved himself in unconventional works such as this illustration of famed canine Hachiko for pet food brand Nutrience that told the dog’s story through doodles, and an ad for Joy dishwashing liquid that featured a model dressed in plates, saucers, and cups.
His fascination with unconventional art mediums goes way back. He recalls, “I grew up from a family who loves coffee. Back in college when I was taking up fine arts I used to love sketching and painting. Back then I couldn’t afford to buy expensive water color brands so I already explored using coffee as a medium for my watercolor plates, and got good grades too. But the problem is I couldn’t keep them for long because of the smell and they attract cockroaches.”
After years as an art director, he yearned to work with his hands again and went back to doodling. “one day when I was enjoying my favorite hot café mocha from a favorite café, I had an idea, what if I start making these coffee-art and use the placemats of the restos and café’s as my canvas? And so I started playing with coffee beans, mixing them with sketching and doodles. I copied some artworks that inspired me using my iPhone. I took a photo of the art and left it there also using my iPhone, posted them on social media, and instantly people loved it. So I had a hobby that I look forward to making every weekend—Coffee & Placemat Art,” he reveals.
Aguinaldo’s fascination with Saint Teresa stem from a deeply personal connection that goes beyond the timely fervor associated with her canonization. He shares, “In the early 1980s, Mother Teresa visited many places the Philippines and one those places is Dagupan City. When she went to Dagupan City, my mother and my sick little sister Michelle Aguinaldo were lucky to have met her in person in one of the missionary homes. My mama brought with her my little sister who was three years old that time because she was suffering from anemia and was really frail. She had many medicines that didn’t work for her and even had a blood transfusion, we were almost running out of hope for Michelle. Mother Teresa’s visit to our province was a good sign. Mama recalls that Mother Teresa smiled at my mother and carried my little sister in her arms and placed her hand on my sister’s head and prayed for her. A week after, my frail little sister showed some good signs and started eating well again. After a month the anemia was gone.”
To this day he attributes personal miracles to the saint. “I few months ago I also got struck by an illness that made me weak, I was scared and I was so helpless and was really worried, my mama told me to include Mother Teresa in my prayers. It was only last week when I found out that she’s going to be canonized to become a saint,” he says.
Once mortal
Born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu of Albanian descent in the town of Skopje, modern day Republic of Macedonia, when it was still part of the Ottoman Empire on August 26, 1910. Teresa would move to Ireland then India. In 1950, she founded the Missionaries of Charity, today active in over 130 countries with over 4,500 sisters.
She captured the imagination of the press after the Second World War, becoming an icon of charity. She won the 1962 Ramon Magsaysay Peace Prize and the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize.
As globally renowned as Teresa had become, there have been various critics who contend that she glorified suffering as the virtue of the poor, deliberately denying poor dying patients pain alleviation medicine, basic hygiene, and comfort, despite millions in donations and prioritizing Christian conversion over poverty alleviation in Hindu majority India. Most notable of these critics the late British journalist Christopher Hitchens and Canadian academics Serge Larivée, Geneviève Chénard, and Carole Sénéchal. She also received support from the likes of Haitian plundering dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier and corrupt businessmen Charles Keating and Robert Maxwell.
Part of a global trend
After her death on September 5 1997 at age 87, Saint Teresa was canonized by Pope Francis in just 19 years—as opposed to the centuries it once took—on September 4, 2016.
This follows the trend set by Pope John Paul II, who canonized Josemaría Escrivá, founder of the Opus Dei, in just 27 years after his death in 2002—a world record at the time. The late Pope John Paul II also canonized a record-breaking 110 saints—more than seven times the number of saints canonized by his five predecessors.
Pope Francis continues this trend today, canonizing more than 800 saints since he became the vicar of Christ in March, 2013 and setting a new world record for the fastest canonization—just nine years—with the canonization late Pope John Paul II on April 27, 2014 after his death on April 2, 2005.
The canonization of saints is a proven formula for bolstering the flagging faith of locals by giving them a saint of their own to rally behind. Currently the Roman Catholic Church is beset by several scandals: a worldwide, decades-long pattern of attracting, protecting, and promoting sex offenders among the clergy; reccurring cases of corruption, scandal, and arrest at the Vatican Bank and other financial institutions run by the Church; and increasing irrelevance amid its failed opposition to reproductive health, women’s rights, gender equality, and sex education. In the Philippines, many “pro-life” and anti- reproductive health lawmakers whom the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines backed and campaigned for are now dragged into the alleged malversation of the billion-peso Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or pork-barrel fund.
