Cyrus Dan Cañares is a man of many passions. He’s a cinephile and a wanderlust, a writer and a craftsman, a collector of vintage objects and a visual artist. He likes to say he just goes with the flow and follows his heart—which has led this former cruise ship photographer to a life inspired and surrounded by beautiful things.
These days, the beautiful things that surround Cyrus are of his own making. He is artist and proprietor behind an Instagram store that sells one of a kind handpainted chairs reupholstered with a patchwork of fabrics he mixes and matches himself: Travelfund by Siriusdan. It is thus named because whatever he earns from the business is put aside for his trips. Cyrus traveled at least once a year before the pandemic. And from each trip, he made sure to bring home fabrics he can play around with and combine with Philippine textiles.
Colors and shapes have always fascinated the artist even at a young age. “As a kid I doodled a lot,” he told Metro.Style. “That hobby carried on to this day.” What started him on surface painting was a frustrating search for the perfect pillow that will match his Scandi slash minimalist room. Finding nothing in stores, he decided to make his own. He confessed he still keeps the pillow to this day. Suffice it to say, he was pleased with his handiwork.
“But more than being pleased with the result, I enjoyed the process of making it. I find painting so therapeutic that the following weeks turned into a painting pillows frenzy. Before I knew it, I was already devoting a huge amount of my time designing and painting pillows! And I haven’t stopped since.”
From pillows, Cyrus eventually moved to chairs, couches, ottomans. He sourced fabrics from Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Indonesia, Bali, Japan and Laos. His creations have been called “tribal,” “bohemian,” “eclectic"—and they wouldn’t be out of place in a movie by the Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodovar, one of the film buff’s favorite auteurs. But as Cyrus told Metro.Style, he prefers to call his creations earthly. “Or earthly chic if I’m going to be cute about it!”
From just playing with textiles, the artist eventually thought of incorporating hand painting in his refurbished chairs. He would get old furniture from Bangkal, Kamuning, Cubao X, or even Makati Cinema Square, and make them over by changing their covers, embellishing them, and painting them, giving the pieces a brand new character.
Which is something not entirely foreign to Cyrus—birthing new characters, we mean.
Interestingly, the guy is actually a soap opera writer. Trained by respected screenwriters Ricky Lee and Mel Mendoza-Del Rosario, Cyrus has been in the teleserye grind for years, doing mostly ABS-CBN’s afternoon soaps. He was contributing writer for “Mundo Man ay Magunaw” (2012) which starred Eula Valdes and Sylvia Sanchez, and was co-writer for the primetime show “Dream Dad” which starred Zanjoe Marudo and the kid Jana Agoncillo. He has fancied writing soaps ever since he was young. "I love creating characters, scenes, and most especially dialogue. Even as a kid, I often talked to myself, sometimes even in public, so writing teleseryes is just a good fit for me," he tells ANCX. "That and the fact that I just really enjoy stories. I love listening to people. I love observing the world go by. All of these traits are welcomed and celebrated in teleserye writing."
It was only last year when Cyrus decided to take an indefinite leave of absence from his soap career to put his focus on a new passion: working on Travelfund by Siriusdan. Currently, he has plans of opening a physical showroom and café—but he’s quick to say he’s not totally closing his doors to television. Writing teleplays remains to be, according to him, his dream job. It just so happens that, these days, he’s happier breathing new life into old chairs than bringing new characters to life.
[Photo courtesy of Cyrus Cañares]