I am squatting here temporarily...my workplace in a cellar! Its cold and the heater makes whispering noises...
Setting up.
Three hours later at 7pm. Someone turned off the lights after this photo was taken. Fancy being in the dark under a 15th century church. I had to holler that I was there!
St.Merry church, a mere skip away from Centre Pompidou.
I can no longer deny that wood carving is my zen. The moment I struck a chisel with a mallet, the universe made complete sense!
Today I settled in my temporary workspace in the cellar of St. Merry. It is a sculptor's studio that is non functional at the moment (Ricardo, the sculptor, is away) so I squatted in, just for a week until I finish my work for the crèche. I am making my version of a Sto Niño in a manger shaped like a boat. I intend to display it on the east chapel of the church, where some 18th century paintings are hung, next to a wooden screen that was vandalized during the Revolution. Curiously, four years ago I was told that my rebulto works should not be in a gallery, but in antique shops or churches. So this comes as my reply: I concede, so I will have my contemporary sculpture exhibited in a 15th century church in Paris, as part of the Christmas decoration! Ive never been happier...
For my first three hours I succeeded in giving form to the torso. Perhaps I should buy a foldable saw because Ricardo's rusty one is as only sharp as my teeth. Also, a small axe. I am planning to ship all of my bulkier (and deadlier-looking) tools by way of a Balikbayan box. Perhaps I will throw in some small sculptures and the really nice wood they sell for carving here. Ang lutong! I think its some sort of pine...the cashiers at Le Boesner do not know...or do not care.
I also have taken a liking to buses over the Metro in going around the city. I see more of the streets and the buses move suavely I can even make sketches while sitting. But unlike the Metro where the lines are simpler, the bus numbering system and wait times are a bit complex. But I am getting used to it. In fact one thing that bus rides have given me is a more or less comprehensive view of the street level of Paris...and how remarkably compact all 20 arrondisements are! If I were to take a bike around, I could take a whole day just to explore Paris...which I cannot do because the bike-sharing program Velib has two conditions that I cannot fulfill. 1) I must have a point-design credit card (French banks issues these and they look like sim cards) unlike mine which is a magnetic-strip type Mastercard and 2) There is a ridiculous 150€ deposit that the Ilocano in me again, revolts, like a tax on basi.
Yesterday I was invited to a lunch at the Parish Office in St Merry and I brought a bottle of Bordeaux as a gift to the host. They thanked me for the gesture because they say it is a sign of good manners and respect in France, and that I was the only one who gifted a bottle while nobody didn't. Good thing I got lucky because they said I picked a good one. (In truth I do not know what good wine is to bad...and I only chose the most expensive one on the Carrefour rack!)
But what intrigued me is that nobody in that table (except Marguerite and her boyfriend Frederick)knew what kind of country is the Philippines, or where it is. (Hey, your attention please, Department of Tourism!) Hence I gave a very brief history from Magellan to EDSA. A Colombian puppet artist, Miguel, asked if I can speak in Spanish if Pilipinas was a colony of Spain for 300 years. (He was hopeful we could have exchanges in his mother tongue). I was embarrassed to say I only knew Spanish because it was a required subject in college and my syntax is very very formal. In fact, I ended up mixing French and Kastila...I had to give up and speak in plain English. "So the English colonized you too" one asked. I had to explain that Spain gave up the islands in exchange for cash to the United States of America in the 1900s in an agreement known to us all as the Treaty of Paris. It was the Americans who taught us English - but I think they never really understood our colonial history. Nice timing for a conversation on Philippine history though...today Nov 9 2012 being the centenary of the birth of Teodoro Agoncillo!
The last question that they posed was "So who really colonized you? Why didn't the French do it?" i
I could have replied, "Well your great grandfathers passed up the opportunity to meet happier people!" But I simply concluded: "The French were elsewhere in continental South east Asia. The Dutch, the Spaniards and the Portuguese were the ones operating in the archipelagic region." I did tell them there were French explorers in Manila, (Im reading the accounts of Paul Gironiere now) but where their collections are, if they did have such, I am left wondering...
The question of the identity of the colonizer was remarkable and it made me pensive the whole night. Given that France was a colonizing country (Algeria, Polynesia, Indochina...) was the question framed to highlight that being a colony is a big deal, that it is a legitimizing force that can make an obscure nation like the Philippines opaque to the rest of the world? This is perhaps the only place Manny Pacquaio is unheard of. Well across the channel Britain knows who he is, though. (Eh, Ricky Hatton). It was Marguerite I think who said, "It is a pity that you know so much about France and we don't know anything about your country!"
Now more than ever, I am careful not to do anything stupid. Because somehow their initial picture of who a Filipino is will be...yours truly. Pressures of representation! And I didn't even think this would happen, because I assumed Pacquiao, Carlos P Romulo, Charice, Lea Salonga, Marcos, Ninoy, Cory and Arnel Pineda would have sufficed, or at least paved the way for Filipinos to be known. And back home we think we ARE already there, in the community of nations. How naïve! We actually have to work some more if we want to be recognized and even acknowledged in the contemporary world village. And do not count on Facebook population to do so, or You Tube uploads.
Now this is the paradox: the more days I spend in France, the more Filipino I feel. It is inevitable. So the Pinoys who have a mere photo with the Eiffel Tower or the Arc de Triomphe, and assert they have savored la vie Parisienne are just plain "nagyayabang" or crudely self-indulgent.
There is nothing like the alienation one encounters in Paris: but nothing more potent that can make you retreat into your core. It is a twofold operation - even as you discover you are different from the rest (my brown skin betrays I am a foreigner) this is also a path to recovering your identity.
And so tomorrow, I continue being a santo-maker, a rebulto- maker in a thousand year old city full of gigantic churches and titanic statuary in marble, bronze and stone. That doesn't faze me: because a chisel in my hands is ten thousand times more real to me, that all of the monuments and sculptures that are made by others, most long dead. Hence I become more authentic (a little Filipino perhaps), with every chip that falls off from my block of wood, with my chisels and mallets, and my heart and my hands.
Today I settled in my temporary workspace in the cellar of St. Merry. It is a sculptor's studio that is non functional at the moment (Ricardo, the sculptor, is away) so I squatted in, just for a week until I finish my work for the crèche. I am making my version of a Sto Niño in a manger shaped like a boat. I intend to display it on the east chapel of the church, where some 18th century paintings are hung, next to a wooden screen that was vandalized during the Revolution. Curiously, four years ago I was told that my rebulto works should not be in a gallery, but in antique shops or churches. So this comes as my reply: I concede, so I will have my contemporary sculpture exhibited in a 15th century church in Paris, as part of the Christmas decoration! Ive never been happier...
For my first three hours I succeeded in giving form to the torso. Perhaps I should buy a foldable saw because Ricardo's rusty one is as only sharp as my teeth. Also, a small axe. I am planning to ship all of my bulkier (and deadlier-looking) tools by way of a Balikbayan box. Perhaps I will throw in some small sculptures and the really nice wood they sell for carving here. Ang lutong! I think its some sort of pine...the cashiers at Le Boesner do not know...or do not care.
I also have taken a liking to buses over the Metro in going around the city. I see more of the streets and the buses move suavely I can even make sketches while sitting. But unlike the Metro where the lines are simpler, the bus numbering system and wait times are a bit complex. But I am getting used to it. In fact one thing that bus rides have given me is a more or less comprehensive view of the street level of Paris...and how remarkably compact all 20 arrondisements are! If I were to take a bike around, I could take a whole day just to explore Paris...which I cannot do because the bike-sharing program Velib has two conditions that I cannot fulfill. 1) I must have a point-design credit card (French banks issues these and they look like sim cards) unlike mine which is a magnetic-strip type Mastercard and 2) There is a ridiculous 150€ deposit that the Ilocano in me again, revolts, like a tax on basi.
Yesterday I was invited to a lunch at the Parish Office in St Merry and I brought a bottle of Bordeaux as a gift to the host. They thanked me for the gesture because they say it is a sign of good manners and respect in France, and that I was the only one who gifted a bottle while nobody didn't. Good thing I got lucky because they said I picked a good one. (In truth I do not know what good wine is to bad...and I only chose the most expensive one on the Carrefour rack!)
But what intrigued me is that nobody in that table (except Marguerite and her boyfriend Frederick)knew what kind of country is the Philippines, or where it is. (Hey, your attention please, Department of Tourism!) Hence I gave a very brief history from Magellan to EDSA. A Colombian puppet artist, Miguel, asked if I can speak in Spanish if Pilipinas was a colony of Spain for 300 years. (He was hopeful we could have exchanges in his mother tongue). I was embarrassed to say I only knew Spanish because it was a required subject in college and my syntax is very very formal. In fact, I ended up mixing French and Kastila...I had to give up and speak in plain English. "So the English colonized you too" one asked. I had to explain that Spain gave up the islands in exchange for cash to the United States of America in the 1900s in an agreement known to us all as the Treaty of Paris. It was the Americans who taught us English - but I think they never really understood our colonial history. Nice timing for a conversation on Philippine history though...today Nov 9 2012 being the centenary of the birth of Teodoro Agoncillo!
The last question that they posed was "So who really colonized you? Why didn't the French do it?" i
I could have replied, "Well your great grandfathers passed up the opportunity to meet happier people!" But I simply concluded: "The French were elsewhere in continental South east Asia. The Dutch, the Spaniards and the Portuguese were the ones operating in the archipelagic region." I did tell them there were French explorers in Manila, (Im reading the accounts of Paul Gironiere now) but where their collections are, if they did have such, I am left wondering...
The question of the identity of the colonizer was remarkable and it made me pensive the whole night. Given that France was a colonizing country (Algeria, Polynesia, Indochina...) was the question framed to highlight that being a colony is a big deal, that it is a legitimizing force that can make an obscure nation like the Philippines opaque to the rest of the world? This is perhaps the only place Manny Pacquaio is unheard of. Well across the channel Britain knows who he is, though. (Eh, Ricky Hatton). It was Marguerite I think who said, "It is a pity that you know so much about France and we don't know anything about your country!"
Now more than ever, I am careful not to do anything stupid. Because somehow their initial picture of who a Filipino is will be...yours truly. Pressures of representation! And I didn't even think this would happen, because I assumed Pacquiao, Carlos P Romulo, Charice, Lea Salonga, Marcos, Ninoy, Cory and Arnel Pineda would have sufficed, or at least paved the way for Filipinos to be known. And back home we think we ARE already there, in the community of nations. How naïve! We actually have to work some more if we want to be recognized and even acknowledged in the contemporary world village. And do not count on Facebook population to do so, or You Tube uploads.
Now this is the paradox: the more days I spend in France, the more Filipino I feel. It is inevitable. So the Pinoys who have a mere photo with the Eiffel Tower or the Arc de Triomphe, and assert they have savored la vie Parisienne are just plain "nagyayabang" or crudely self-indulgent.
There is nothing like the alienation one encounters in Paris: but nothing more potent that can make you retreat into your core. It is a twofold operation - even as you discover you are different from the rest (my brown skin betrays I am a foreigner) this is also a path to recovering your identity.
And so tomorrow, I continue being a santo-maker, a rebulto- maker in a thousand year old city full of gigantic churches and titanic statuary in marble, bronze and stone. That doesn't faze me: because a chisel in my hands is ten thousand times more real to me, that all of the monuments and sculptures that are made by others, most long dead. Hence I become more authentic (a little Filipino perhaps), with every chip that falls off from my block of wood, with my chisels and mallets, and my heart and my hands.
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