Q & A with Jerry Araos

Sculptor-raconteur Jerusalino V. Araos, founder of the artists' guild Sanayan Lapat Kamay Inc. (SALAKAI), never fails to astonish me with his views on anything under the sun. As the first semester was ending in September 2007, he granted me an interview for my class in Sculpture 1 at the University of the Philippines Baguio. It wasn't a class requirement. I volunteered to do the work because I felt that we needed some kind of background about the subject we had just studied. All we had done at that point was execute plates in stone, wood, plaster and terracotta. We hardly had a theoretical/historical background on what it was we were doing. If I was presumptuous for thinking I could complement what our teacher had passed on to us, so be it. His photo was taken by GIGI LOLARGA. The picture of his sculpture, "Castranate," is lent to us courtesy of LIWA ARAOS. Here's the transcript of that interview.

Question:
If you're a woman and you want to be a sculptor, what does it take?

Answer:
Louise Nevelson, one of the greatest American sculptors, is unmarried. Julie Lluch has a failed marriage. Sculpture is destructively jealous of other relationships. To be a sculptor requires singular dedication to the avocation. To be a sculptor or sculptress is to be a priest or priestess of the creative order.

Question:
Some say your kind of life is an emulation or a copy of the great artists' lives, full of drama, big gestures, bravado. What can you say about this?

Answer:
I behave according to the urges that make me move from within. I am not affected very much by forces from without. Art is a concentrated expression of life. Art is a concentrated expression of experiences in life. Art is a concentrated expression of one's own lived experiences of life. Vicarious experience, when translated into art, is peeping tom art. I have lived a rich life. I have pushed my life through great sicknesses and demanding strain on my health. I have been a guerrilla and will always be a guerrilla. I am a writer, and I think freely. My passion is unbridled, and my appetite matches my imagination. They say bastos ako, that when I'm being bastos I'm being Bohemian. They flatter the Bohemians. The Bohemian cannot be creatively bastos.

Question:
What is the language of sculpture, and how do you express it?

Answer:
The language of sculpture is a mixture of the grammar of my tools and the jargon of materials. The message of the sculpture must be a three-way dialogue among the sculptor, the material and his tools.

Question:
Are your resources, meaning, old pieces of wood, becoming scarce? What will you or the SALAKAI members do when the time comes that cutting wood or finding old wood will be close to impossible?

Answer:
Old houses, whether mansions of the grand manner or humble huts, are being replaced by condominiums by the very rich and Italianate cottages by the beneficiaries of overseas domestic helpers. Whatever old houses are left in Manila and its environs must be preserved as historical landmarks and specimens of architectural expressions of the Philippines. I strongly believe in that.
Sources of secondhand lumber come from as far as the Ilocos, Cagayan and the Bicol region. Supply is dwindling, and acquisition is very competitive. The solution: Global warming is now felt worldwide. Cyclones, tornadoes and typhoons besiege the surface of the earth. In our part of the world, typhoons have uprooted trees. Here at the UP Diliman campus, many acacia trees have been uprooted. Some of my latest sculptural works come from them.
I compete with bakeries which use them (uprooted acacia trees) as firewood. When bakeries use them as firewood, the tree is converted into carbon dioxide which further destroys the environment. When my school uses them for sculpture, we practice carbon segregation (preventing carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere). The chippings are used to enrich some of our gardens.

Question: Why don't you apply texture on the surfaces of your sculpture or do filigreed work on your furniture?

Answer:
An old sculptural practice is putting texture on the surfaces of wood. This is done with the use of the V cut or the acutely curved chisel. This practice is an imposition of the sculptor's ego over the material. As I have said, the material has its own jargon, and I allow that to be expressed as intimately as possible. This is my way of romancing the wood.

Question:
You've always stressed the importance of an artist's statement. Among SALAKAI member you require us to be able to articulate our thoughts and ideas. Why?

Answer:
An artist's statement is a prior expression of how the exhibitor understands his or her own work. This is the basis for an audience to judge whether the work on display succeeds in achieving the idea of the exhibit. Before this practice was demanded by a few galleries, it was usual for an exhibitor to simply wait for a critic to come out with a review and then quickly claim that what the critic said was what he meant. Sadly some critiques are rehashed clichés from other criticisms. Because of this the audience is left uncertain of his/her own assessment of the work in view. Other exhibitors say pag naintindihan ng audience, hindi malalim. This is bullshit.
The questions that must be answered by the concept paper are: What? – The project. What for?—The objective. What then? – Social expectation.
To aspire to be an artist is to claim to be a teacher. And it is a maxim, a social contract in education that if the pupil has not learned, the teacher has not taught. There are no failed pupils, only failed teachers. The statement which goes, "If I can say it, I should not have painted it anymore" is a lame excuse for dullness.

Question:
What do the holes in your sculptural pieces stand for? Nothingness?

Answer:
Bakit may butas? Pampatanong. Ano yung pampatanong? Para yung tatanga-tanga may itatanong. Kasi tanong nang tanong. Wait, do you want to hear the reason why there's a hole? Sheepish silence. Does that mean yes? A few nods. Do you want my answer to be on the level of art theory? Stupid look from everybody. The purpose I put holes in most of my sculptures is to arrest visual speed. If that surface is simply a plain surface without holes, you take it on with one visual sweep of perception. If there's a hole, your eyes tarry, your look lingers, and then you begin to think, why is there a hole? The hole arrests visual speed, slows down and lengthens the duration of perceptual engagement between the work and the audience, initiates intellection from the audience, and encourages a discussion between the viewer and the sculptor.

Question:
I've noticed since the Hiraya Gallery days that you have always been present during the duration of your exhibitions. Please explain your presence.

Answer:
A solo exhibit must be an original expression from the exhibitor. For him or her it should be an artistic invention. If a scientist invents a newfangled and hi-tech but low-end can opener, the inventor must be there to show the end user how the can opener works. The same applies for an artistic invention. Also a solo exhibit of fresh insight is like a newborn child. It needs constant babysitting. My marked presence in all my exhibitions is a practice in show tending. Being present in one's own show most of the time is standing up courageously to confirm one's artistic convictions as evidenced by the works.

Question:
What does one tell young, aspiring visual artists about how they can navigate the vicious art scene, especially in Metro Manila?

Answer:
The art scene is an arena of war, a war composed of many battles. To win the war you must win more battles than your competitors. The most important battle in this war is the battle for space. For beginning practitioners my advice is for them to promote alternative spaces into viable art venues. If they succeed in this endeavor, they likewise promote themselves into viable exhibitors. Then galleries would begin to take notice of them.
There is a shortcut to what seems to be success. This is by making a monkey out of yourself. Many galleries develop their own monkeys and include them in their stables. When gallery owners talk to each other, these practitioners are referred to by them as monkeys. Galleries do not disrespect the rights of other galleries over their stables of monkeys. Unggoy ko 'yan, unggoy mo 'yan.
What is a monkey? A monkey is a practitioner who is recruited by a gallery owner to paint or sculpt like a well-known artist, but a monkey signs his name. This is tantamount to art imitation, a gray area in artistic legalese. There are many successful monkeys in the whole art scene. Many of them would like to rid themselves of their "monkeyness". Very few have succeeded.
Monkeys may make their mark and money in their own time. But art history will never forgive them.