WHAT YOU SEE WHEN CREATIVITY KICKS IN

By: Iris P. Concepcion

The first picture is a carved artwork inside the Far Eastern University (along the hallway). I intentionally took this picture, as is, to highlight the fact that it would be (if I were a student) satisfying to lounge in this area just to commune with the visual vibe. It could fill my mind with more than just accounting procedures.

That is its appeal to me: I like things being transformed (say, from a wood) in splendid forms like this manner of hard, wall drapery (sort of). This used to be flat when untouched by the artist. Look at the outcome. My premise is the same whether dabbling in politics, literature or science. You insert someone with a creative mind there and things bloom not so unlike Harold Bloom but Immeasurable Bloom.

This campus has undergone enormous changes over the years. I kidded one of its faculty members that it had fused the best of Ateneo, La Salle and UP in terms of structure and content. Its faculty area is likewise a democratic flow of principles: I saw its lockers beaming with different photos of all the running presidential candidates. Its vision has a large Q embedded in one of its buildings, with its vision placed there. Product of young minds, I said; not bad for a major lift-up.

The next picture is a new entrant I suppose among the National Museum pieces. This moved me as more than impressing from the gut because of the uniquely haunting expression of the mother: it is beyond being alive; it is unnervingly transcendental.

You might be awed by the fact that this is a miniature work---it is actually so small, like a figurine more than just an inch taller. And that is precisely its beauty: how can such littleness enable an expression like that to be molded so intricately?

A lament; a cry; a shout; a statement. You must see this and work your way into the artist's labyrinthian mind. Playing banduria in hugely-flowered gowns is good as a cultural display but hands up, this is more piercing as a cultural treatise on the human psyche and celebration/protection of life combined.

I egg on the people to capture small visual and aural gifts like these and propagate them via the information highway. This is the only way we can pay homage to the artists involved.