Rizal's Bust: My First Sculpture Art

I've developed my desire in arts particularly in sketching, drawing and painting as I often saw one of our eldest brothers, Manong Jaime, who was doing his pieces in painting Jesus Christ's portrait, drawing person's profile and landscaping in his spare time by just using ordinary enamel paint.

Jose Rizal

And I also developed a desire to mold statues of heroes as I happened to see a good sculptor repairing a deformed statue of Andres Bonifacio in La Carlota City plaza before. I was amazed on how he did his work.

I thought for myself, "Could I do it too? How I wish I could sculpt a very good subject or art someday."

Well in the mean time, I took over some unfinished painting of Manong Jaime by doing some coloring and doing some finishing touches to said painting with no direction. I just loved doing it.

Unexpectedly he went home early. I was caught unaware of what I was doing. Worried as I was for I was thinking that he will scold me by intruding his work without his permission. I was wrong. Instead he appreciated me for my initiative and told me that someday if I am really serious about it I could be a good painter.

He gave me some cans of paints of primary colors: red, blue and yellow and gave me tips on how to mix it to come up with different color.

My curiosity came into a reality. From that time I started my first paintings of a mother and a child, a guitar, an oil lamp, a group of wind musicians. I placed them on our wall. When our late father, Larion renovated our house, those pictures or paintings were misplaced. Alas, I couldn't find them anymore. I guess our late mother, Loreng, probably threw them away.

One day, I happened to see our neighbors whom I used to play with during weekends, playing miniature pots, stove, glasses, vases made of clay. I asked them where did they get that play things. They said they made them by themselves. They got the clay somewhere in the rice field near the La Carlota High School, a walking distance from our house.

Without wasting time, I got there and brought home a hand full of two of clay. I molded it into a handgun, knives, thistle and pestle, some animals like dog, cat and carabao.

"What about a man and a woman?" I thought.

I tried but it's out of proportion. I was not satisfied. I didn't persist in doing it until I was inspired to make one as a tribute to our PH national hero, Jose Rizal.

So I started molding the clay. First I make an oval shape for the head. Press it at the center for the nose. Make a slit just below the nose. Make two holes atop the nose I made. Attempt to make a forehead, face. Shape an ear and attach it to the head. At least I made a relief of a man's bust.

Until I polished it and came up with Jose Rizal's bust. Painted it and fasten it on a top of 3-by-3-inch -wood platform.  

I presented to my playmates. Nobody appreciated it. I kept for awhile until school days.

I brought it to our grade one teacher, Miss Dolores Acot. She liked it and praised me for such talent I had. She took it and placed it on the top of our blackboard at the center. My classmates didn't dare to appreciate it.

Everytime we had our classes I see it. I kept on smiling and was very happy for what I had done.

There was a time that I was absent for a week for I got sick. When I got back to school when I recovered from my sickness, I was worried for I didn't find my art work at the top of the blackboard.

I asked my teacher what happened to my Rizal's bust work. She said it was broken. It fell into the floor when some of my classmates where horseplaying and they happened to bang the blackboard that caused the falling of my art work and it broke into pieces.

I had no other remedy to restore or repair it for it's no where to find. I just felt sorry about it. That's was my first sculpturing experience when I was about 8 to 9 years old. And I never did push it through from that time forth.

image: en.wikipedia.org