06 march 2008.
another memorable and fulfilling morning of my relatively simplistic, fleeting existence.
i am so full. i feel so full of inspiring "crap" that i have written this right after we've left his overwhelming solace... in PH 216-218.
this feeling. this height (or depth) of consciousness. this... ecstasy. so powerful that it penetrates the deepest realms of my mind and being... this... much much more than the high i feel after watching a movie.
my thanks to the STS group project, i had this utterly spine-tingling sensation... wanting to curl myself on the floor, close my eyes, and ravish the sensation... and yes, i feel like dying...
this morning, there he was, the cause of this, of my ecstasy. jerry araos. the artist. the Uber artist. the most interesting, interactive artist i've ever met. the conversation, his stories, his sharing of himself to us... to me... so immense. full of meat. of thought, about life, art, dying...
forgive me for being "poetic" (duh?) but oh...
ahmmm...
as the cliche goes, language couldn't express this feeling...
the experience. just experience it for yourself.
oh but how?
again, i feel the shivers through my body. tingling on my spine. the numbness... oh...
jerry araos... artist. never sells his artworks. only lends it. because according to him...
"art for sale is prostitution"
that being an artist requires a different level of intelligence.
he told a story about the rhode island school of art, the "most expensive" art school in the world...
applicants are accepted only if there are "A" students. else, they suggest them to become doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc.
because such courses have something you could refer to... medical books, civil codes, building codes...
that to become such, you only need to pass board exams, bar exams, competency exams... exams... exams...
but an artist... yes, an artist, a true artist, must be able to think beyond...
beyond the "here and now"
not just out of the box.
as he put it, we are using only 5% of our brain. that is the here and now. for if we use more, we'll be haggards, stressed, [will need stresstabs..]...
to go beyond, we must use the other 5 percents of our brain... to do so... we must die...
die with our present 5%, to use the other 5 percents...
then we think beyond... die a little... and go great lengths...
for art conceives... and science implements.
he told how da vinci conceived the design of the bicycle... despite the lack of technology to produce it...
and technology caught up later, and now we have these 2-wheeled contraptions...
art conceives. science implements.
a plain, conventional table. that's it. no surprise. that's what we call vision speed, he says.
by making something else on a table... curved ends, holes along the sides, protruding spokes... the vision speed is broken, interrupted.
you then ask... why? why such?
he didn't just put the oddities there just because he wanted to...it had something to do with art and its interactivity...
why? he explains...
when you ask a question,
you start to care,
when you care,
you start to relate...
[which is the essence of our humanity].
and i am amused. dazed.
his chairs, oh... his chairs... same with his other wooden sculptures, were made using recycled wood. his chairs... made to comfort our sorry asses (uhm...) from the conventional seats that ruin our body, our posture.
his chairs were designed for the asian people... unlike the common american/european tools that we unknowingly sit upon. his knowledge of the "proper" way to sit defies the basic concepts of ergonomics... that he applies ergonomics in a "different" perspective, a perspective that seems to me is of art and of sense.
he has chairs
for social drinking.
for thinking
for everything...
he even got a chair made by his female student... chair that surely serves its purpose well...
of pleasuring a woman... making a woman capable of fondling herself, ravishing her body...
"parausan," that's how it's called...
the national museum. for someone to have an exhibit in the museum, one has to satisfy 2 criteria:
the person has to be very famous.
the person has to be 'very' dead.
but on the celebration of its centenary... they decided to hold one featuring a living artist, still maintaining the first criterion.
and there was this shortlist... the sculptor napoleon abueva, this famous painter (i forgot the name), and this "gagong" artist.
napaleon was crossed out because he submits his works late and they're a bit commercialized. the other one was crossed out too bacause they've seen painying as a "thin" art, only cognitive. so all that's left was the "gagong" artist, and that "gago" was he. (haha)
wittingly, as he said, out of humility... he owns the most beautiful artist's garden in the world, for it won the prize in a world art competition which name i forgot... (huhu...).
it was a scuplture competition. and yet he presented a garden as an entry. he coined it "a sculpture as a garden."
while other entries were monuments, his was a garden...
and the judges... the judges... prominent people from renowned art museums... head, directors of such...
and they asked him...
"why a garden?"
and he replied...
"this is sculpture as a garden.
while a monument is vertical, mine is horizontal.
a monument is a landmark, a garden is a destination.
the monument's audience is a spectator, but the garden makes them participants.
the monument evokes a sense of being; the garden, a sense of becoming."
[nosebleed muna... brainbleed na rin}
and he won.
and he "humbly" told it. (haha)
and i am, along with my groupmates, are so flattered that he invited us to visit his garden... for free!
imagine, every year, he receives about 25,000 applications to visit his garden...
he allows only 200.
this year, he had already accomodated 16 (or 60), cooked for them... for a fee of Php1500/person.
us... a visit, plus a complementary dish he'll personally cook for us... he said he's a good cook, no. a great cook. we asked if what's his specialty. he replied, "it's like asking me who's my favorite child is..."
enough said. *wink* *wink*
so...
i am still high...
like lots of serotonin and adrelaine circulate in my body...
such feeling...
like i had an orgasm (oh!)... but an intellectual...
no, maybe something more...
yes, a spiritual orgasm.
*shivers* *devilish smile* *eyes rolling up*
PS.
please do "google" him on the web... jerusalino "jerry" araos... and please, if you can, read his critically-acclaimed (yes, it IS) book, "The Garden of Two Dragons Fucking" [yes... i know... and don't judge it by its title *wink*]... will do a follow-up post about the book... 'coz he gave us a copy AND money for us to reproduce it *wink* *wink*
