jerry araos and the celestial vector

one thing that caught my eye during a visit i had with sculptor jerry araos was a peculiar wooden sculpture that stood in the corner of their dining room. it was a seemingly rudimentary sculpture. it was a block of wood 5 or 6 ft tall that curves upward with three holes in the middle of it. when pushed slightly, it will rock back and forth like a cradle. i asked the title of this piece and he said it was the "celestial vector". having sat there for hours listening to him, i was pretty immune to his ramblings by that point and so i asked him why. he said that it was an angel (hence celestial) that carried (hence vector) the seeds that impregnated the virgin mary, elizabeth and strangely enough, if i heard correctly (he drifts on and off sometimes) her mom. he said that the holes were for jesus, joseph and... jerry.

the first thing that sir jerry told us as we sat on their pro-female dining table (i'll explain later) was that no one has a right to call himself or herself an artist. someone is merely a poet, a sculptor, a painter, etc. but it is pretentious to declare oneself an artist. it is because art is something you share with the people. it is the highest form of philanthropy, he'd say. when someone creates something, say a sculptor, he or she gets an inanimate piece of material and breathes life into it. the sculptor lends a piece of his soul to the piece and gives it life. and so when people see the works, they in fact see the soul of the sculptor. and what could be a higher state of philanthropy than to share your soul with an audience?

and that is why jerry araos has made a vow never to sell anything that he made. everything he created, he made out of love, he said. and to convert love into cash is nothing short of prostitution. he'd say that though the audience can see his bare soul through his works, the audience can never own his soul.

because of this, he is considered an enemy of the art scene here in the philippines. he challenged every norm there is. a famous artist once said that there are only two kinds of artists: the revolutionary and the plagiarist. jerry araos can be considered to be an example of the former. he said that a work should not belong to the present system of things for that is simply plagiarism. it should transcend the boundaries set by anyone. like the dining table i mentioned earlier. his dining table was a big wooden one and at first glance, there would seem to be nothing peculiar about it. but when he took note of the sides, we noticed that for every placing, there was a curved indentation. he said that the curved indentations were for the women. he noticed that whenever a woman sits down to eat, her breasts seemingly occupy the table. so he made this to give the women ample space for the bust. and for an added touch, he placed nipples on the end of each curve.

one last thing, every surface of his house has a different color painted on it. the reason? he said that when god contacted noah, he used the rainbow to send him the message. he contacted noah because, being a human, he was the only one who would see the rainbow. not the elephant, or the giraffe or anything else. colors were solely designed for human consumption. it was like a secret code that humans share with god. he says that his house was a celebration of humanity. because as humans, we should learn to appreciate whatever we are given. if he painted his house all white or all black, then what difference would he have with a dog, he asked.

and then he smiled and finished his merienda.