Arturo Luz. Anita Magsaysay-Ho. Jose Mendoza.

Avid followers of Philippine art are certainly familiar with these names and their body of work. But with the launch of a series of children’s books entitled “Growing Up with Philippine Art”, it seems all set that these names will become familiar to ordinary young Filipinos as well.

“Growing Up with Philippine Art” is a series of three hardbound books, the product of a collaboration
between The Crucible Workshop and the Kuwentista ng mga Tsikiting (KUTING).

The three books – “Tito Arturo Makes Robot Monsters,” “Looking Out For Heroes,” and “Laughter On The Wall” – aim to show how a work of art can lead to quite a few interesting adventures. Rather than discussing the life and times of the featured artists, the books emphasize the appreciation
of the artists’ works and their power to awaken the imagination of the young and to encourage them to experience Filipino art firsthand.

The project began within the family of Sari Ortiga, co-owner of The Crucible Workshop. His daughter, Yasmin Ortiga, wrote and illustrated “Tito Arturo Makes Robot Monsters”.

“This is our first venture into children’s books and this is totally Yasmin’s concept, using contemporary artists in an everyday life situation. She’s a member of KUTUTING and she grew up with Philippine art so she just fused all of her interests,” says Ortiga. “When I saw the first draft of ‘Tito Arturo Makes Robot Monsters,’ it gave me the idea to turn this into a series. This is something that definitely complements what we do at The Crucible Workshop.”

ART FOR CHILDREN

Glenda Oris, KUTUTING president and author of “Looking Out For Heroes,” says the stories capture children’s encounters with art as something odd yet beautiful, and the excitement brought about by figures that are both exciting and mysterious.

For instance, in “Tito Arturo Makes Robot Monsters”, a young girl can’t help but imagine Arturo Luz’ minimalist metal sculptures as robot monsters wreaking havoc all across the city. Luz’ work titled “Noguchi”, for one, is a giant metallic snake that keeps watch outside the Ayala Museum.

“Laughter On The Wall” by Germaine Yia not only contemplates the mystery of Anita Magsaysay-Ho’s 1950 painting “Laughter,” but the cozy feeling of being in your grandmother’s house surrounded by the knick-knacks she has collected over the years.

“Looking Out For Heroes” ingeniously utilizes Jose Mendoza’s public sculptures of local heroes and makes them useful to a young boy lost and left alone in the city of Makati.

However, coming up with these beautifully crafted stories was not a walk in the park. The three authors also had to make the art work alongside the specific requirements of writing a story for children.

“It has to be understandable to children. I had to peg a certain age bracket to determine the kind of words and sentence structure to use,’’ says Oris. “What was particularly challenging about Jose Mendoza, the artist assigned to me, is that his works were public art, monuments to historical figures. The challenge was to make those monuments interesting. I had to look for a realistic experience for the child.”

In order to do this, Oris took the same route her young hero took in the book.

“The route here in Makati was something that I used to take, so it was very easy for me to think of a route that would cover all three sculptures. But it’s different if you’re an adult and you have to bring it down to the level of a child,” she recalls. “I had to come here and take pictures from my waist, look to see how far the child would see, what part of the monuments they would see, at what point they could see the sculptures. I had to take video footage of the route.”

Oris even had to do it all over again when her illustrator drew an entirely different bank than the one she had in mind for her story.

“During the initial samples, the illustrator drew a part that was not true to the route that I envisioned. We had different banks in mind and I had to check if the bank she chose to illustrate could work. I had to pretend that I wanted to open an account just so I could check if they had ATM machines!” she says with a laugh.

BRINGING ART TO LIFE

Writer and critic Neni Sta. Romana Cruz has high praise for the books, calling them “delightful”.

“Mixing children’s literature and Filipino art is a wonderful idea, but even without that marriage of art and literacy they have produced three well-written and well-illustrated books, and that is not always easy to do. They have brought the art to life and have made us so curious about them, and have given us a priceless glimpse of the artists as mortals like you and me, but with the relentless discipline and the raging passion to excel and create,” remarks Sta. Romana-Cruz. “What perfect role models the artists are for today’s Filipino children in search of heroes, of grown ups to look up to. Anita Magsaysay-Ho as a woman artist finding inspiration in her childhood memories. Or Jose Mendoza as a very shy sculptor, happiest at work with his public art. Arturo Luz, keeping young with his art, his ballroom dancing, and many other passions.”

Oris agrees. “It’s important to have stories like these to educate the children that art is not something inside galleries and museums alone and that it takes a certain age before you can appreciate art. Art can be functional, it can help us and inspire us.”