When you want something bad enough, all you have to do is to work really hard for it—even if that means giving up sacrifices all your life and hurdling a hundred or so complications along the way.

This is exactly what self-taught ceramic artist Nelfa Querubin did to further her craft and to reach the summit of her creative journey—one that passionately revolved around clay.

Viewing her works now will give you an idea as to how the 68-year-old Querubin has explored the many ways in which her chosen medium could visually articulate her unique vision and could work for her. Her sculptural pieces, albeit appearing silent and are stationary, actually radiate this energy that only the consummate artist could have given. Oscillating from functional to non-functional art, conceptual to non-conceptual, Querubin’s countless clay vessels, plates, pots, bowls, and slabs—cut, molded, baked, and fired to artistic perfection—are a testament to the studio potter’s unrelenting almost obsessive love for the medium.

Born in Iloilo and the seventh of 13 children, Querubin grew up during the post-war years. Their “dysfunctional” family was haunted with poverty and starvation, so at an early age, she already had to fend for herself. When her parents separated at 13, the young Querubin had to help provide for her family. As a result, she said that she “didn’t have a teenage life at all.” Things looked better when she completed her drafting course in 1960 at the Iloilo School of Arts and Trade (now Philippine Institute of Technologies) and opted to fly to Manila to pursue her artistic leanings.

In the city, Querubin had to take day jobs while finding her niche in the art scene. Here, she worked as cartographer at the Bureau of Soils (which she considered a humdrum) and as architectural draftsperson at the Philippine Sugar Institute.

On weekends, the potter says, she would frequent the Ermita-Malate areas to see art exhibits in galleries and to talk to Mabini artists, one even teaching her how to mount and prime a canvas.

Eventually she would hang out in artists’ studios along Philippine Women’s University in Taft. There, she met Boy Rodriguez Jr. and some other artists, most of whom are noted printmakers. She had liked the camaraderie of their group so much that she enrolled in Mang Manuel Rodriguez Sr.’s Saturday classes in printmaking. Although her prints had already won her numerous awards, perhaps it was her discovery of clay that truly made her happy.

And Querubin’s first seduction took place when she saw her friend and fellow printmaker Leonardo Villaroman on a potter’s wheel. Querubin, in her book titled Life with Clay, writes: “I had not seen ceramic art until Villaroman showed me his ceramic works in 1971. There were three bottles with matte glazes and other functional works that looked so attractive to me. I asked him how he did it. (I thought it was easy). He took a ball of moist clay, threw it on the potter’s wheel, kicked the flywheel, placed both of his hands on the slimy clay, and instantly formed a vase. I was dumbfounded!”

Querubin thought it was magic how such fantastical forms could be literally fashioned by the hands.

Soon, she found herself taking lessons with Villaroman and noticed how she went on to have sleepless nights if and when she could not go to her friend for lessons. The artist felt that clay was the kind of material she can really control. She was, to use her own word, mesmerized by it and its luscious feel on her palms. “But when I got into it, I realized that clay has its limitations. If you impose your will on it, it’ll crack and it won’t work for you,” the former printmaker explains. “That’s how difficult it is. You must have a lot of patience dealing with it.”

The artist, of course, wasn’t fazed. Instead, Querubin did her homework and research. She further notes, “Because of the damage that occurs in the firing [of clay], I was challenged to know what firing is all about. I wanted to control it. At the early stage of my firing adventure, I discovered that firing clay is an art by itself. It is hard and technical, but it is science and art merging together and I found it very interesting. That’s why the result in experimental firing using different kinds of kiln had to be recorded to avoid making the same mistake and also to try to capture the elusive beauty that the kind of firing could create on clay.”

With clay as her medium, Querubin had to be a tenacious woman of science as much as she had to be an artist. She read a lot of pottery books and magazines. She even made her own kilns and kick-wheels and made several blueprints of them. She invented most of her tools and improvised techniques to handle the medium. And while working, she took notes of her experiments and jotted down her observations of her creative process. When she migrated to the United States with her husband in 1989, Querubin’s love for clay also moved with her. She tells us that her husband designed and built her studio, and she, her new kiln.

“My husband and I roofed my studio in Denver. It was like building a large sculpture because I like to make use of my hands,” she says. “I started with wood firing. But I didn’t want to apply that kind of wood firing they do on the palayok. That is something shallow. So I figured that I must experiment to be able to get the color I want. I didn’t exactly get the result I want but rather I got the result I loved.

From then on, my interest in clay got deeper. I couldn’t back out anymore,” she adds.

And Querubin has remained interested with clay up to this date and the many happy accidents she gets from handling it. “It is fascinating to be drinking from the cup I made, and eating from the plate I made. You cannot do this with canvas and paper. You cover clay with glaze, like painting on canvas; or you can make a sculpture out of it, like in bronze or wood…” she says. “I think there is still this need in me to create art. In fact, the older we get, the more need you have.”

And the artist’s textured and multihued pieces show just how much she is still soaked and infatuated with the medium. Unlike studio potters who make use of traditional techniques to form their pieces, Querubin is more known to come up with highly stylized works utilizing the contemporary techniques she had developed. Querubin’s pieces are glazed with varying shades and fired once or many times depending on the artist’s preference. They take on not just one consistent shape; rather, they come in irregular and eccentric forms and sizes. And most of them are inspired by “awesome” rocky landscapes and nature.

Aesthetic-wise, Querubin’s oeuvre has progressed from being entirely functional and realistic to being conceptual and abstract. Her works have triumphed the once lowly clay into this noted medium of artistic freedom and expression. Sadly though, there is still much to be done for Filipinos to see ceramics as a legitimate fine art like painting and sculpture. Querubin admits this and says that basic art education may solve this. “We still have a long way to go,” she discloses. “That’s the purpose of my book, to let the public know about clay and its many possibilities. It’s still a fairly young medium, and it’s not yet fully developed here unlike in other Asian countries and in the United States.”

But Querubin has not lost hope just as she had not given up at the start of her career, because it seems that the artist is not one to surrender to unfortunate circumstances. For aspiring and young artists, she has this to say: “You have to give in to your heart. You cannot be successful on anything where your heart is not into. You need to be focused and be committed. Never mind the money. When you are that good, it’s money that will chase you.”

Seems like a good point, isn’t it? Because as Querubin also ends in her book, “Life is short and art is long. We create art to please us, to make us feel good. When life hurts and our lives are in turmoil, we turn to art for healing and sanity. Therefore, it is the duty of the artist to share his or her works to the community. So let me tell you…fight for your own freedom and be assertive. For life [or clay for that matter] is how you make it.”

‘Life with Clay book and exhibit’ by Nelfa Querubin will be launched on March 5 at the Izukan Gallery, Unit 2101, 88 Corporate Center, Valero corner Sedeno Sts., Salcedo Village, Makati City. For more information, call 725-5696.