Taking On Challenges

We are now more than halfway through March! I dropped the ball on blogging. Again.

But never mind that. I have a new set of washi tapes and one of them has these words scrolled out along with a few others: I am a slow walker but I never walk backwards. So let’s not dwell.

I do have something new going on. I enrolled in the Make Art That Sells (MATS) Bootcamp. Okay—what is it? It’s a Bootcamp for people like me who want to keep learning, who need the challenge of staying focused on a project, or who want to create something with a goal in mind. MATS has been around for quite some time and I had taken one a few years ago.

What about the sculpting?! Sculpting will always be a part of my creative world. I did say I want to tell stories with the sculpts. I enjoyed making the ethnic dance ones for Agnes because they were already part of a story. Agnes’ choreography took care of that for me. All I had to do was to capture a movement.

However, after working on the fourth one (a remake of the first from La Rev which I called Rehearsal because it was based on photos taken during rehearsals), I found that I wasn’t up to sculpting just anything. I do a lot of Pinterest meandering and I keep falling in love with sculpts by other artists. The ones I’m most drawn to are those that tell something more about the figures. So many beautiful ones show costumes based on certain periods or fantasy worlds but not all of them tell a story—at least to me.

Where am I going with this? Well, I am about to start a new sculpt and I’m taking a suggestion from one of my childhood friends. She brought up Lola Basyang after seeing the Manang sculpt.

I grew up knowing that Lola Basyang was a grandmother who told stories to children. It was only later on that I learned the stories were actually written by Severino Reyes who was the editor of Liwayway—a magazine in Filipino that I used to see piled up in my great grandmother’s closet.

Again, I have the convenience of having the story built right in with the character. The challenge for me now is coming up with a face, a costume (my favorite part), and props (my next favorite part). 

At the same time—I’m sneaking this bit of info here—I’ve also enrolled in the Children’s Book Illustration course as well. This course starts next month. According to others who have taken it, it’s intense and it’s very challenging. Do I want that in my life? I’m going give a resounding YES!!! 

After 2019 and 2020 where it felt like everything had to be a workaround, I feel the need to take on projects that I have control of. The Bootcamp, the Children’s Books course, the sculpting—the success that comes with completing them will all depend on me. It’ll be up to me to work within the schedules that I allot for each activity. It’ll be up to me to put in the effort.

We’ve got Spring now and Easter is just around the corner. I think it’s a fantastic time to embark on new challenges. Forward is the only direction to take. I’m taking the washi tape’s advice seriously. After all, it came with a set I’d ordered and I had no idea those words were there. It was just meant to be.