Pinoy artist in Italy wins Bagong Bayani Award

By Michelle Bucu-Torres and Apen Lapitan

Richard Gabriel

Richard Gabriel's 12 years of creating art in Milan is now being honoured by his homeland through the Bagong Bayani Award (New Heroes Award), the Philippine's annual search for outstanding overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

Richard will be awarded for his contribution to arts and culture.

Gabriel, who came to Italy with an innate passion for the arts, having come from a family of crafters in Arayat, Pampanga (Central Luzon), was fated with the chance of a lifetime – to learn from and collaborate with the artist Carla Tolomeo.

Mr. Richard Gabriel could not hide his disbelief and excitement upon hearing the news. “He waspanting hard, and we could barely understand him as he took the stairs up to the fourth floor,” recalls Joice Sonza, Richard's wife.

“I have always loved crafting and creating art even back home, but when I saw Carla Tolomeo, the artist, at work, I was immediately taken over. I began by watching and observing her. Until finally my hands couldn't be held back anymore,” Gabriel said.

Working with Carla Tolomeo on her Sculpture Chairs for over 12 years, Richard is half of the creative team that is Tolomeo and Gabriel.

These fanciful and colourful creations are a great testament to the equally colourful and rich, similarly bountiful and complicated, evenly proud and deep-rooted heritage that Filipinos and Italians share.

Half, may be a dogmatic error, as the entire brood would attest. “My life with art is not just my own. It has touched my family and is part of our everyday lives,” Richard says.

Joice adds, “Assisting Richard and Carla over the years has also taught me a lot of things and it helps that they give credit to my voice in the whole process as well. Naturally, our three kids – Jonn, Viola, and Phillip – are part of it too. Creating art has become a family thing.”

In creating these fabulous, unique and authentic pieces, there would theoretically be one person for every step of the job. But for Richard and Carla, it's them. “We make everything by hand and it's a long arduous process which oft means creating a piece only to have to dismantle it and start again,” he said.

OUR HANDS

Carla Tolomeo, unique as the chairs that she and Richard creates, began painting under the guidance of the great master Giorgio De Chirico. Her first painting exhibit was in 1970 at the international exhibition of D'Apres in Lugano. After countless exhibits, she was honoured by the City of Milan when in 1992, the Palazzo Reale hosted retrospective exhibition of her work. In 1997 Carla's artistic endeavours veered from paintings to sculpture , and was the year in which she came out with her Sculpture chairs.

Since then, her work has included Richard and Joyce in every step. Her associations with the family does not end here, as she has a great passion for the entire Filipino people:

“Richard did not even need to grow as an artist. He was precise, perfect, and his instincts were pinpoint, able to anticipate all the details. From these, I could tell that we could work together, arrive at solutions together and create art as a team.

During moments when he would be alone, he would know how to experiment, to express, to invent, to play with art. He has a lot of gifts as an artist – the consistency with work, for one. In art, there has to be a great deal of vocation. He has a lot of faith in art and bravery. And in a world like ours today, it takes a courage unlike any other to follow the path of an artist. In Richard, I see no hesitation in this. He is a true artist.

As for Filipinos, it must be said that you are a race like no other. Of what I have seen, there is already an immense pride and wonder in all that you are. The only things that must change are the bureaucracies, the misplaced worth that you put on material things. Put stock in art. In your education. In your future. Di trovare il giusto equilibro della vostra patria e della nuova patria. (To find the equilibrium between your homeland and your new home.)

A NEW BREED OF HEROES

The term Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) refers to a person of Philippine origin and applies both to people of Filipino ancestry now living as citizens of a different country and those who continue to be Filipino citizens and supporting families back in their native land. Filipinos remain to be one of the most internationally mobile nationalities and whose workers greatly contribute to their country's economy and national development due to remittances, acquisition of property and the creation of businesses that in turn create employment opportunities. Many in the Philippines consider OFWs as a new breed of heroes – parents, sibling, relatives and friends who leave their land of origin in search of a better future, while at the same time, largely due to culture and family traditions, continue to support their families who are left behind. Outside, many OFW groups band together, however, as there are still many rights and protective laws that are deprived them by the Philippine government.

The award, given by the Bagong Bayani Foundation in conjunction with the Department of Labour and Employment, Philippine Overseas Employment Administration and Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, is divided into four categories: Bagong Bayani Award for Most Outstanding Employee, Bagong Bayani Award for Community and Social Service, Bagong Bayani Award for Culture and Performing Arts and Blas F. Ople Award para sa Natatanging Bagong Bayani.

To his family and to the Filipino community in Milan, and now, to the entire country, Richard is a “new hero”. But ask the artist himself and he will answer that “the hero is in my wife, Joice, it is about her, it is for her and it is because of her and my three kids.”