Make Mine Masks!
Make Mine Masks!
By Cesare A.X. Syjuco
Published in: The Manila Times, March 25, 1987
JUAN Moire Ocampo was an emerging painter from the UP College of Fine Arts in 1983 — the year he packed his bags for a rare scholarship in mask-making from the Art Institute of Indonesia in Dyogyakarta. Already a young veteran of the local exhibition circuit, Ocampo's work then was characterized by a flair for the experimental, an art inclined to cerebrality and innovation.
Ocampo was to find the reactionary nature of Indonesian culture extremely oppressive at first, immersed as it was in age-old traditions that rejected change and were insistent, instead, on constant repetition and functionality. Art-making, in this context, was limited to the tireless reworking of prescribed motifs, and was in itself subservient to the role it was fated to play in religious rituals and epic pageantry. Literally the opposite of western-inspired modernist aesthetics founded on persistent exploration and relentless change, the Indonesian artist was denied veneration and creative license.
The ancient city in Central Java where the institute had been built in that same year is considered even to this day as "the high seat of culture" in Indonesia, located some nine hours from the capital city of Djakarta, and still as firmly rooted in its archaic past as ever before. English is not spoken there, and Ocampo was set adrift in a strange setting as alien to him as it was fiercely unreceptive to outsiders. He found that he had to learn to speak the native language if he was to communicate at all, and that living conditions there were harsh by Philippine standards. His first and most important lesson was one of helplessly seeking total assimilation into the mainstream of that closely guarded society, despite his initial setbacks and a growing sense of despair.
Young Ocampo was formally apprenticed to the mask-making master Warnowastiko. His 75-year-old teacher had been occupied night and day with his laborious craft since the age of 15, and had become physically deformed by the prescribed posture. It was Warnowastiko who urged Ocampo to learn the rudiments of classical Indonesian dance, knowledge which the old master felt was necessary in order to gain true understanding of the mask-making art. As masks were utilized primarily in dance, both art forms were assumed to be virtually one and the same.
The masks that for centuries had been fashioned from the same traditional mold were painstakingly carved out of light wood, then painted in dramatic detail with vegetable-derived pigments that were unstable and sadly wanting in permanence. They were made only to serve a utilitarian function — Ocampo was aghast to discover — and were, therefore, hardly designed to last through the ages. Then too, none of these delicate masks were handsigned by their creators, who were thought of as little more than skilled tailors. Unlike valuable works of art in the western world, even the most exquisite masks by the masters could be had for a trifling sum.
But the mask-maker was nonetheless an important part of the community. The many festivals that continue to enthrall Indonesian audiences despite their constant restaging are almost entirely dependent on his produce. Ocampo recounts that the popular epic "Ramayana" — usually played out to enormous crowds at the rising of the new moon — utilizes as many as 250 of these masks at a single time! The principal form of entertainment and cultural interaction in Indonesia, such performance spectacles are an integral part of community life in that country.
Learning to conform, says Ocampo, lies at the heart of the Indonesian Experience. But still in an experimentalist at heart, he now hopes to improvise on the wealth of knowledge he has derived from almost three years in Central Java. While the craft he mastered there was rigidly unwavering, the balikbayan artist now allows his imagination free rein. Invited by Sid Hildawa of Kulay-Diwa Galleries to conduct a pair of intensive workshops in mask-making from mid-April thru May, Ocampo looks forward to working closely with gifted children and experienced local artists. It goes without saying that the mask and the dance will be one. And that Warnowastiko will almost certainly be pleased.
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Cesare A.X. Syjuco, “Make Mine Masks!” (page 1 of 1), The Manila Times, March 25, 1987
