I've painted several bahay kubos before but never one big enough to hang in our living room. To revive my art that has been dormant since time immemorial, I decided to make one for myself, riding on the momentum created by some demo paintings I was volunteered to do for my son's class in school. Bahay kubos are the easiest to paint and so this should be a breeze. So, I thought.

A year after priming the canvas and sketching some initial elements, my bahay kubos remained in dreamland. It's true some unfortunate, energy-zapping turns of events were partly responsible for the delay, but, I think the main cause was trying to work purely from imagination without any definite plan. It's much harder to finish something when one doesn't know how it looks like when it is finished.

Tired of seeing this forever-in-the-making artwork mounted on my easel, I decided it should come down as soon as possible, ready or not. It required superhuman effort to unpack and set up the painting paraphernalia. After working on it for four days, I brushed in some symbolic finishing touches, signed it and congratulated myself for a never-ending job finally ended.


For the title, I was actually thinking along the line of "Serenity," "Morning Calm," "Care for the Environment," or anything related to the conservation of Mother Earth. But, my six-year old son had other ideas. When he first saw it, he insisted the title should be "The Village." Yes, of course, how could I have missed it. Isn't it obvious it's a village? Later on, he changed his mind and said it should be "When the Sun Rises in the Village," and, still later, "When the Sun Rises in the Village and the Lights inside the Houses are Turned on." Before his title became a full-blown story, I hurriedly assured him "The Village" was just fine.

You can follow the creative odyssey that built this village in the series of images below.

 

 

 

 

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