Amazing Glaze

Seeing Bobby Castillo’s glassworks the first time I visited Avellana Galleries, I was immediately attracted with the way they have been manipulated to form remarkable geometric shapes. Many of those I noticed were functional and beautiful pieces, like the big triangular blue tray or the oversized blue-green bowl with skewer holders.

When I saw Castillo’s works a few years ago, I was not so impressed. I found his works much like those mass-produced kitsch glass plates easily available at department stores. So, it was a delight to have seen a collection of his useful glassworks, manifesting his creative shift.

This is more apparent in his recently concluded solo art exhibit, Firebox Lava, at the same gallery. Instead of utilitarian pieces, Castillo focused on making sculptures. His collection of 12 predominantly blue and green works shows the product of his gift in transforming glass by kiln-casting and kiln-forming techniques. This means he does not just cut, polish or glue together glass.

He actually softens glass in a kiln that is 800° C, until it is almost like a gel. In that state, Castillo can either shape it in a mold (kiln casting) or let it drape over a mold to acquire patterns or shapes (kiln forming). He then subjects his pieces to cold glasswork methods. This includes gluing and other techniques, such as cutting, grinding and polishing.

Castillo is an astute student of glassmaking, constantly referring to ancient or natural formations of semi-precious stones, like agate. He would tell the story of how these are formed when lava cools and how gas bubbles interact with different substances, silicon, alkali and iron among others. Thus, he chose the title of his show that acknowledges warm glasswork procedures that dates back from 3500 to 3000 years BC.

His concepts and knowledge are perceptible in the collection on display. Not one to subscribe to making art for its own sake, Castillo has narratives for each piece. His stories give life to his sculptures, as if endowing them with an aspect of himself. In fact, his commentaries or ideas occupy the title cards for each of his work.

I found his musings a bit trite at times but this is perhaps my bias. For example in "Recess Muna, Timeout," I thought an otherwise elegant blue green glass pyramid attached upside down to a scaffold of stainless steel had been marred by the corny title. On the other hand, why indeed cannot an artist speak for himself through the title cards? This introduced practice also indicates Castillo’s lack of self-consciousness and interest in conventions. His main point is to come out with a good fourth solo exhibition and not to lose sight of it.

This passionate goal has been achieved in the exhibit. As a self-taught artist, he tends to experiment a lot, and along the way of making errors, he has created interesting forms. If he remembers well enough the wrong processes, they become integrated to his own way of making glassworks.

Such happy mistakes seem to have animated his work, "Dr. Seuss in his Blue Dancing Shoes" which is really a squared pepper-shaped blue glass. Its tip is stuck diagonally to the steel plate with an old iron tube that runs through the glass. At first glance, the piece looks like it is about to topple over. But Castillo was perhaps trying to create a sense of movement by creating an asymmetrically balanced sculpture. He says, this is "a toast to the child in all of us, may we see the world through a child’s eye again." It does seem that Castillo appreciated this work with a child’s eye to make him see the whimsy and the irony that resembles Dr. Seuss’ rhymes.

Like this sculpture, most of his abstract pieces in the exhibit are lopsided or are marked by uneven lines and silhouettes. Good sculptors are able to achieve an illusion of gravity-defying three-dimensional art that seems ready to tip over. When we eventually look closer, we realize the amount of work that made this possible. By carefully considering the sculpture’s construction and materials, as well as his own instinct in the process of its creation, the artist draws on the possibility of representation in different forms. Leaning sculptures are among these devices.

In "Nadulas si Kulas," he uses this device to make a statement about politicians (typified by a generic Filipino name, Kulas) trying to get away with a misdeed but finding themselves in bigger trouble. This is represented by a translucent green piece of glass that symbolizes the slipping politician’s leg. It is diagonally adjacent to a circular dark blue glass, resembling much like a damaged hockey puck. Castillo says this signifies the hole erring politicians seem to dig for themselves. The base is similarly uneven where the glass pieces are attached. From the way it looks, viewers may appreciate this sculpture as a commentary on the instability of politics and politicians. Yet its physical structure is stable and structurally balanced. This is the sort of illusion Castillo is good at achieving.

His more figurative glassworks have symmetrical lines. Castillo seems to have made them that way so we can focus more on the figures and what they signify. This is evident in a group of sculptures, "Hands in Prayer," which comprise three pairs of glass forms that resemble arms. The graduated size green transparent limbs are all shackled by black steel bands and chains but posed as in prayer. For Castillo, these represent his own anxieties over political instability particularly to families. Despite being fettered, the hands seem to suggest that members of the family who possess them are defiant and resolute in faith to overcome their situation.

Parts of the body in glassworks are vehicles for Castillo’s ideas and feelings. His wit and humor also shows through their translucence. One of these is a large lip that has been kiln-formed and cold-worked. It perpetually smiles as it sits on a mirror image outline of the lip made of stainless steel. Entitled "Alfred Neuman Oracle?" Castillo used as reference the fatuous grin of the Mad Magazine’s main character, Alfred Neuman. A humorous publication that is still a favorite in the United States, Mad gained popularity here perhaps from the 1960s. It has since lost readership and now can only be found in some of the magazine bins of Booksale. This dates Castillo but also makes us think of the more striking icons of our times. Few young people would know what he is talking about even if he used a popular medium as source.

In a mad, mad world, Castillo seems to be saying that we cannot just glaze them over.

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Comments are welcome at aplabrador@philstar.com.