MANILA, Philippines - Odette Alcantara?s terra-cotta bust burst into more than a hundred pieces when lightning struck and gutted to the ground the Heritage Art Center in Cubao in 1990.

Julie Lluch put them back together as though reconstructing a great jigsaw puzzle. The resurrected ?Portrait of Odette? is a testament to her belief in ?the strength and superiority, nay, indestructibility, of the lowly medium that is clay.?

It is now on display at the Main Gallery of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, together with other busts of the living and the departed Filipino greats?National Artist Nick Joaquin, Gilda Cordero-Fernando, Adrian Cristobal, Andres Cristobal Cruz, E. Aguilar ?Abe? Cruz, Purita Kalaw-Ledesma, Norma Liongoren, Nestor Mata and quite a few more.

All sculpted in terra-cotta and acrylic by Lluch, the pieces are proudly displayed in her retrospective, ?Yuta? (?earth? or ?clay? in Cebuano), ongoing at the CCP.

Pottery as pure art

The durability of Lluch?s medium has been proven time and time again. Workers laying the foundation for a factory in the Yellow River Valley east of Xi?an, China, came upon the remains of a neolithic settlement, the Banpo Village, which dates back to around 5,000 BCE. Archeologists they consulted later excavated extraordinarily beautiful clay pots painted with both abstract and nonabstract designs.

This author has visited the Banpo Village Museum with its terra-cotta display in the ?70s. It was described as ?the greatest single contribution to prehistoric archaeology in East Asia.?

Foundations of 45 circular houses built of mud and wood; an impressive array of 200 storage pots; a collection of pottery and tools; and a pottery-making center were found. From the impressive finds, it was discovered the people of the village practiced slash-and-burn agriculture, while at the same time engaging in the firing and painting of both utilitarian and decorative terra-cotta in communal kilns.

Not to be forgotten are the life-size terra-cotta figurines of Emperor Qin Shi Huang?s legion (circa 221 BCE), now listed by Unesco as one of the world?s cultural heritages.

Closer to home, it was recently reported that broken burial clay jars with human forms were seized from antiquity smugglers near a war-torn area in Mindanao, the broken anthropomorphic pottery of our ancestors that lived around the time of Christ.

?The pot-maker of old,? says Lluch, ?is an accomplice of nature? I look on pottery as pure art. Here the artist serves as instrument of the materials.?
Lluch declares she is endlessly impressed with the story from the Bible of how God fashioned man out of clay and blew into it the breath of life.

Act of rebellion

Julie Lluch?s retrospective breathes life to an amazing array of terra-cotta artworks that span 30 years of creative and artistic undertakings inspired by different stages of her personal, political and spiritual awakenings.

Her portraits of José Garcia Villa and Nick Joaquin together with Vincent Van Gogh and her family were her very first exhibit, titled ?If Joaquin, then Villa, or Busts,? at Sining Kamalig in 1977.

Her second exhibit at Galerie Bleue in 1979 had already an intimation of feminism which would mark the subsequent artworks she would create. It showcased representational terra-cotta pieces such as the biblical ?Susanna & the Elders? and nonrepresentational pieces of yonic hearts and phallic cacti.

Her act of rebellion on the gender issue in this period would reach a higher level in the tableaux series, or what she calls sculptural narratives, that would catapult the feminist artist in the pantheon of truly sensitive artists: ?Philippine Gothic,? ?Cutting Onions Always Makes Me Cry,? ?Still Life with Cezanne?s Apples on Kiri?s 6th Birthday,? ?Picasso y Yo,? ?Thinking Nude,? ?Piscean Deluge? and ?House on Fire.?

Except for ?Thinking Nude,? which was modeled by Tita de Quiros, all the women were represented by Lluch herself.

Julie Lluch?s creativity and imagination also found expression in her homage to artists, men of letters and art patrons. Occupying a big space at CCP main gallery retrospective are the above-mentioned busts of Nick Joaquin, ?Abe? Cruz, Adrian Cristobal, Andres Cristobal Cruz and Purita Kalaw-Ledesma.

Women of mystery

Her recent works highlighted the women even more. Nine life-size women of the Philippine Revolution of 1896 in various poses of prayer and supplication, which she collectively called ?Filipina 1898,? were exhibited at Art Center of SM Megamall. It was, she says, her offering to the Centennial of the Philippine Revolution.

Her Maranao women in their languid poses are outstanding in the soft appeal they create, considering that the clay material used has been hardened by heat.

Lluch, who grew up as a Christian in Iligan, northern Mindanao, says she had very little contact with the Maranaos even if Marawi, which is a Muslim quarter, stands close to Iligan. And for her, the Muslims, especially the women, are a ?mystery? which partly explains why her Maranao women are shrouded. The artist in her seeks to appreciate the differences in the culture that divides them.

The retrospective ?Yuta: Earthworks by Julie Lluch,? which was opened Oct. 9 by National Artist for Painting Benedicto Cabrera or Bencab, will be on exhibit until Dec. 31. A book on the three decades of Lluch?s life and career as a sculptor will be launched Nov. 27 at CCP.
The retrospective is a thanksgiving of sorts for Lluch, who has been ?blessed with trials and surprised by joy.?

The contributor is the executive director of the Maningning Miclat Art Foundation. The foundation is calling on young poets 28 years old and younger to prepare for the 2009 Maningning Miclat Trilingual Poetry Competition. Rules of the contest will soon be posted at www.maningning.com.

E-mail the author at acmiclat2008@yahoo.com or maningningfoundation@gmail.com