Abdul Mari Asia Imao: Moro National Artist

Original photo by the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Sepia and background depth added by N. Sharief (c) 2015

(These past few months, I had busied myself tracking some lost, obscure articles and a few desperate fictions I'd written locally some eight to twelve years back. I'm posting the following feature on our only National Artist Abdul Mari Imao because it's relevant to this blog. It was first published in the Manila Times in 2007, but I found it (to my delight) re-posted on the internet by the Zamboanga Journal. I had the rare opportunity to interview Imao when he could still walk without using a crutch. His son, Juan Sajid, had told me that, to date, he still felt that the following piece is the most intimate, if concise, portrayal of his dad. When most of our cultural traits are dying without getting noticed—never mind being mourned—the late Abdul Mari Imao (1936-2014) had been pushing the limit of our arts and constantly experimenting with and giving them a new lease of life.)

There is no escaping destiny. “The carp and the pot will eventually cross path” as one Iranun proverb puts it. Yet the self-discovery of Abdul Mari, famed Moro National Artist, did not take a circuitous route. From the day he was born on January 14, 1936 on the seaside of Tulay in the island of Pata, Jolo, where his clan had lived as fisher folks for centuries, nature had endowed the future Filipino sculpture with a keen eye for details.

Abdul Mari was nine years old when he realized he was to be an artist without having any word for it yet. World War II was raging then but on this pendant of an island, everything—sights, sounds and smell—was magnified many times over to accommodate the senses of the lanky sun-burned boy.

He could not pass by anything without having to muse on it. Abdul Mari found that many of nature’s beauty are fleeting. There must be some capsules in which to preserve this feeling. “Once, I caught a fish I was so fascinated about—its shape, scales, pigment and its glossy snout. I brought it home but as soon as the aroma of cooking drifting from the kitchen skewered my nostrils, fat tears ran down my cheek. I couldn’t bring myself to eat it, and Mother had to comfort me all night long.”

Abdul Mari’s first attempt at serious work was etching trophies for the swimmers in Sulu with the shape of a swimmer atop a pedestal (Jolo swimmers were the best bet the country had for the Olympics at the time). His folks admired his talent but marooned on this small island, his future seemed bleak.

Deus ex machina

It was in 1956 when he finished high school that the LST, a floating exhibit of the Philippine Navy called on anchor. The enthusiasm of the lad on seeing the works of the likes of Fernando Amorsolo, Botong Francisco and Vicente Manansala did not escape the notice of one Tomas Bernardo, in-charge of the exhibit. He asked Abdul Mari if he does painting, and the boy was only too eager to show him his works.

When Bernardo took Abdul Mari to Manila, Abdul Mari made his first move by writing to President Ramon Magsaysay to seek a study grant. With the help of Jose Ma. Ansaldo, aide to the President, Abdul Mari entered college at the University of the Philippines as a pensionado of the Commission on National Integration.

He was popular in campus for he invariably won competitions in painting. Some of his prize-winning works as a student are now in private collections. Some found its way into the National Museum and at the Zobel collection of the Ateneo Museum.

His style was still evolving and he was fortunate to meet professors Guillermo Tolentino, Napoleon Abueva, Anastacio Caedo and Ambrosio Morales who guided him and encouraged him to take up sculpture. Tolentino (who did the Bonifacio Monument in Caloocan City) confirmed to Abdul Mari he was bound to do sculptures.

So Abdul Mari took the decision and in 1959 he graduated with a degree in Bachelor of Fine Arts, Major in Sculpture. Looking back, Abdul Mari said everything had build up to his becoming a sculptor. In his native home, there were just too many bolos, knives and chisels lying around their dockyards to tempt him.

Abdul Mari came from a long line of generations of boat makers called Tokang that dates back to the pre-colonial era. His ancestors supplied the Moro warriors their sturdy and swift prahus and joanggas for raiding forts and villages of the north in the continuing war with the Spaniards. It was only in the last quarter of the 19th century when the Spanish got faster steamboats from Hong Kong that martial boat building waned among the Moro.

Kodachrome America

Abdul Mari’s zest to expand his horizon knew no bounds. Right after graduating he qualified for the top 20 slots of the Smith-Mundt and Fulbright Scholarship.

So in 1960 Abdul Mari went to the University of Kansas in Rhode Island School of Design where in the following year he finished his M.A. in Sculpture, major in Metal Brass Casting. While in the US, in 1962, Abdul Mari won yet another scholarship at the Rhode Island School of Design where he spent a year taking up Creative Sculptor in Ceramic Technology.

To extend his skills, Abdul Mari gained a Columbia Faculty Scholarship in the tuition of Dr. Lloyd Burden, who developed the first color processing for Kodak, he studied photography and documentary motion picture. While in Columbia he also met the physicist Edwin Herbert Land, who in 1947 invented the Polaroid camera.

Edwin H. Land testing his invention. Photo by Polaroid Corporation

Why film making?

Abdul Mari threw back his head and laughed.“You see, everything goes back to my childhood. In my hometown the only movie house was owned by a kin, so I was allowed to peddle sodas, peanuts and whatnots inside the theater. It must have been the countless hours of watching movies in-between peddling when I don’t stare at the star-holes of the dilapidated movie house that developed my sense for motion pictures.”

What did he do in the States when he was not studying? Abdul Mari gave a wink.“I’m a grapho-analyst and I moonlighted as an amateur palmist. I earned some $1800 doing palmistry. I didn’t leave America though without making my mark on this great country. One of my sculptures, ‘South Pacific Trail’ made in walnut wood in concave and convex dugouts was exhibited at the museums.”

To round up his stint abroad, in 1963 the New York Museum of Modern Art granted him a $12,000 travel grant to Europe that allowed him a leisure tour of the museums of the Old World. He would have liked to make a side trip to Islamic countries to examine the Topkapi mosques and the priceless Arabic calligraphies in their museums but his fund was exhausted and he had to travel back to the Philippines.

Full circle

Abdul Mari’s travel opened his eyes to the world, but it also made him realize how woefully ignorant he was on his native culture. As soon as he came back in 1963, Abdul Mari wasted no time and immersed himself in Moro culture and arts. Abdul Mari traveled to Lanao del Sur, Maguindanao, and other enclaves like the T’bolis to observe first-hand how things were.

He conferred with local folks and taught the artisans the modern brass casting technique.Butsoon Imao had to earn a living so he went into full time sculpture. In mid-1960s he was already acknowledged as one of the forerunners in sculpting in the Philippines. Even then, Abdul Mari found time for research. In 1965 he did ‘A Documentary Photographic Survey of the Sulu People’ for Ateneo. The following year he did a “Study on Sulu Art” under a CNI Research Grant. Later, he did “A Study of Sulu Tribes” with the UE Research Center for Sciences, Humanities and Cultural Research.

Gift of recognition

The year 1968 was a turning point when Abdul Mari became one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Philippines. “But the best trophy I got that year is a gift from Allah in the shape of my first born, Abdul Mari Imao, Jr. As a matter of edict from my Arab forefathers, everyone in the clan has to be named Abdul. Although I have male children, four in all, I was later to break tradition and had to find other names for the rest of the kids.”

Abdul Mari is married to art dealer Grace de Leon of Santo Tomas, Pampanga. In June, 2005, Malacañang awarded the Presidential Medal of Merit to Dr. Abdul Mari Asia Imao, Sr. for his achievements in the field of Visual Arts. He is one of only two Philippine sculptors who had received the prestigious award, the other being his mentor National Artist Napoleon Abueva.

Sculpture is demanding as an art field which makes painting seem like a dainty work. Compare the hands of a painter and a sculptor and you will know why. A sculpture has no room for errors.

Unlike 3D modeling in computers where you can always resort to a backup, you cannot undo a mistake in the cruel world of sculpting. The imperfection would always show in the finished work. Yet at the ripe age of 70, Abdul Mari is very much active. In 2004, he did the bust on Nicolasa P. Dayrit, a Filipina beauty who nursed the revolutionaries during the Filipino-American war some sixty-one years ago.

Classic answer

Abdul Mari Imao is a breath of fresh air in a world shimmering with mistrust and suspicions. It took three nominations for him to gain the coveted National Artist Award but he was not the least bit upset.

“It only validates our fortitude as a people, the best thesis yet that the Moro population in this country can knock in more to our gross domestic product given equal opportunity.” When Abdul Mari was asked which among his works he considers his best, his riposte was classic enough: it has yet to be done in the future.

At 70 Abdul Mari is looking forward to even finer achievements. His fingers may not be carved for the tactile keypad of a T92 Nokia, but they sure are the fine hands that molded the contour of priceless works that hark back to the days of his Tokang ancestors.