She stood over "Haliya," a reclining figure she had sculpted over a couple of decades ago, and whose now enlarged edition – naked, supine, immodestly pregnant – had just been installed on foreign ground.
Agnes lit up incense sticks in a bundle in her hand. The aromatic smoke quickly wafted up in swirls and wisps around the sculptor’s own standing figure. None of it could waft down to "Haliya," but no matter. The moon goddess would understand. The rite her creator was performing bespoke gratitude and further bonding, here in this foreign land where they had both been invited to take part in a prestigious international exhibit.
Starting on May 27, or this weekend, the bustling seaport hosts the Busan Biennale, comprised of a sea art competition, a contemporary art exhibition, and the sculpture special project involving 20 selected sculptors from nearly as many countries.
Weeks in advance of the Biennale opening, the artists were invited to complete their works on site at Naru Park, or at least to supervise or help in the installation.
The original "Haliya" sculpture was live-cast in plaster from the artist’s own body, way back in 1983 when she was carrying a child – who would become the celebrated jazz singer and musician Mishka Adams, presently doing her thing in London.
Titled "Haliya Bathing," the life-sized sculpture became part of Agnes Arellano’s 18-piece "Temple to the Moon Goddess" for the "Six Artists" exhibit curated by Roberto Chabet at the Museum of Philippine Art.
After that exhibit, the plaster-cast goddess of Bicol mythology was installed at the artist’s Blue Ridge residence, and there continues to lie on a bed of gravel that welcomes guests to the back garden leading to the artist’s studio.
Countless times have shuffling feet avoided stumbling over the pregnant "Haliya," on nearly daily or nightly occasions when musicians like the members of the Pinikpikan band take over the backyard for a practice session or a party gig.
Countless times has "Haliya" been serenaded on full-moon nights, when the rationale for a tribal get-together has simply been that golden orb in the sky that she contemplates, while on her back, from her sacred spot.
But what a transformation "Haliya" undertook for the Busan show. When the Biennale organizers selected her for the Special Sculpture Project, Agnes Arellano submitted one cast in marble, at the originally life-sized 1.5 meters in length. Using this as their model, Korean carvers worked on a large slab of granite to come up with a magnified version.
Agnes recounts of the marvel of first laying eyes on the "transported" "Haliya" at Naru Park:
"Awesome to me was that my live-cast ‘Haliya’ was transformed into a granite goddess four meters long, hand-carved by Korean carvers – a feeling I guess that could be akin to having one’s first Carrara? But seeing it already done!
"They carved ‘Haliya’ from the maquette that I sent. Nakakatawa nga, kasi life-size – actual work ko ’yun – tapos ang tawag nila, maquette, heh-heh. (Funny that they called the actual life-sized work a maquette.)
"Granite is abundant in Busan. It’s a very, very hard stone to carve. That piece of granite started out weighing 15 tons – napakanta tuloy ako (I couldn’t help but break out into that song). But it was whittled down to 10 tons. It’s as white – a bit grayish white – as granite can ever be."
Of course a crane had to be used for the portage and final installation. "Haliya" the moon goddess had the continuing good fortune to have been placed at an area close to the river where a fountain spouts water from the very middle of that river. At a certain angle, a viewer is privileged with the illusion that the jet of water rising 20 to 30 feet up in the air spouts from the sculpture’s protuberance of a belly.
"Parang naging sperm whale, kaya lang nakahiga, heh-heh (looking like a sperm whale, except on her back)," Agnes chortles.
The enlarged sculpture was installed on a shallow pit that will eventually be filled with gravel, and maybe even have a surrounding bed of flowers. For certain will it be one of the outstanding pieces among all the outdoor works submitted by the invited foreign artists – from Japan, Australia, Spain, Israel, among others.
A signal honor it is for Agnes Arellano, who only last weekend got together with immediate members of her first family to commemorate an act of tragedy. On May 14, 1981, the Arellano residence on then Tuberias St. in San Juan was consumed by fire. Agnes’ older sister Citas and their parents perished in that tragedy.
From the ashes of the Arellano compound facing the Ejercito manse on Tuberias eventually rose Pinaglabanan Galleries, which became a dynamic venue and showcase for cutting-edge art in the 1980s. On those grounds were first exhibited Agnes’ sculptural works, which always compose a distinctive lot, given their markedly fresh, bold and brave, occasionally irreverent concepts that celebrate womanhood.
A hallmark of that art is "Haliya," who will now bathe under the moon over Busan, even as she has grown larger and harder, the better to glow as Mother Earth herself, with water seeming to rise from her precious belly.
Mabuhay si Haliya! Mabuhay si Agnes!