Formative Years


Me two months old.

Each of our lives is a mosaic of interconnecting pieces. What went before, what will come today, are at once and always entwined. We can influence the mosaic our experiences create. Our contributions today to this mosaic can lighten it's shade or heighten it's contrasts to make a beautiful design. Every moment is part of the whole that we are creating.

I can trace the first stirrings of creativity to my childhood when I used to make Nativity scenes called belen every Christmas. My version of Christ's crèche was a grotto made of wires and plaster of Paris. In building my set, I used moss and small plants to simulate vegetation. It became more elaborate as years passed.

Me at 4 years old My parents in their prime

When I was about 15 years old, my interest shifted from philately to painting. My mother sent me for private lessons but I was not fond of tutors even then. Instead, I experimented on my own. Painting was an instant passion that I resolved to be an artist. With a large extended family like ours, I found painting as an orderly exit from domestic chaos.

To draw and paint was my way of being out of the way.

My father possessed a large share of the creativity in the family. He had gifted hands. From the old days, he had a mercurial temperament and his restless eyes frequently lighted on divergent fields. When I was in my mother's womb, my father's consuming interest was making Spanish style wrought iron furniture. My father was also a tasteful cook, a proficient mechanic, a gun loving sharpshooter, a nifty dresser and a hard drinker. He was the quintessence of Latin macho.

My mother was an amiable, generous and religious person. It was through her that I became familiar with plants. When I was little, I always tagged along when she went shopping for house plants. Green was the family color to the extent that my mother had her way or else it was red as my father's temper. Our cars and trucks were all painted red. However, inside the house, green was the color.

By the time I finished secondary schooling at San Beda College, I had produced enough water color and oil paintings to join a three-man show. We called the exhibition "Ani" meaning harvest. I got a gold medal for this. My education at San Beda was interrupted for one academic year when I went to Baguio Military Institute. Brief it may be, my stay at BMI laid the foundation for my sense of order, precision and neatness transcending to my work.

From there, I enrolled at the University of Santo Tomas, the oldest educational institution in the Philippines, for architectural studies. I left after one academic year because I thought three more years of schooling would be a waste of time. I didn't care for a degree but was anxious to secure my independence and earn my livelihood. I convinced my parents to enroll me instead at the Philippine School of Interior Design (PSID).

Award-winning wallpaper design The newly opened PSID offered a general one year course in interior design. What mattered in this school was the faculty composed of active professionals. In the university, my mentors were non practicing interior designers. To supplement my classes, I served as an apprentice with Cancio Calma Associates housed in the same building as the school.

In 1967, I represented PSID in the National Wall Covering Design Contest sponsored by the now defunct Interior Designers Association of the Philippines and won second prize. That same year, I again represented PSID in the Second National Student Designers Competition organized by the Philippine Institute of Interior Designers (PIID) and garnered the first prize. I beat the entries of the more established schools. Upon completing my course in 1968, PIID awarded me a partial study grant to join the PSID Design Study Tour. From all the excitement that came with my first foreign outing, there arose in me a firm and total commitment to the field of designing.

Me in my cubicle at Dale Keller's office In the years before moving to Hong Kong, I worked as a design consultant for the pre finished plywood products of Sarmiento Industries. I also had a weekly interior design column for the daily Manila Chronicle. My last year in Manila was spent as a fashion designer. I arrived in Hong Kong in the fall of 1972 and have been based here since then.* It is here where I am finding the Way.

* The author is now based in Manila.


FROM THE READERS
"Thank you so much for sharing your talents and inspirations so graciously and generously. It opens windows to better
understand the ways to live a beautiful life. You have bared your soul and done a great service."
Marilyn Ramsden, Unionville, ON. Canada; March'99
[Book Cover] | [Contents] | [Foreword] | [Introduction] | [Formative Years] | [Space to Start] | [Tools of Trade] [Concept Renderings] | [First Break] | [East by Southeast] | [Working Manner] | [Space Transitions] | [Seasons' Home] | [Sunsets' Place] | [Pied á Terre] | [Something Different] | [Restrained Elegance] | [Dream Zones] | [In Comfort] [Prestige Investments] | [Asian Gallery] | [Lighting] | [Objects] | [Flowers] | [Afterword] | [Professional Profile] [Personal Profile] | [Sign Guestbook] | [Guestbook]
Way of Design © 1996-2007, Jun Alday. All Rights Reserved.




































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