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Sunday, February 22, 2004
Carolyn Gambito gem of an artist
By Aurelia L. Castro, USJ-R Intern
Helen of Troy made a hit late last month. Kudos to the director Al Evangelio, to the cast of 300; and to the props and costume designer Carolyn Gambito!
Praise to whom? Carolyn is a fourth year Fine Arts Painting student from the University of San Carlos (USC).
The artist
A simple, timid gal with a winsome smile, Carol is an artist by heart and by profession. She’s a freelance in painting portraiture, hand painting, photography, props making, mural painting and costume designing.
An artist on the Arcy Gayatin Mural Painting (2002) and Harley Ruedas Hand Painting (2003) shows, Carol has earned credit and trust from fellow artists in campus. She’s now the president of USC's painting organization called Pintal.
She bagged the grand prize during the USC Cafa Exhibit 2003 with her Pygmalion and Galatea.
Why painting?
Painting could be as old as poetry. Yet even up to today’s generation, it is seen as a hobby and chosen as a career.
“I just love it. It makes me feel alive. I enjoy playing and experimenting with colors…” Carol said.
“Sap green and burnt sienna – can’t live without ‘em!” Carol wrote in her scrapbook - a declaration of her delight for colors which evoke emotions and life in her paintings.
She uses acrylic oil, watercolor, charcoal and whatever she could put her hands on for her still life, paintings of everyday scenes, landscapes and portraits.
Her love of painting and drawing is something that she has grown up with. Carol and her pencil and paper were already inseparable from a tender age. She could hardly remember exactly when it all started because “it feels like painting is already a part of my system.”
A glance at her childhood days provides a glimpse of the future: “She (Carol) seldom played with us. While I and her other sisters were playing, Carol was out in one corner drawing!” says Carol’s cousin, Donna Gubaton.
Carol must have also been a source of irritation to her elementary and high school teachers at St. Theresa’s College. “Her teachers always had to scold her because even during classes, Carol would have her way in drawing her caricatures,” Carol’s older sister Rose recalled.
Nobody figured out if it was because she was just bored in class, or if it was simply because her artistic drive was too strong to be resisted and denied even at her tender age.
Carol at work
Carol worked with Bastiene Noel Dedel and Kipong Libres, both award-winning artists and alumni of USC, and with some other students and out-of-school youth artists for her first major costume-designing project in Helen of Troy.
How is it working with Carol? Dedel and Libres both agree it’s been tense, fun and a good learning experience for them to work with their friend. “She always has something to do…is almost always excited and seldom takes a break,” Dedel said.
“We make a good team because Bastiene and I are kind of loose while Carol is a workaholic, focused, and very dedicated. She wouldn’t stop until a project is done. So somehow we furnish a balance,” Libres added.
Carol, who sports long black hair, is a down-to-earth artist, a thinker and a poet. Her humility is felt in her hesitance to make her list of awards known. One has to give her enough reason for her to bare herself.
(February 22, 2004 issue)
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