JOSE "PACO" SANTOS
In the early '70s, just out of college and jobless, he started to draw and began writing poetry. He took up ceramics and welding in summer courses under the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in Lingayen. Paco also found interest in architecture and began to read extensively. With the sea just one kilometer from where he lived, he discovered and fell in love with nature. These episodes from his early teenage life would later form the nucleus of his artistic and spiritual journey. Paco joined the government service for 20 years, initially working as an illustrator and later as a project analyst, before resigning in 1993. Two years later, he entered the Art Association of the Philippines (AAP) Annual Art Competition, where his entry, "I Once Saw This," a painted metal sculpture, placed third. In 1999, his work "Two Generations of Moon Watchers" won second place.
From thereon, he joined exhibits, group shows, art lectures, and poetry readings. At present, he does interior and landscape designing. In one resort he designed years ago, he created and integrated ARTMETIC, a collection of works made from discarded scrap metals into the landscape. One piece, "Moons Over City," is a representative example of his large-scale sculpture, which he based on his poem "Moon, Moon You're Not Just There." In 2011, he launched his campus' Eco-Art Tour, where he exhibited eighteen large-scale sculptures with an environmental theme across schools, universities, and colleges in the province, supported by audio-visual presentations and forums. The provincial government of Pangasinan sponsored the project.
Lately, he started a new series of bigger works and dimensions entitled "Transcend," a collection of geometric forms with a spiritual mix in iron. He never dreamed he would go this far in art and in life. "Creating has changed me as a person as well as an artist. I see the world now in a new light; sensibly and intimately."
Born Jose Santos in 1948 in Lingayen, Pangasinan, Paco is the second of six children of Raymundo and Amparo Santos.
In his childhood, he collected colorful species of ladybugs and dragonflies. His kites flew in the skies of a public park near where they resided.
He was schooled at Saint Columban's Academy, a private school in Lingayen run by Irish nuns, from grade one to high school. Paco attended the University of Pangasinan, where he received his Bachelor of Science in Commerce degree in 1969. He earned his Master's Degree in Development Management (MDM) at the Pangasinan State University-Open University Systems (PSU-OUS) in 2011.
Paco published his collections of poems "Ice Box Summer" in 1970, "Hanging Imaginations," and "Lakbay" in 2011.
