Nice, huh? What you think? It’s a bit too photographic-looking and not stylized enough like the Byzantine mosaics I admire, but I like it nevertheless.

This one was done by an Ilonggo artist, RJ Juarez.  He lives in Barotac Nuevo and  finished a business course at UP Visayas. He does this type of work for a living and promotes it out of a  small store space at the upperground floor of SM City Iloilo. (I wonder how he’s coping after Typhoon Frank flooded the shopping center?)  

The huge mosaic above is the image of St. Anthony de Padua, patron saint of the Barotac Nuevo parish church.  It was  donated by the artist to his hometown. Pretty generous of him! What makes this and all his other works noteworthy is that he sources his materials from trash and construction scraps. That must be very time-consuming and difficult. Smelly. Dirty. If you’re just rummaging through garbage bags for the materials you need, how can you be sure you’ll have enough for your work? My hat goes off to him! He is living the green ideal.  I hope he keeps it up.