He always knew effort and perseverance would get him somewhere, he just never realized it would get him this far.
Carl Rama was already into art and barely in high school when he first saw someone twisting a piece of rope into jewelry. His first thought was, ‘If you can create something like that, why not earn money with it?’’
Putting down his sketchbooks, he took to the streets to look for materials he could fashion into something worth selling. He picked up rocks, strings, pieces of barbed wire, among other things, and did his utmost best to work with it.
His first few crafts weren’t as remarkable as he had imagined but he was proud of them, nonetheless. His crafts, to him, were his and his family’s ride towards a financially better life. He only hoped they had thought the same way.
“My parents, even though they saw me working hard on those, threw away the necklaces and other crafts I had made. They told me that it was garbage and that my efforts were useless,” he recalled in Cebuano. “Every time I made a new one, they’d just throw it away.”
Dejected, Carl persevered with his art and hid it until he made enough to host a spot in the streets of Fuente, Cebu. Laying out his blanket beside the other craftsmen, he sat on the streets in front of the little he had on display. Unknowingly leaving himself open for ridicule.
“It was pitiful. I was laughed at a lot when I first started out and I felt too embarrassed to come back and sell again,” he said with a fond smile, going on to express his gratitude to the few artists who stood by him and encouraged him to keep displaying his crafts.
“After all,” he added in Cebuano, “you can’t be an artist if no one appreciates your work.”
Carl’s first financial success came after his display in Moalboal, Cebu. Before leaving, he told his parents he would fix their house upon his return. They scoffed in reply. And he came back with enough money to start construction and pay for his tuition fees.
From then on, he was travelling to Boracay, Siargao, and Ilo-ilo, to name a few, and making P80,000 per trip. In school, his quick hands would be twisting and shaping raw materials into crafts while listening to his professors’ lectures.
“Being a student doesn’t matter in art. If you have the hands and the brains, then you can create what you want to create.”
School, internship, travel, and nightly displays on the streets of Fuente doesn’t seem to be enough of a juggle for Carl Rama. In his travels and weekends, he teaches street children the art of crafts making and playing musical instruments such as the flute and the Djembe, an African drum.
His workshops are his way of giving back and, he says, of appreciation to the people who supported him and to the God of his faith. To Carl Rama, his faith and his God have all but carried him to where he is today. Behind a laid out black blanket, dotted with preserved animal bones, anklets with tribal patterns and intricately designed pendants, in the streets of Fuente, Cebu.
With a dream of eventually expanding his business and earning P38K – P50K a month just through selling on the streets of Fuente, now 19-year old breadwinner Carl Rama is on his way to finishing a business track in Senior High School.
“Success really is in hard work. People don’t buy from you all the time,” he said in Cebuano, “sometimes you’re lucky and sometimes you’re not but that’s how life is. And, at the end of the day, it’s all about not giving up.”