By alchemizing art and science, Ramon Orlina embodies the essence of glass itself: a reflective agent that opens up a space, conjuring the illusion of new dimensions. With the expansion of Museo Orlina, he casts his brilliance forward by continuing to shape light and form.

Photographed by Everywhere We Shoot

<h3>Lines and Numbers</h3>
Years stretch and leap when you&rsquo;re speaking with Ramon Orlina. One moment, he&rsquo;s deep in the 1970s; the next, he&rsquo;s recounting a recent full-circle moment. &ldquo;A European in Singapore bought my painting Madonna and Child back in 1975. Then, just three years ago, my daughter, who lives in Germany, found it at an auction there and bought it back. I originally sold it for 35,000 pesos. Now, it&rsquo;s worth 450,000.&rdquo;
 Considering Orlina&rsquo;s stature, that figure is modest. In recent auctions, bidding for his work has reached the millions. The conversation might seem like all head and no heart, but Orlina &mdash; wearing a muted blue suit and a matching paisley scarf &mdash; shares his numbers with the gleam of a child betting on himself. He understands that art, like any operation or economy, lives in the space between risk and reward.
 Drawn to comics like Jim M. Fernandez&rsquo; Zuma since childhood, the young Orlina envisioned a future in fine arts. However, the economic climate during that period deemed it unworthy. &ldquo;At first, I wanted to be an artist, but my dad said, &lsquo;Do you want to starve?&rsquo; So, I took up architecture because it also utilizes lines,&rdquo; he shares. Lines were his primary language to explore creativity. As a kid, he already had a flair for illustration. During his first year in college at the University of Santo Tomas, he was the only one in his class who got exempted from a freehand drawing course. As long as it involved lines, his path was met with little resistance.

<h3>Art of Glass</h3>
 Years after he graduated, things took a dark turn when the government declared Martial Law. The event, however, became a career catalyst. &ldquo;I was doing my architecture practice; suddenly, Martial Law happened. We had no jobs because nobody wanted to build a house at that time.&rdquo; Consequently, he explored other means to support himself, like painting on glass panes, a project that culminated in a one-man show at the Hyatt Hotel&rsquo;s The Gallery.
 He caught the eye of Victor A. Lim, president of Republic Glass, the country&rsquo;s largest glass manufacturer, who offered Orlina a scholarship to study glassmaking abroad. Orlina refused. He told him, &ldquo;Hindi na lang, papasukin mo nalang ako sa factory mo.&rdquo;
 They took a chance on him, and it paid off. The partnership would become pivotal to the artist&rsquo;s evolution. With the corporation&rsquo;s support, Orlina gained access to vital resources. But it was his sovereign spirit that drove him to master the mysterious inner workings of glass. What began as an affinity for the material soon evolved into something multidimensional. No longer confined to flat panes, Orlina devised new techniques and machines to tame the dense, unruly nature of cullets or recycled shards of broken glass. In his hands, their fractured edges transformed brokenness into wholeness.

In his book, Visions in Glass, he says, &ldquo;I first study the shape of each piece of glass for its natural shape &mdash; I have to view it from all eight angles, turning it on the sculptor&rsquo;s wheel. With glass, I am not only making sculptures in-the-round but sculpture inside the round...then when I am actually cutting the glass, I must play with the light. See the effects inside and react to whatever is discovered along the way. The creative process is unpredictable and spontaneous. The work keeps changing as I can change the course midway. If I see a flaw in the glass, I can cut it out, creating a window in the work, or leave it in as part of the design. The conception and execution are done together. The sculpture must look good on all sides... and the inside, too!&rdquo;
 As an architect, weighing outcomes and calculating precision had become second nature to Orlina &mdash; a mindset that served him well in a discipline that demands strict adherence to safety protocols. Despite his exacting standards, Orlina remains, above all, an artist &mdash; driven by instinct and curiosity. While the scientific rigor behind his creative process offers clear advantages, he insists, &ldquo;It&rsquo;s still all about feeling. The form of glass dictates what I do.&rdquo;&nbsp;
 His son, Michael, says, &ldquo;Just being with him every day, I always see that he gets excited about his projects. Sometimes my mom tells him to focus on one thing because he wants to do this and that. In the end, he&rsquo;s able to do them. He thinks of them, keeps them in his mind, and then sees when the time is right to execute. It&rsquo;s instinctive.&rdquo;

<h3>Transcendental Access</h3>
The 81-year-old has spent decades perfecting his craft, therefore, it&rsquo;s not surprising that he created Museo Orlina in Tagaytay to serve as a laboratory and time capsule. You&rsquo;ll see everything from the reconstructed Arcanum XIX: Paradise Gained (once installed at the foyer of Silahis Hotel) to the Pilita II centerpiece, an arched torso sculpture of a full-bosomed woman made of bronze.
 Through the museum, Orlina can realize his dream of creating a home for the arts, whether in the form of painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, or installation. A church and school for open minds, Museo Orlina stands as a sanctuary for his family and visitors. It&rsquo;s his way of sharing his legacy with the community. Since charity starts at home, he ensured to transfer years of experience by teaching his children, Michael and Anna Orlina, the art of glass. Both incorporate their dad&rsquo;s influence but are interpreting it in their own language.
 Michael says, &ldquo;He can bring out the forms of a body or animal or whatever through the cuts. I&rsquo;m similar to him; he doesn&rsquo;t sketch. I work directly with the material. My sister Anna&rsquo;s work is pre-planned, and her process can be painterly instead of reductive. As compared to our work, where you see how the shape evolved from one piece by taking out the material, Anna can do both by deducting and adding. She also uses different colors.&rdquo;
 The museum spans four levels of exhibition space, complemented by a sculpture garden with an amphitheater and a rooftop deck that offers sweeping views of Taal Lake. Each area marks a chapter in Orlina&rsquo;s life, making the location feel especially resonant. His family traces its roots to Taal, Batangas, and one could say it&rsquo;s not just a site, but the spiritual core of Orlina&rsquo;s creative force.

Like a modern alchemist, he elevates reality by crafting things that awaken the spirit to the possibilities of beauty and creation. The word Arcanum itself is a reference to ancient secrets and the spiritual realm. That&rsquo;s why it&rsquo;s scarcely a revelation that, aside from commercial pursuits, the name Orlina has become somewhat adjacent to places of worship such as the Greenbelt Chapel, where his Tabernacle Altar rests.
 His work invites reverence. During a tour in Prague and Bratislava in 1983, Orlina met Stanislav Libensky, a prominent Czech artist who stood up, exclaimed, and referred to him as Il Maestro (the singular master). Meanwhile, National Artist for Sculpture Napoleon V. Abueva confessed, &ldquo;I can do anything in sculpture with whatever material...except one &mdash; glass! For that, you have to go to Ramon Orlina.&rdquo;
 Praise for Orlina echoes far and wide, but at the end of the day, he chooses to be the one giving back and giving glory.

Glass Master: Ramon Orlina Reflects on His Art and Legacy

L'OFFICIEL PHILIPPINES MAY 2025 - Gabbi Garcia ₱600

Glass Master: Ramon Orlina Reflects on His Art and Legacy

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