The Basque sculptors (profusion of shaggy white hair, hard hands and calm smiles) paid tribute to their peer, Néstor Basterretxea, in the symbolically ideal place: at the foot of Lurraren Alde, their last monumental piece, located in the Meatzalde Goikoa park , in La Arboleda. … The artist, whose one hundred years of birth will be celebrated tomorrow, also had a special connection with this mining enclave because he liked it and valued it for its fundamental importance for Bizkaia and Euskadi. Because without iron there would have been no industry, no commerce, no banking, no nothing. The country is what it is because what happened happened there.
The event started at 12:30 p.m. this Sunday. He did it under a sky covered by black clouds, a soft breeze that anticipated a storm and the rustling of the treetops. This constant threat to an outdoor event, in a rural and unguarded environment, added drama, tension and vitality to the event, which in the end took place without incident. On the green fields were, in black, the people of the La Arboleda choir; in white the dancer Diego Duran; and there were also groups of walkers, art fans, artists and neighbors who listened and applauded.
Surely one of the most emotional moments was when about twenty sculptors deposited, as an offering, different pieces that they had made in homage to Néstor (that’s how they referred to him, by his first name). They left them at the feet of Lurraren Alde, who with those powerful and rusty plates arranged upwards seemed to send signals from above. In this way, this group wanted to thank Basterretxea for “the love he showed to La Arboleda”, the way in which he “encouraged us all with this park” (in relation to the sculptural space that is scattered in the area) and for the «creation of the Association of Sculptors». Guillermo Olmo, president of that group, Eskuahaldunak, said it. A piece was also given to one of the honoree’s sons, Jonan.
Mitxel Ruiz, president of the Biscayan sculptors, recalled the close nature of Basterretxea, with whom “all of us have had contact”, and also a detail that in some way shows the way he saw his discipline. Ruiz said that on one occasion the renowned artist designed an award made up of three different parts, a pair of columns and some wings on top. “He told us that the columns represented effort and discipline, and the wings represented imagination, magic.”
At the tribute there were aurresku, bertsos, poems and music. It is part of the series of activities that have been organized in recent days to remember Néstor Basterretxea on the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of his birth, which falls this Monday.
