She wanted to pursue fine arts in college but her parents could not afford to send her to any city school so she had to settle for another course offered by the University of Eastern Philippines, the local university where she grew up. Despite this, she managed to graduate cum laude for Bachelor of Science in Business Administration major in marketing. She went to the University of Santo Tomas Graduate School in the hope of earning a master's degree in advertising. She only finished her academic requirements and took a full time job as a research assistant for the Department of Trade and Industry.
Before ordinary life without art almost buried her into oblivion she learned of the existence of Philippine Animation Studio, Inc. She dropped her research job, went for a drawing test and passed. She started off as an in-betweener then became a clean-up artist and finally landed the most coveted position - animator.
Seven years later she migrated to Belgium to join her groom and to build a family together. She did a short stint of advertising work for Virtual Image in Ghent. While in the same company she had the chance to get to know and use graphic software programs like painter, photoshop, 3D max, US animation, poser and other smaller programs. She was also able to compile some personal artworks in the process of studying these programs. Presently she works in SGS Technical Documentation Services which is also based in Ghent, as a Technical Illustrator.
Carmen Calonge-Moerman cannot boast of any exhibit and least of all any famous "obra", for her art has long been relegated to the drawer labeled "hobby". But her frustration rooted from going to drawing classes in Ghent where she discovered that her talent was obviously above the level of her classmates, she decided it was time to give her art a chance to grow and be seen.
Maturity has done Carmen good, for now she has become more confident in sharing her most intimate thoughts through her works. When before she pointedly avoided revealing truths of herself through her paintings, now she has broken free from her shell and is finally spreading her wings to show her true colors.
1998-painter
