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We Are Culebra: Polish your art of carving airplanes

Under the shade of the trees that he maintains in the front yard of his home, in an improvised and peculiar workshop, the craftsman Perfect Santiago Rosario unleashes his hands in carving wooden planes.

He always wanted to be a pilot, but the lack of financial resources to study the race was imposed as an obstacle. However, Santiago Rosario turned his disadvantage into an opportunity and six decades ago he made his way in the world of handicrafts until he polished his talent by recreating different airplane models. That was how he brought together his two passions.

“One day a teacher asked me what I wanted to study. I told her: ‘teacher, I want to be a pilot,’” said Santiago Rosario, the eldest of 10 siblings.

April 27, 2022. Culebra, PR Perfect Santiago Rosario is an artisan who is dedicated to making wooden airplanes in the municipality of Culebra, PR. Xavier Garcia / Photojournalist (XAVIER GARCIA)

But how did he learn his art? Santiago Rosario’s curiosity led him to discover his talent; he taught himself.

“When I came home from school I would knock the old man’s knives down and go to the bathroom to work. That’s how I started (to carve) and I continued little by little until today’s sun”, he highlighted.

Santiago Rosario’s desire to work as a pilot was so great that “I said to myself, ‘I’m going to dedicate myself to making them out of wood’”.

From a very young age, he worked in the municipality of Culebra and, in the afternoons or in his free time, he took the opportunity to improve his technique in carving these pieces.

In his carvings, Perfecto Santiago Rosario replicates the colors and details of the planes he sees landing at the airport on the island municipality of Culebra, PR.  Xavier Garcia / Photojournalist
In his carvings, Perfecto Santiago Rosario replicates the colors and details of the planes he sees landing at the airport on the island municipality of Culebra, PR. Xavier Garcia / Photojournalist (XAVIER GARCIA)

“I loved this since I was a boy, I love it and I will continue to love it. I tell my wife: ‘I think I’m going to die with knives in my hands’, because she fascinates me. It was so much the desire that I had to be a pilot that this stayed in my blood, “said the Culebrense.

Unlike some residences in Culebra, the 72-year-old man’s house does not have a view of the sea, but instead has the Benjamín Rivera Noriega Airport runway as its landscape, which is right in front of the entrance to his home.

The craftsman sees the arrival and departure of planes every day while working on handicrafts as a hobby, after retiring from the Government. His landscape inspires him to color and assign numbers to the little planes.

“I have no idea how many planes I have made since I started until today,” he said. However, he remembers the models that he has recreated. For example, the Cherokee, Cessna and the Britten-Norman Islander, the model of his favorite plane that lands every day at the airport in front of his house.

The fisherman also uses mahogany, cedar and wood that he finds on the shore of the beach to make his arts.

“I am not completely satisfied, because that was what I really wanted (to be a pilot), that was my dream (aviation), but satisfied in a certain way because I have no other alternative than to accept it. That’s life, we have to accept things as they come, as they happen because there is no other way”, he concluded.

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