SUGAR CANES AND SUMMER PLAINS
» 2010 May
There Are Places I Remember
• • • • The last week of April was a very significant seven days to say the least, a big preparation for a monumental weekend. On the national level, much was done in the way of preparing the country for the automated elections, and back at home, here I was preparing the talk I was to give to the Associated Negros Producers (ANP) with my team. It won’t be the first time for me to speak to these wonderful people, the first being with the Designer’s Guild in the early 2000’s. As with many returns, I was looking forward to it greatly.
Touchdown!
Negros is an island of plains and sugar canes to the immediate west of Cebu, and they share the same dialect as the Ilonggos. Quite a couple of the manufacturers I have come to know also exhibit in Cebu-X, though the size and volume of their output differs significantly from a more-industrial Cebu. What is the same, however, is the impeccable quality of their craftsmanship.
• • • • In a sense it reminds me of Cebu when we were just getting on our feet. It was a story of baby steps and learning curves, actually, right down to the very basic things: What is operations management and How does Design management work?
Which was why, when we visited Bacolod for the first time as the Guild, it was a familiar scene. It was not unlike being pulled out of reality and stuck back into a different time flow—like the films involving timetravel. There was a time when Cebu—now a city slowly expanding—was as bucolic and as laid-back, and in a way I miss those times: playing with neighborhood kids in the stream that ran near our area. I also remember a time when I was a young bride, and Gus and I visited his hometown of Barotac Nuevo, Iloilo. Sugar cane fields as far as the eye could see, all around.
The Associated Negros Producers [»] is a coalition of Bacolod-based manufacturers whose products encompass many sectors: food, furniture, home accessories, fashion, art, and housewares. Some are startups—don’t be fooled— and many of them supply to prominent stores and retailers globally.
• • • • It never really matters where I go, but the degree of dedication and determination for excellence that greets me everywhere craftspeople are astonishes me. It inspires me to do the best I can as well, and to share what I know in the hope that a holistic need to create things for the better flourishes.
It’s been a while, but I enjoyed explaining my productivity techniques among other things!
K had her shorter presentation after me.
Thank you for a great job everyone!
In my interviews with the various designers and manufacturers (research for my part in the ANP’s forecoming project), I had the vertigo-inducing feeling of talking to my past self; the self who started Design Ventures [»] with her husband, who made many mistakes, who learned from them.
I believe that life is a circle. Anything that goes around, comes around, and facing these other designers, I am humbled and reminded: you learned from someone too. In that way, what one acquires doesn’t die, but is passed on to a generation that can perhaps make better use of these techniques and information, for a lighter world. I must admit though, that it has been a while since I spoke in front of a large crowd, and I was a little nervous!
Such imagination and eagerness from the students of the institute!
It was an adventure getting to the school (our car broke down and we had to hail a streetcar from a highway), but it only added to the flavour of the event!
• • • • The last day of our Bacolod trip saw us meeting up with my husband Gus, and his brother Ted, both who came from a visit to their hometown. Ted was on vacation from Australia where he is based, and wanted to look at the family plot’s development. In those few hours we managed to enjoy the quaint little town, and even discovered some of its secrets: The ‘big’ dreamer, Raymond Legazpi [»].
I never knew about this lady behind me, until K pointed it out! Lucky woman… The thought of how her whole ensemble must cost… blows away the accountant in me!
We came across Legazpi’s art when we were snacking at the café-cum-gallery Café Uma [»], which was beside our hotel. Our hosts, who knew the artist, suggested we paid him a call, insisting that it was no trouble at all and that they too had been meaning to visit.
His house was a lovely, industrial space that exhibited his many pieces. Because his style is flambouyant and colourful (the story is in the colour actually), they made perfect wall decor, and were like vibrant windows to another world: A painting of a puppet Bruce Lee yells silent welcome overhead from the entrada; a woman in a colorful lorry-print sundress peeks from behind the dining table; a gigantic saint [»] sleeps on the wall of the upper deck.
JOEL! is an example of Legazpi’s entertaining figures. (via Ano Naman Ini [»])
His works exude a very Filipino flavour, and many scenes will be nostalgic. His cheerful women in sundresses in particular, fill me with a kind of happy recall of a more laid-back, provincial warmth (in my case, Cebu). I remember my mother in her duster, printed and colourful, ushering me and my siblings off to sleep after lunch. But while the soft and playful textures lend an ease to the feel of his art, Legazpi imbues them with details that are actually very provocative.
Blue House Tall Buildings evokes to me the provincial dreams of a big city, the need to be away despite being waist-deep in farm life.
Water Rising won Legazpi a Judge’s Choice award for subtly, but very firmly illustrating the effects of global warming; the lady, her duster print clogged with cars, covers her eyes in horror as the ‘water rises’.
• • • • I had the pleasure of meeting the wife of yet another local artist whose work adorns the showroom. Marcelo “Jecky” Alano’s [»] inconic and endearing “Inday” was a gift to me from a visiting friend. From the start her unusual proportions, her wistful expression, and the texture of the terracotta clay she was made from endeared her to me, and it made perfect sense to have her grace the Congo Weave commode below the Bugsay (oars) walls:
INDAY suspended on a wooden scaffolding beneath my bugsay; as if she were swimming in some deep nether and raising a face to break the water!
Close up of Inday’s wistful, dreamy look. I love how light she looks like, while her proportions indicate otherwise!
While I couldn’t meet Mr. Alano per se—chalk it up to the very limited time we had—I brought home another Inday in terracotta as well; this time Inday as reclining leisurely as if morning had just broken.
I think I will share my living room space at home with her. That is where I like to relax after a long day—Gus putting on some music, the smells of something simmering in the kitchen that I’ll attend to in a bit—and I’m sure Inday will enjoy the company of my friends too!
Photos by K Batiquin » • Miguel Batiquin
