103. 10 ARTS AND CRAFTS OF PAMPANGA

In the late 19^th and early 20^th century, a design trend swept Europe and America called “Arts and Crafts”, a movement that promoted handcraftsmanship over industrial mass production. But long before that, Kapampangans have been creating all kinds of objects with their hands, with utilitarian and decorative functions, for their homes, work, leisure and religion.

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1. KURAN AT PASU (Sto. Tomas)

Utilitarian and decorative clay vessels and containers were among the earliest crafted objects made by man. All sorts of earthenware—including the ubiquitous  ‘kuran’ (round-bottom cooking pot)—have been produced in parts of Pampanga, as recorded by American Thomasite Luther Parker in the 1900s.  Sto. Tomas is the acknowledge pottery center of the province, with many major potters clustered along Quirino street. According to oldtimers, one pioneer potter was Apung Sindung Mercado who made “pilones”, clay jars used in the manufacture of molasses. From making traditional oya, tapayan, kuran, gusi, balanga and pilun , the potters also added ornamental pasu or masetas for growing garden plants and flowers,

2. PUKPUK (Betis, Apalit)

The fine art of metalsmithing was known to pre-Hispanic people in our archipelago, blossoming in the the late 16th to the 19th century, when the Spanish missionaries arrived to introduce the idea of sacred art in which the Chinese excelled. To decorate the altar, Mexican silver coin were melted and fashioned into tabernacles, altar frontals and vessels, ramilletes (silver floral standees), carrozas, and more. Betis artisans mastered the art, locally termed as ‘pukpuk’ (to hammer) as designs were created by chasing and using the repoussé method,  in which designs are raised on a metal sheet by pounding a pattern from the back using a sinsil (blunt chisel). This is achieved by working on the metal against a wooden block, on which designs have been incised. Artisans spread the art to Apalit which once had the largest number of ‘pukpuk’ shops. Names like the Ramirez Family, Edgardo Yutuc and Jeric Canlas continue this tradition to this day.   

3. DUKIT (Betis)

Betis is the town synonymous with quality carved woodcrafts (“dukit” -to carve) —from church and home furniture, decorative architectural pieces,  to religious statuaries and  relief sculptures.  One of its ancient barrios—Sta. Ursula—was known as the premiere source of such carved masterpieces.  A famous resident is Maestro Apung Juan Flores, who started as  a santo carver an expanded into “muebles” and carved wooden furnishings. He made the decorative wooden carvings of Malacanang Palace during the term of Marcos. Angeles, with its many Clark residents, was a major market of woodcarved products during the 50s thru the 80s. Modern-day mandudukit include the descendants of the Flores family, Willy Layug, Peter Garcia, Salvador Gatus, and the artisans of Betis Crafts of Myrna Bituin, who exports their prized furniture worldwide.

4. PARUL (San Fernando)

The lantern industry owes its popularity to San Fernando lantern maker pioneers who evolved the parul from the simple wooden and paper star lanterns for the “lubenas” (procession)  to the giant kaleidoscopic lanterns that the world marvels at, every December’s Giant Lantern Festival. The advent of electricity gave rise to the invention of the rotor by Rodolfo David; which is used to give the lanterns their amazing play of colors. Well-known parol makers include the Quiwas (led by Ernesto David Quiwa), Rolando Quiambao, Arnel Flores, and Jesus Maglalang. The Christmas capital of the Philippines  has parul stores all over the city still selling traditional lanterns. The Dau Expressway exit is line with lantern stores, hawking paruls of all sorts—capiz, LED-lit,  wire and plastic, and even “rope” lanterns.

5. BURARUL (Angeles)

Kite-making,  though not exactly an industry,  requires a certain degree of artistic and technical skill. Believe to have originated in China, these paper and wood air craft are flown mainly for leisure and play—but they were said to be used also for measuring distances and for military communications. In Pampanga, they are called “burarul”, from the Spanish “volador”,  one that flies. The basic “karang-karang” is nothing more than a folded paper with thread. But the more elaborate kites come in box (“tukong”) or diamond shapes (“sapin-sapin”). There are high-flyers (“gurion”) and competition fighter kites (“panyaklit”). The most complicated ones are figural kites mastered by the professional kite-maker Eulogio Catalan of Angeles City. A former sepulturero, Mang Eloy won renown for his imaginative, award-winning kite creations. He made kites in the forms of birds, fishes, angels, saints and figures  of our  national heroes—all using wooden framework,  paper and paint. His most elaborate was a ferris wheel kite with seated human figures, that actually turned when flown on a string. He also introduced the concept of folding kites. The art of kite making died with him, and today, just a handful in Pampanga know how to fashion homemade kites from “tingting” and papel de hapon.

6. DASE (Candaba, San Luis, San Simon)

As early as the 18^th century, dictioanarist Fray Diego Bergaño made mentioned of towns lining the Candaba Swamp that were known for weaving house mats or “dase”. Made from “ebus” (buri palm leaves) . These included weaving families from San Luis and San Simon who are skilled in the art of “pamaglala”, or weaving, usually done communally, after the day’s work. Mat weavers or”magdadase” wove fine mats of large, medium and small sizes—made for sleeping or for covering the bamboo floor. For variety, the leaves are dyed in different colors to produce mats with appealing patterns.

7. KUPIA (Apalit)

An allied product from the province’s weaving tradition are hats or “kupia”, an essential accessory for our tropical climate, where  wearing a head protection from the  scorching sun or sudden rains is mandatory.Before commercial hat shops were established in Pampanga, everday functional hats—"kupia"-- were made all over the province. Apalit was once a hat center, and in Barrio Sucad, ‘kupyang ebus’ by the thousands were woven and commercially sold in town markets from as far as Tarlac, Baguio, Bataan, Zambales and Manila. But due to the scarcity of ‘ebus’ materials, production  gradually slowed down in the 1920s. Pampanga shops that operated in the 1930s sold hats of all shapes, sizes and materials. In San Fernando, one could go to La Fernandina, Zapateria Moderna or to the Japanese bazaar of T. Tsuchibashi along Mercado St. and the Indian Bazaar of Battan Singh. "Sombreros del pais y del extranjero" (local and imported hats) could be bought in Macabebe at the Bazar L. Magat, while "El 96" in Angeles offered a few headwear selections.

8. SANTOS (Betis, Macabebe, Bacolor, Apalit)

Although Betis is the center of woodcarving  in Pampanga, it is Macabebe town which is known as the home of santeros. A santero is a craftsman who uses wood, ivory, cement or fiber glass to produce an ecclesiastical art piece known as santo, in the image of Christ, Mary or a Saint. Before the war, fishing and farming were the only means of livelihood of the people of Macabebe. Santo making was then merely an expression of their ingenuity, and the products were mostly for personal use. Pablo “Ambo” Bautista, a local businessman, is credited with promoting santo-making in the town by gathering local artists and putting them to work in a talyer he opened just for them. Sons Antonio (a painter) and Gener (a carver) further grew the business and improved the craft of santo making. This inspired other carvers to put up shops that soon proliferated along the whole stretch of the town’s main road. Others found their way in the other towns of Pampanga. U.P. Fine Arts graduate Maximiano Jingco also set up a pre-war religious statuary shop in Guagua. Second and third generation carvers continued the santo tradition like Rolando and Boyet Flores (from the Flores family of Sta.Ursula), while a new breed of highly trained carvers came to fore—Nick Lugue (Apalit).Wilfredo Layug  (Betis),  Joseph Magcalas (Apalit) ,  Joed Miclat (San Luis) and the Viray brothers (Bacolor).

9. GITARA (Guagua)

Cebu may have a reputation as the Philippines’ guitar industry leader, but the more well-known guitar brands are made in Guagua, Pampanga. The “gitara” has its origins in Spain, and there’s a mention of  a guitar-prototype in Byron Pabalan’s zarzuela “Ing Managpe”—a stringed instrument called “kalaskas”. Another is the pre-Hispanic “kudyapi”, which, like the guitar, has a box and a fretboard. The pioneer guitar maker in Pampanga is a Matuang Bacani who managed to copy an old Spanish guitar. He passed on his techniques to his son-in-law, Angel Lumanog who mastered the craft of guitar-making, opened a shop and started supplying Macabebe, Bacolor, and San Fernando stores. Son, his guitars were being sought after in Manila. Today, the Lumanog brand is a name synonymous to fine guitars. Apart from the Lumanogs, families like the Garcias, Dizons, Mallaris, Jucos and Manansalas engaged in the production guitars.

10. GAWANG PANDE (Apalit)

The first cannon maker of the country was a Kapampangan named Pande Pira, a smith who put up a foundery in Manila to make “lantakas” or cannons, and other artillery to protect the Intramuros and for use in Spanish galleons. Apalit takes pride in continuing this smithing tradition, and is the leading source of world-class steel crafts in the province,  such as bolo, machete, all types of knives and daggers, plus home and garden implements like rakes, hoes, spades, and other tools. The steel products are made the old fashioned way by hammering sheets of metal ,  made malleable by superheating them, then shaped into blades for bolos, palang, knives, scythes, spears or any bladed implement. The industry gave Apalit town its nickname, “The Blacksmith Capital of Pampanga”. In Floridablanca, smiths produced aluminum crafts, using “aluminyu” that are heated and pounded into shape, using molds.

SOURCE:

SINGSING MAGAZINE, "Pampanga's Folk Arts & Crafts: Going, Going, Gone?", Vol. 5, No. 1.Published by the Center for Kapampangan Studies,Holy Angel University. Excerpted and edited from the articles of JoelPabustan Mallari (Dase, Gitara, Kuran, Burarul, Kupia), Arwin Lingat (Santo), Alex R. Castro (Pukpuk), 

www.viewsfromthepamang.blogspot.com (Hold on to that Hat, Hamming on an Old Guitar, The Art of  the Kuran)
PHOTOS:
Alex R.Castro (Pande, Kupia, Gitara, Santos, Parul, Pande, Pukpok, )
Best, Jonathan. A Philippine Album: American Era Photographs 1900-1930, The Bookmark Inc.(Dase)
Miss Millenial Pampanga 2017 FB Page: (Betis Carving-Dukit)
Singsing Magazine: (Burarul)

79. 10 KAPAMPANGAN PORTRAITS PAINTED BY SIMON FLORES

The wish to be remembered after one is gone is only human. People live on, in the stories we conjure as we view portraits. Through their faces, expressions, finery and pose---we see people as the artists saw them. 

In Pampanga, there was no lack of portrait sitters as the numerous members of the landed gentry sought the services of itinerant artists. The most prominent name is Manila –born Simon Flores de la Rosa (1839), who settled in Bacolor and made the rounds of Kapampangan towns, and a handful of his portraits form part of his legacy.

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QUIASON FAMILY (San Fernando)

Two Flores portraits of the Quiason Family of San Fernando, headed by Cirilo Cunanan Quiason are still existence today. Cirilo  and his 2 brothers, Lucio and Pablo, were successful landowners and traders, and each one commissioned Flores to create family portraits. The first painting depicts him, at age 33 and his wife Severina David Henson along with  their two children painted in 1875. The artwork costs 50 pesos per head, in gold coins,  for a total of 200 pesos. The seated baby is named Jose.  The older child holding a prayer book is Aureo. The seated baby, Jose, was originally painted naked. He was teased about this when he grew up, so he burned the part that showed his genitals. The painting has been restored since.

The second painting shows the expanded family, painted after 1875. They would have 9 children in all. Ceferina became a widow after Cirilo was accused by the town friar of engaging in seditious acts. The friar, who had romantic designs on his daughter Rosaruo, was rebuffed by Cirilo, who was then captured and tortured.

ANDREA DAYRIT (Sta. Ana)

In the town of Sta. Ana, Flores painted the pretty Andrea Dayrit. Her portrait hung in the 1840s Dizon house, famous in its time for its late Neoclassical and English Regency architectural details. Portrait of Andrea Dayrit by Simon Flores, circa 1870s, Oil on canvas, 81 X 58 cm.

MIGUELA HENSON (Mexico)

Mexico has a couple of Flores portraits, and the most well-known is that of long-haired Miguela Henson in front of her Isabelina-style dresser.  It is now in the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas collection. Ca. 1880s.

MSGR. IGNACIO TAMBUNGUI (Bacolor)

Flores, who settled in San Vicente in Bacolor, also painted portraits of his wife, Simplicia Tambungui, originally from Guagua, but no work survived.However, in 1890, he painted a portrait of his brother Monsignor Ignacio Pineda Tambungui ,  a canon of the Manila Cathedral and a chaplain at the San Juan de Dios Hospital. In return, Msgr. Tambungui gave his brother-in-law church decorating-commissions in Pampanga towns.

DON JOSE LEON SANTOS (Bacolor)

Bacolor’s most influential couple in the 1850s also sat for Flores.  Don Jose Leon y Santos was one of the sons of gobernadorcillo Francisco Paula de los Santos, Gobernadorcillo and Doña Luisa Gonzaga de Leon. Jose Leon Santos became the gobernadorcillo of Bacolor in 1857. The oil portrait of him was done in August 1887 when he was 59 years old.

DOÑA RAMONA JOVEN (Bacolor)

Don Jose Leon y Santos was first married to Arcadia Joven y Suarez. Upon her death, Leon Santos wed her sister, Ramona Joven. Her portrait was completed in August 1882.  Both paintings now hang at the Museo de La Salle.

OLEGARIO RODRIGUEZ (Bacolor)

One of the earliest known works of  Flores, dates from 1862,--when he was just 23. It is that of Don Olegario Rodriguez (1806/1874), patriarch of the still-flourishing Rodriguez clan of Bacolor, when the subject was “56 anos.”  Rodriguez is shown wearing the European black coat with tails, embroidered “nipis” shirt of “pina”, and trousers of a “principalia,” seated on an armchair. Until Pinatubo of 1991, it used to hang in the sala of his ancestral house but has since been secured by Rodriguez descendants in Manila.

SEVERINA OCAMPO DE ARROYO

In Candaba, Flores painted portraits of two matrons, both from the affluent landowning class. The first portrait is that of  Severina Ocampo de Arroyo, noted for her serious, icy stare. A virina-encased ivory santo is shown beside her. ca. 1885.

QUINTINA CASTOR DE SADIE (Candaba)

Another portrait done of a rich lady of the house is that of hefty Quintina Castor de Sadie, nicknamed “Fat Woman from Candaba.” The two Candaba portraits were formerly owned by banker Manuel Martinez Dizon, which he later sold to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas in the 1980s.  

SOURCES:

Quiason Family: https://www.geringerart.com/artists/simon-de-la-rosa-flores/

http://www.artranked.com/topic/Simon+Flores#&gid=1&pid=4

Andrea Dayrit: http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1048447

Miguela Henson: Ambeth Ocampo FB page: https://www.facebook.com/47261762634/photos/a.10151090704437635.435397.47261762634/10151711186057635/?type=3&theater

Msgr. Ignacio Tambungui: Kasaysayan

Jose Leon Santos, Ramona Joven: http://masterpieces.asemus.museum/masterpiece/detail.nhn?objectId=11613

Olgario Rodriguez: http://rodriguezofbacolor.wikifoundry.com/page/Photo+Gallery

Severina Ocampo de Arroyo: http://rubens.anu.edu.au/htdocs/surveys/charlotte/byartist/display00306.html

Quintina castor de Sadie: https://medium.com/@jorgeemmanuel.bermal/first-time-in-national-museum-of-fine-arts-53c7cac90f1b

Remembrances of Things Awry: https://remembranceofthingsawry.wordpress.com/2006/08/22/the-celebrated-quiason-portrait/

15. 7 LOST KAPAMPANGAN SKILLS

1. BOAT-MAKING. 

River-dwelling Kapampangans descended from sea-faring Austronesians, and indeed the large adze that H. Otley Beyer found in Candaba in the 1930s proves our ancestors were already carving boats out of tree trunks as early as 3000 B.C. (same time the Egyptians were building the great pyramids). Ancient Kapampangans called these adzes "daras" and sometimes "ipan alti" (lightning tooth) because they looked like large incisors.

2. SHIP-BUILDING. 

The Spaniards put this Kapampangan skill to good use by taking farmers off farmlands and forcing them to build galleons in the Cavite shipyards. It resulted in famine and led to the Kapampangan Revolt of 1660. The old Kapampangan word for ship is "daung" (“dauit,” on the other hand, means “to build a ship”). Part of the Guagua-Pasak River is called Dalan Bapor because ships regularly picked up cargo from a cannery in Guagua. In Pampanga River, ships picked up passengers from towns like Mexico and Apalit (one-way ticket to Manila cost P2.50 in 1880).

3. TOBACCO. 

Kapampangans once cultivated tobacco, particularly in Magalang. The seat of the Tobacco Monopoly in Central Luzon was Gapan, which was once part of Pampanga. The ancient Kapampangan word “makipanungi” referred to someone who worked for pay by stringing up tobacco leaves.

4. WEAVING. 

Our ancestors wove their own clothes from “bulac” (cotton), which they separated into “puyud” (a bundle of cotton prior to spinning), using “cabid” (a measure of cotton). The old Kapampangan verb for spinning cotton is “sulad,” which is why we have the word “sinulad” (thread).

5. DYEING. 

Ancient Kapampangans dyed their everyday clothes blue (white was for special occasions), using extract from the indigo bush called “tayum” (the place Tayuman in Tondo was named after this Kapampangan word). To prevent dyed clothes from fading during laundry, they put “balatung” (mongo seeds) in the water. To remove stains, they cut “balimbing” (or “ternate,” star fruit) and rubbed it on stained clothes.

6. WINE-MAKING. 

Our ancestors took advantage of the nipa palms lining the rivers by extracting juice and turning it into “tuba.” Wine harvesters were called “manuba.” When fermented, this wine became the fragrant vinegar called “aslam sasa.”

7. POTTERY. 

Our rich vocabulary of pottery words indicates the level of sophistication that the industry has reached, most likely since prehistoric times. Kapampangans are able to differentiate a “banga” (water pot) from “kuran” (rice pot) and “balanga” (viand pot). The industry started in the Sto. Tomas-Apalit area, and it’s still there. Pottery was such an important business that at least two capital towns in the ancient Kapampangan Region had names pertaining to pottery: Balanga in Bataan and Iba in Zambales (“iba” in Kapampangan means earthen pot). A barrio in Mabalacat also used to be called Iba.

Sources:
Originally published by Robby P. Tantingco in his FB Notes page.

Ship-building: Filipinas Heritage, vol. 3

Negrito outrigger: www.eastbound88.com

Early Phil. ship: www.aenet.org

Barong Tagalog: www.pinterest.com

Cigar Maker: www.philippinehistory.org

Singsing Magazine, Center for Kapampangan Stduies