Laguna Diaries: Crafting Wood

Commitment

It was already hot when we left Quezon City, our wasted selves boarding the station service for a day tour to Paete, a town in Laguna, where we were to meet a wood sculptor. Our new show, a religious serye about a special boy who can talk to the Santo Niño will be airing soon in the primetime block and we decided that, to be able to write it better, an immersion trip was necessary.

This was Jules’s first head writing project. This was another break, another chance to climb the ladder and he was excited. “This is my dream team,” he would tell us during the first meeting. Arte.

Freedom

Before lunch and a couple of naps afterward, we reached Paete, a town of sculptors and artists and artisans. Every street produces a store selling wooden works of the immaculate and the religious. Before the Spanish conquest, the locals practice animism and would make idols out of wood. With the introduction of Christianity, these nature gods and goddesses transformed to images of Mary and Jesus and the saints. (It wasn’t surprising that the Spanish harnessed Paete’s talent as a religious basket—carpentry has always been associated with Joseph the worker and Jesus was believed to be a carpenter in the first 30 years of his life.)

Grieving Christ

“But even before that, this place has always produced wooden sculptors.” This was according to Dr. Fermin Madridejos, one of the oldest masters in town. He let us into his studio, showed the tools and the process and whipped up stories of his interactions with politicians and generals and the elites and the Pope. He seemed like a patient man.

The doctor

He said that he was the only one interested in wood crafting and was more meticulous than his brother. Day and night he would practice until he had perfected the craft. He has a daughter, who makes better creations than his son, whom he trained since his youth.

“Women are just better in sculpting,” he claimed. I felt proud. And interested. “Do you do workshops?” I asked and he smiled. Of course he does. He teaches a group of children during the weekends and has apprentices.

Shower me with kisses, er, details

He conducts workshops during the summers and I asked if he could take me in the next one. He said yes and offered his studio fan room for my stay. It sounded perfect. So my head, at the time, was full of the scent of wood mixing with the dews and the sunshines. I felt too that this would be complimentary to my pottery and maybe I could learn how to sculpt through hard clay. More than anything else, I wanted to learn dimensions and body parts and balance.

She looks like JLaw

After an hour or so of interviewing the man, we headed to a wooden workshop by the national road, where we watched carpenters at work.

If there was one thing I loved about carpentry, it was the wooden shavings. Curling rolls of wood, these always reminded me of my grandfather’s workshop in Batangas, where these excesses design the floor. Shaving was my favourite part in the process and one where I see the meticulous nature of my lolo, scrutinising every curve, every design. Watching him work with deep concentration was one of the very few images I have of the man during my childhood.

By five in the afternoon, we were exhausted and raring to go home. Our last stop was a shop, which sells wooden hand bags that fare for P10,000 to P25,000 each. There were owl piggy banks too but my favourite was a giant chessboard King at the side of the wall, which was getting very little attention.

And suddenly I remembered how I used to own a wooden chess set my brothers and I would play with during the weekends. And I realised too how wooden sculptures have occupied a large part of my growing up, always in the periphery of my subconscious, too common to demand attention. And I realised that, more than anything else, I want to return to my lolo’s studio and sit there, watch him work on a guitar or a banduria or a violin with the sun rising and casting shadows. I miss my childhood. - 2/19/2014