FEATURE
Calamay, pottery tradition
in Albur’s altar carvings
From hand-painted ceiling fresco depicting a revered tradition, to hand-carved figures of tigpang-kalamay and tigpanghimo og koon, Bohol churches are getting popular for its trivial details hidden in plain sight.
If the Loboc Church of Saints Peter and Paul still has a painting depicting the Lady of Guadalupe Extremadura saving the town from the November 26, 1876 flood, thanks to Canuto Avila and companion painters, Alburquerque Church of Santa Monica also has early Boholanos detailed at the bottom of the newly carved baroque altar, thanks to Arsenio Lagura Jr., and his team of wood-carvers.
FATHER’S SON. Alburquerque woodcarvers now occupy a small shop within the church complex, doing repairs, restorations and commissions for church religious icons, thanks to that workshop in 2016. (PIAbohol)
And while Loboc church frescoes, not murals, were done in the 1920’s, the Alburquerque carvings came in 2017, when the Lagura-led group completed the intricately carved altar featuring baroque pierced carvings and gothic sunburst with he dove symbolic of the holy spirit.
Long before Boholanos identified Alburquerque as the home of artisanal Asin Tibuok, the town’s calamay and vanishing pottery industry which the town is known for.
“Aron mahinumduman,” Lagura shared when asked what motivated him to include the carved images in the wooden retablo.
Lagura, who used to work at a furniture shop since his teens, has since tried sculpture, because he needed to use a skill when wood-working became a little bit of a bore for him.
It was after the earthquake in 2013, that Lagura picked up an enhanced skill when he and several Boholano wood carvers joined the Sandugo Lalik Festival, he shared.
“The lalik festival aims to develop and enhance the wood-carving skills of local artisans and boosting livelihood,” former local seminary rector and Alburanon priest Fr. Valentino Pinlac was quoted in news interviews.
OLD AND NEW. The lalik festival in 2016 produced new urnas which were sourced out using old discarded wood, and allowed new carvers to experiment on the design motifs for localization.
The festival has workshops on wood carving featuring the urna and the nail-less joinery technology of the mortise and tenon, and capped with the Boholano urna carving competition, which Lagura won hands down.
With the help of the National Commission for Culture and Arts, Metropolitan Museum of Manila, the Provincial Government of Bohol and the Diocese of Tagbilaran, local word carving workshop was held.
“While the festival marked the formal rebirth of the long-forgotten urna wood-carving tradition of Bohol, the subsequent project of building the period appropriate main altar (retablo mayor) became the biggest challenge,” Lagura recalls, in an interview years back.
EARTHQUAKE BAROQUE CHURCH AND NEO-BAROQUE RETABLO
The result is a stunning rendition of a modern baroque still complete with curving and flowing forms signifying that same movement when science and the Protestant Reformation questioned the mighty church in the 14th century.
EARTHQUAKE BAROQUE. With the earthquakes the threaten construction, the Spaniards supervised the construction of squat structures with thick walls, often sacrificing the aesthetics over longevity, Alburquerque church however has an espadana, bell gable incorporated in the wall, which still risks toppling in an earthquake. (PIABohol)
The stone church of Santa Monica is built in the mid-18th century, conscious of the threat of earthquakes, builders made sure that the church is a squat structure with over-a-meter wide walls of piled coral stones, reinforced with flying buttresses and an espadana or bell tower built on the reinforced walls to lessen the possibility of crumbling.
In the early 2000 however, noted that the church retablo did not match the old church, many believe that the neo-classical movement could have forced the change of the elaborate altar to a simpler and more orderly design, which may have also forced the people to cover the circular wooden posts with the rectangular shaped tin cover.
NEO-BAROQUE ALTAR
Structured similar to an urna, Santa Monica feature a localized depiction of the grada in an elevated main body of single tiered three-niched altar, a crown and broken pediment to allow for a cross topping and complete with decorated finials and elaborately done wood flanges: all hand carved in shallow to pierced carvings.
THREE ALTARS. Not only did the local wood carvers come up with one altar, they worked on making three huge altars and four more smaller altars, using the same baroque designs characteristic of the 18th century church. (PIABohol)
At the base of the altar is the tabernacle niche flanked by four framed carved images of the tigpangkalamay and potters, each carrying baskets of calamay or earthen pots on their heads and accompanied by carved angels also bringing calamay or pots.
The altar main body has three niches, all complete with the baroque clamshell alcoves signifying protection at baptism, flanked by pierced carvings of a grape-vines with grapes in a creative interpretation of the double solomonic columns of the baroque art.
In it are Santa Monica (center), her son Saint Augustine bishop of Hippo and the virgin Mary.
These elaborately carved columns are also topped with decorative acanthus leaves in the stylized version of the Corinthian volutes, all rising to another superfluously decorated frieze that carries the retablo crown.
ALTAR FLANGES. A popular design motif of the baroque arts are the flowing curving lines and s or c scrolls, ably recreated by Boholano wood carvers from the old existing church arts. (PIABohol)
The altar crown feature a farmed image of angels holding the stylized gothic circular sunburst with a dove, signifying the Holy Spirit.
When Canuto Avila left the marks of history and tradition in Loboc Church, Lagura and his crew of woodcarvers have successfully etched a tradition of Albur, while celebrating creativity, skill and the desire to give local woodcarving tradition its rebirth. (PIAbohol)
CELEBRATING CALAMAY. Local artesans led by Arsenio Lagura Jr., incorporated the traditional calamay industry in the church altar in Alburquerque, while showcasing the rebirth of the forgotten tradition of woodworking and using it to decorate the sacred altar. (PIABohol)
