Artist Craftsman Factory Worker Concerns in The Study of Traditional Art
Artist Craftsman Factory Worker Concerns in The Study of Traditional Art
Artist Craftsman Factory Worker Concerns in The Study of Traditional Art
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Quarterly of Culture and Society.
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Philippine Quarterly of Culture & Society
14(1986): 177-188
Resil B. Mojares
University of San Carlos
*
Paper presented at the Second National Conference on Philippine Art, Cultural Center
of the Philippines, Manila, 14-17August 1986, under the sponsorship of the Philippine
Folklore Society and other cooperating institutionsand agencies.
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178 PHILIPPINE QUARTERLY OF CULTURE & SOCIETY
production. In the main, the potter had free access to raw materials,
owned the tools, presided over themaking of thewhole product, possessed
valuable knowledge (which could be passed on to a son or daughter), had
opportunities for artistic play, and exercised control over the value of his
work.
1
Karl L. Hutterer, "Prehistoric trade and the evolution of Philippine societies: a
reconsideration," Economic Exchange and Social Interaction in Southeast Asia, ed. K.L.
Hutterer (AnnArbor: Michigan Papers on South and Southeast Asia, 1977), 177-196; idem.,
"A balance of trade: the social nature of late pre-Hispanic Philippines," The Donn V. Hart
Southeast Asian Collection (DeKalb: Northern IllinoisUniversity, 1985).
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ARTIST, CRAFTSMAN, FACTORY WORKER 179
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180 PHILIPPINE QUARTERLY OF CULTURE & SOCIETY
2Even in
Europe, true porcelain was not made until the 18th century, despite a great
aristocratic demand. See Keith Nicklin, "Stability and innovation in potterymanufacture,''
World Archaeology, 3:1 (1971), 19-20.1 thankMasao Nishimura, archaeologist, for thisand
the reference in fn. 11.
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ARTIST, CRAFTSMAN, FACTORY WORKER 181
prior to Spanish contact. By themid-18th century (and until the early 19th
century), Iloilo had emerged as a center for large-scale commercial
weaving. Such cloths as pina, sinamay, and cotton shawls called lompotes
were admired for their fineworkmanship and aesthetic qualities. In the
1840s,Mallat listed52 varieties of Philippine cloth and, in Iloilo, found 10
different mixtures of cotton, silk, pineapple, and hemp fibers.
Iloilo's textileproducts foundmarkets not only within thePhilippines
but in China, Java, Singapore, Spain, England, and the United States. In
the 1850s, more than half the value of Iloilo's exports was accounted for
by native textiles.
The volume of production and trade suggested an advanced stage of
economic organization. Iloilo towns, e.g., Molo and Jaro, developed
weaving specialization. There were 60,000 looms in Iloilo around 1857,
suggesting that almost one-half of the province's female labor force was
engaged in the weaving industry.The household was the basic unit of
production but, by the beginning of the 19th century, therewere already
small "factories" established in private houses, with six to a dozen looms
worked by women receiving cash wages, masterweavers were contracted
for a special fee to "set up" patterns in the looms of these proto-factories.
Entrepreneurs, merchants, and personeros (brokers) played an
3Jean
Mallat, The Philippines: History, Geography, Customs, Agriculture, Industry, and
Commerce (Manila: National Historical Institute, 1983), first published in 1846; John
Bowring, A Visit to the Philippine Islands (Manila: Filipiniana Book Guild, 1963); A
Britisher in thePhilippines, or theLetters ofNicholas Loney (Manila: Bureau of Printing,
1964); Alfred McCoy, "Ylo-ilo: Factional Conflict ina Colonial Economy, Iloilo Province,
Philippines, 1937-1955" (Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1977), 1:12-25.
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182 PHILIPPINE QUARTERLY OF CULTURE & SOCIETY
4
Mallat, Philippines, 268,458.
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ARTIST, CRAFTSMAN, FACTORY WORKER 183
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184 PHILIPPINE QUARTERLY OF CULTURE & SOCIETY
industrywas again rejuvenated with the demand for a new and wider
range of fashion accessories (bangles, necklaces, pendants, and others)
combining shell with a variety of natural materials (wood, bone, stone,
leather, and others).
Today, there are around 250 shellcraft "factories" in Cebu Province,
mostly concentrated inMetro Cebu (165 of these are registeredwith the
National Cottage IndustriesDevelopment Authority or NACIDA). There
are around 10,000 full-time and part-time workers in the industry.5
The industry ismultilayered, beginning with the shell gatherers and
traders of specimens, to the small household workshop of 3 or 4 workers,
to a network of middlemen, contractors, and agents, to the larger factories
with a peak force of as many as 100 to 200, to the large exporting firms
with direct access to U.S. and European markets.
The typical production unit is the small home-based workshop whose
owner is also work manager, trader, and entrepreneur. According to its
links to raw material sources and markets, the business combined shell
gathering and dealing, shellcraft manufacturing, local trading, and
exporting. Capitalization ranges from a few hundred to several thousands
of pesos. Production is labor-intensive and the standard workshop
consists of makeshift facilities and a limited range of simple tools. The
core of the workforce may be unsalaried household members. Since work
is intermittent and dependent on orders, there is a much larger "floating"
body of short-term workers paid by piecework arrangement.
The industry is entrepreneur-dominated. There is a large number of
petty entrepreneurs who exercise control over production, combining the
functions of capitalist, works manager, and merchant. The industry,
however, is dominatedby big entrepreneurs with the necessary capital,
know-how, and
connections to bring within their orbit the mass of small
workshops and independent producers. In Cebu, there are less than 10
large shellcraft exporting firms that control more than 80 percent of the
total shellcraft exports.
A development that has contributed to centralization is the nature of
the market. Since the current demand is for specialized fashion
accessories, there is a premium on quality, variety, and design.
Fast-changing stylesdemand intimateknowledge of foreignmarkets. The
large exporters have overseas agents or foreign clients who keep them
supplied with information and product designs. Exporters fill orders by
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ARTIST, CRAFTSMAN, FACTORY WORKER 185
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186 PHILIPPINE QUARTERLY OF CULTURE & SOCIETY
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ARTIST, CRAFTSMAN, FACTORY WORKER 187
of products.8
Four: the worker has lost control over his work. This is a phenomenon
that calls into account not only the conditions of a specific craft but a
general economic environment. Workers are cut off from access to
materials, tools, channels of distribution, and even knowledge. As a
consequence, he is dissociated from his work and its value is demeaned by
its having to be measured in terms of market-dictated wages.
Five: there is a break in the intimate connection between the practice of
a craft or trade and a whole way of life. In the increased rationalization of
an industry and as skills are displaced, a value-system is also altered. This
is shown in the decline of weaving (a quintessential female industry in
Southeast Asia) and its effect on the woman's sense of womanhood and
worth. The decline of weaving displaced women in many rural
communities into less morally satisfying occupations as petty trading and
8
The rise of commercial art does not automatically lead to the artist's direct articulation
with an open market. Middlemen (including government and cultural institutions)may aid
the artist in decision-making, assuming the role of traditional patrons. Tourist art ? while
?
much criticized for good reason may be an occasion for the reinterpretation and
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188 PHILIPPINE QUARTERLY OF CULTURE & SOCIETY
economic organization.
What is needed is an effort at the protection and preservation of
certain values attendant to the practice of a craft. This may take the form
of attempts at restructuring the dominant economic organization of the
Philippine handicraft industry, perhaps by moving it away from an
industry dominated by large entrepreneurs to one controlled by
production and marketing cooperatives, barangay associations, and
people-based corporations.
One cannot fully speak of art unless one inquires into the human
values embedded in the production of art. It is well to recall the expansive
yet authentic definition of theVictorian criticWilliam Morris that art is
12
"man's expression of his joy in labour."
^Selections from the Prose Works of William Morris, ed. A.H.R. Ball (London:
Cambridge University Press, 1931), 116-117, et passim.
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