Good business sense in clay

TIWI, Albay – Estrella Mata scans the visitors who visit the Church of St. Lawrence that buy clay souvenirs before returning home.

Visitors who come in buses, jeepneys or private cars usually drop in at the dozens of stalls selling clay products ranging from colored miniature souvenirs to flower pots and large clay jars especially on weekends.

Blessed with world-class deposit, local entrepreneurs are cashing on the large supply to develop and expand the pottery industry which dates back to the time of Handiong in the Bicol epic Ibalong, written about 4,500 B.C.

Yet, the traditional way of making clay products continue to persist despite the putting up of a modern facility in Barangay Putsan some two and a half kilometers from the town proper.

Mata is full of energy and enthusiasm as she talks about her clay products inside her stall like the grey or pink colored dogs and puppies, white chicken, bluish fish and ashen or bluish frogs aside from brown or reddish jar and especially their design and colors.

"My mother taught me to make clay toys which I sold in the public market when I was 10-year-old," Mata recalls.

Although there is no exact figures on the clay industry here, Mata says she earns from P3,000 to P5,000 weekly.

She also designs clay jars recently after the municipal government of San Fernando in Camarines Sur ordered eight large jars as rice wine containers. She finished the order in just three days work and sells the jars at P350 each.

Brisk sales during the town fiesta enables her to sell about 1,000 pieces of the clay products. Clay pots and large clay jars are her best sellers.

Mata becomes nostalgic recalling the lost practice of using the daod among the people of Tiwi after it was eased out of use with the coming of drinking glasses.

She prefers to use the daod because water stored inside it becomes cool and sweet to drink.

"The people of my generation believes that the water stored inside the daod helps cure disease because clay has no harmful chemicals," she explains in the dialect.

"Some even bites the rim of the daod unable to control themselves while drinking its cool refreshing water."

At about the same time, inside the Philippine Ceramics Arts and Crafts Center (Philceramics) in Barangay Putsan, Salvador Curino, 40, designs a large jar mounted on top of an electric-driven throwing machine.

Curino, who has been working here for the past three years after finishing the training given by the center, says he can finish five large jars a day.

He earns P500 for the five large jars which he says "helps him support a family of six."

Just a few meters from the center, Salvacion Corona is also putting the finishing touches on the damp, brown clay pot at a makeshift shed outside the house of her sister where she stays.

Like the native pottery makers, she carefully beats the damp clay with her right hand while holding a fist-size stone as she designs the flower pot.

"I was already making clay pots when I was 12 years old," said the 64-year old villager like thousands of residents here who depends for their livelihood.

Traditional Method

Most of the traditional producers of clay products still follow the old method called pikpik by beating the formed dugi or clay with a small wooden paddle.

Material preparing starts from digging the fresh clay from the ground, and pounding it with a large stone and sifting.

Visitors at Barangay Putsan can see the mounds of clay placed beside the concrete road for drying.

Three kinds of clay are mixed in the making of the popular Putsan cooking pot, namely the himulot na pula or red clay, the himulot na itom or dark clay and baras or feldspar. Native pottery makers usually mix equal proportions of the pula and itom and for every three measures of the pula-itom mix, two measures of baras are used. Water is then added to the mixture.

Next, the process called pagbayag starts wherein three handfuls of damp clay is kneaded and placed at the center of a wooden potter’s wheel. She turns the bayagan with her left hand while she molds the clay with the other.

Mata smiles as she points to the potter’s wheel or bayagan which is made of two wooden disks. The lower disk is called lalaki because it has wooden protrusion measuring about an inch on which the center hole of the upper and larger disk called the babaye is fitted.

As the clay becomes hard enough, she pounds the top with a stone until it resembles a pot. She continues to hit the pot’s exterior using a bikal or flat wood while she holds a smooth, round stone inside the pot with her left hand to preserve the form as she moistens it with a babying or wet cloth once in a while. She smoothens the exterior of the fresh pot with a bamboo stalk.

After attaining the desired number, the koron is ready for open heating or firing. In an open space, rice husks is spread in a circle about two inches thick while coconut shells are placed on top of it.

The air dried pots are placed above the pile of wood and more rice husks are shoveled to cover the pots. Then the firing is done until the wood, husk, and coconut shells turn to ashes, turning the pots to reddish hue.

"Sometimes you will hear a small explosion and later you will find out some of the pots were broken while other pots showed a black mark on the pot sufficiently heated," said Corona.

Modern Technology

The Philceramics which sits on a 1,500 square meter, started operation January last year.

Dominic Dycoco, Philceramics coordinator, said its aim is to serve as training center for the new breed of terra-cotta entrepreneurs, provide access to state-of-the-art facilities to produce export quality products, and to design new products. The equipment arrived in 1991 from Germany.

"Our target is now to design new products for the global market," said Boy Miranda from Bacoor, Cavite who has been hired by Congressman Krisel Luistro-Lagman to come up with new product designs for the Manila Fame Show this coming October.

The building and equipment was put up through the assistance of former Congressman Edcel Lagman amounting toP19.7 million way back in 1997.

Inside his office, Miranda experimenting with various colors on different terra-cotta medium is under contract to design five functional products like glazed colored plates and decorative items as entry for the show.

"The quality of the clay here is first-class even with thin designs the form doesn’t easily break due to strong iron oxides content compared to those found in Pampanga, Vigan, Davao, Cagayan de Oro and in Bantayan, Cebu," said the 30-year-old who have been in the ceramics industry for the past 15 years.