#risdmaharam

[emiliejehng]

We’ve yet to begin plans for our talk at the Met Manila… But check out our flier!

Only 4 more days until we must leave the co-op, and travel back to Manila

[emiliejehng]

Days to the loom begin at 8am with a ten minute boat ride from Haiyaan to Pandan. From Pandan it is a twenty minute walk to the main road, where we will take a 10 minute tricycle ride to the co-op in Tubigon. From there, we take a small trip to the main market in Tubigon to buy lunch for the day.

These last few days we’ve been foraging for natural dye supplies. For sappan heartwood, aka sibukow (which will dye red or purple), we took a ten minute hike up the mountain behind the co-op to source. We've begun natural dye demos for the co-op's dyers, and weaving sample swatches with monofilament and our naturally-dyed raffia.

Our day ends around 5pm when we travel back to Pandan port. We wade in low tide water to where the water in deep enough for the boat to be docked, and hope we don't step on any starfish along the way; full immersion into the fisherman lifestyle.

[emiliejehng]

Some delayed photos from our first week at the Tubigon Loomweavers Multi-Purpose Cooperative aka TLMPC. 

This week was spent getting our bearings at the co-op. We arrived at the co-op knowing two things, 

1. We wanted to work with monofilament. Though not a natural fiber, monofilament (nylon fishing line) is something that is readily available in the fishing town of Tubigon. Using the fishing line as the warp (vertical threads on the loom), and raffia as the weft (horizontal threads) would, we thought, be a nice metaphor of the history of why the co-op was established* and a visual reminder of how the two may work in cohesion. Nice, right? 

 (*the co-op was established in 1993 to provide the wives of fishermen a steady source of work and income. The women began weaving when waiting for their husbands to return from fishing. This source of income became increasingly important as the fish in the sea depleted due to harmful fishing practices which destroyed coral reefs in the 2012 earthquake. The fishermen began building looms for their wives to weave on. More and more had to resign their jobs fishing and find other forms of livelihood.)

2. We would be working on their four-harness looms 

 After arriving at the co-op however, we came across two small set backs:

 1. The “readily available” monofilament in town came in packaged skeins, and would have to be wound onto cones in order to create the warp. This fact became increasingly alarming when we realized the co-op did not have a cone-winder; we would be winding all of the thread by hand into the cones.

 2. The promised four harness looms were five looms, three working, two broken, which had been neglected and unused since the installation. Few knew how to set one up, and none knew how to use them. They were used to two harness looms here.

 But if there’s a problem, there’s a solution: 

 1. We would enlist a small army of strong-willed and strong-wristed weavers to help us unwind our monofilament onto cones. We didn’t have cones, so nearby carpenters whipped some up for us by chiseling at some bamboo.   We began the unwinding process with three teams of two. One would hold the loop of thread while the other furiously twirled their arms winding the nylon onto the bamboo. In the course of an afternoon we had a grand total of….. 3 fully wound cones. We needed 10 by tomorrow. This method would not work. 

Traveling back to Haiyaan with 7 empty cones and 35 loops of monofilament to be wound, we approached ex-fishermen of the island. The fishermen helped us devise a system of unwinding the loops that required a chair, a beam, and only one person per cone. With our island army of 7, good music, and good attitude, we successfully wound 7 cones. 

 2. Next came the issue of dressing the looms no one knew how to work. No one person knew the entire process; this would have to be a collaborative scavenger hunt for know-how. Ruth, a 55 year old weaver showed us how to wind our warp on the warping board, Carmel, her 16 year old daughter, showed us how to wind the warps onto the looms, and we threaded and reeded the looms. 

 Our first week ended with three looms fully threaded with monofilament, and very sore arms

[emiliejehng]

The process of extracting dye from talisay leaves is a lot like brewing tea

step one: chop leaves (twice!) step two: submerge leaves in water  step three: bring to boil, remove from heat, let ferment overnight step four: after 24hr, reheat the leaf/water combo, let boil for 1-2 hrs step five: remove leaves, from dye extract step six: dye dye dye - talisay can dye shades of yellow, grey, and black

further thoughts: boiled talisay smells chinese-apothecary-collard-greens-black-tea

[emiliejehng]

For more effective dyeing, we must first scour (clean) and bleach (whiten) the fibers (abaca and raffia).

(@ PTRI)  

[emiliejehng]

Foraging pt II:

Gathering bunga de china nuts by 1.skillfully knocking the nuts out of the tree with 2.nearby branches, coconuts, and rocks to 3.lay out in the sun to dry

[emiliejehng]

Foraging pt I:

PTRI’s “Gampol: Volume 2″ in hand, we set off to collect talisay leaves and flame tree bark - two dye plants which grow in abundance here

[emiliejehng]

We made our way to Divisoria a few days ago in the hopes of finding our materials to dye, our materials to dye with, and our materials to extract dye from. 

While the market was an exciting mix of colorful fabrics, mismatched clothing, and large stacks of food... perhaps most exciting were the homemade parking signs. 

Though each sign serves the same purpose of reserving a parking space, each one had its own character and endearing quality. Rest assured there will be more photos of signs to come.

(mosquito bite count: growing)