Tuesday, May 15, 2007 Blossom, bark, paper By Mayette Q. Tabada
EARTH-TONED sheets of the Franciscan Sisters’ handmade paper preserve more than frond or twig.
It freezes the moment Sr. Lillian Mosura saw women walking by the order’s retreat house in Busay, Lahug. The mothers were coming home from pounding cogon grass and banana stalk, to be turned into tickets for a folk concert.
This inspired the nun who, for a hobby, dried leaves to decorate the bookmarks and greeting cards she gave friends.
In August 1989, the Franciscan Sisters Pro infante et familia (FSPif) trained the community of Maaslum, Busay in paper processing. At its present site at the Kauswagan Road in Talamban, where the group moved in 1992 due to the better supply of water, the FSPif sisters continue to extend spiritual and livelihood assistance to local men, women and out-of-school youths, as well as many old hands from Busay.
For the past 10 years, Bebiana Joseph, 49, commutes daily to Talamban from her mountain barangay home. With her earnings from paper-making, she has educated her three children and helped her carpenter-husband. Eldest son Orlan now works with her at the FS Handcrafted Products.
An elementary graduate, Bebe arranges sheaves of abaca fiber against a bed of shredded salago bark, a design she thought of herself. The 24 to 40 sheets, of varying sizes, she finishes in a day carry her “signature,” which is as unique as those made by her co-workers.
Nature inspires the making of fans and box organizers, gift boxes and totes, albums and guestbooks, gift cards and stationery, picture frames and jewelry boxes, Sr. Jasmin Loquero enumerates.
The designs are as infinite as the materials just lying around, waiting for appreciation and reuse. The salago bark and abaca fiber are supplied by Tuburan farmers harvesting from the wilds naturally sown by birds, Sr. Nilda Tancinco observes.
The handmade paper’s hues and textures are made more unusual by the use of appliqués using leaves and blossoms from cypress, bougainvillea, bamboo, balete, banana and seaweed.
One of the popular items is the framed sketch of a laughing Christ. Whether pocket-sized or fit to grace a shelf, that carefree, gay countenance seems to endorse a community’s efforts to use in multitudinous ways the bounties of His Grace.
