356. Moulding Characters of Godliness: DR. JOJO VALENCIA IV AND HIS CLAY SANTOS

DR. JOJO VALENCIA IV AND HIS CLAY SANTOS

For a long time now, Dr. Jojo Valencia IV has had an unconventional career, shaped by his lifelong passion for antiques and sacred art. As a child growing up in San Fernando, he held a fascination for the santos that were carried out for procession on the streets of the capital town every ‘Maleldo’ or Holy Week. In college, as a pre-med student in Baguio, he was asked to organize a “santo” exhibit at St. Louis University, which he successfully staged, and which prompted him to start collecting religious art. He pursued this antique collecting interest, while doing his medical practice, and parlayed that into a viable home business: buying and selling antiques. 

STA. INES / SAN JOSE

In recent years, with the supply of antiques drying up, and with extra time to spare, Dr. Valencia decided to dabble again in sketching, painting, and clay crafting. He had always had an artistic side; in his first year of high school, he would buy modelling clay sold at National Bookstore or Alemar’s and try his hand at molding and shaping santo figures. He remembered that his very first clay creation was a miniature replica of a San Jose, inspired by the image that was borne on procession in Bacolor in the 1970s.

SAN ROQUE / SAN JUAN SAHAGUN

Once he got started again with his clay modelling hobby, there was no stopping this talented doctor. “But the trouble with modelling clay is that it doesn’t really set and harden, and eventually the figure would become misshapen”, he said of his initial clay molding attempts. So, I had to look for another material”.

SAN VICENTE FERRER / SAN MIGUEL ARCANGEL

Dr. Valencia turned to using pottery clay, used in ordinary earthenware products.  Soon, he began moulding and shaping santo figures, which he based on existing Philippine church statuaries,  estampitas, and images wrought from memory. The results were very encouraging, and, as he found his groove,  he also found his own distinctive style, evident in his figures molded in the round, and in his paintings, as well.

KNEELING SAN ISIDRO

His terracotta santos are short, almost squat, with stocky legs, in the case of male saints. There is also a “discernible feeling of plumpness” in the santos’s  physique,  at first sight—even the female saints exude this Rubenesque vibe.

SAN CLEMENTE / KNEELING ANGEL

The vestments worn by the santos, that include the cape and tunic, show the lively exuberance and energy of Dr. Valencia’s style—with overly defined drapings, folds, and extra ruffling on hems and edgings. Indeed, the minutiae in the vestments are thorough and absorbing, borne out of the artist’s medical training perhaps, of paying meticulous attention to details. The figures are then hand-painted by Dr. Valencia himself, in oil paints. After awhile, he had hand-molded dozens of tabletop-size santos which he displayed around his house.

PLARIDEL CHURCH EXHIBIT

It would not be long before Dr. Valencia’s private hobby would be know and spread to his circle of friends and clients, more so when he started posting them online. He started receiving offers for his works not only from his acquaintances but also from priests, church benefactors, known art aficionados and collectors, who took note of his appealing ecclesiastical creations. Some even wanted him to take commissioned projects. The turning point was when he finally accepted an important sponsored assignment to make terra cotta images of the barangay patrons of Plaridel town some 15 years ago, which went on permanent exhibit at the Plaridel Church in Bulacan.

THE ECSTACY OF STA. TERESA DE AVILA

A few years back, Dr. Valencia experimented on using a different kind of clay more durable than terra cotta. He found a commercial clay product made in the U.S., which, when kiln-baked and dried, had the look, feel and hardness of real porcelain.

LA MUERTE DE SAN JOSE

The creation of the images took much longer though, for the clay blocks had to be ordered from California. After the tedious hand-sculpting process, the figure is allowed to dry, then shipped to a pottery kiln in Manila for firing. After which, the figures are spray-painted, resulting in a pristine white or off-white santo with a smooth, exquisite porcelain finish.

STO. ENTIERRO / STA. MARIA MAGDALENA

He is often asked to exhibit his “obras maestras” like paintings and sculptures; last year, he was one of the featured artists in a gallery exhibit in Taal, Batangas, entitled “Artes y Tradiciones Filipinas”.

SAN SEBASTIAN / SAN GABRIEL ARCANGEL

Today, the works of Dr. Jojo Valencia IV are prized by a few private collectors in Pampanga and beyond, not only for the inherent value of his unique sculptures.  They are sought after for the hand-made quality of his pieces, a manual tradition now slowly vanishing --which makes for the rarity of his pieces. He does not mind the long hours it takes to create one quality piece, as this doctor obviously has the patience of a saint.

Once the doctor steps out of his office , that’s when the artist in him, steps in—healing away his stress by molding images of faith, feats of clay that have given him the confidence to create more, and his clients, much personal satisfaction.  Science and art, they say are strange bedfellows, but for Dr. Jojo Valencia IV, there is no  such dissonance. In his chosen vocation and avocation, he has the best of both worlds.

VIRGEN DE LA CANDELARIA /SAN VICENTE ZARAGOZA

SOURCES:

Personal interview with Dr. J. Valencia, 11 May 2023, 

Photos courtesy if Dr. Jojo Valencia IV

333. CLAUDE TAYAG AND HIS WATERCOLOR SANTOS

CLAUDE MOISES TAYAG (b.1956), of Angeles City,  is not only a talented artist, furniture designer, sculptor, book author, columnist, award-winning chef and cultural activist—but his early interest included collecting antique santos. Not just any santo, mind you, but folk santos—the more naïve, the better. And they had to be of the right size too—no more than 8 inches.

The artist, who is known for his watercolors, immortalized his santos in a folio called “Imahen”, which came out in 1989. Of his 12 watercolor prints in the folio, the santo scholar Esperanza Bunag Gatbonton wrote: “Claude Tayag, by choosing to reanimate the work of the Filipino image carvers, has succeeded in catching our attention, persuading us to take a second look at these santos. Through his eyes, we recapture the carver’s creative impulses. We wonder anew at their perspicacity and talent”.

Three decades after the folio was published, Tayag has recently come up with book that compiles most of his watercolor works” “CLAUDE TAYAG: Watercolors 1974 to Present”. The book, recently launched last 12 July 2019 also had a counterpart exhibition which many of his original watercolor santos in his first folio, as well as new santo paintings were exhibited. Shown here are a selection from the exhibit.

INMACULADA CONCEPCION

SAGRADA FAMILIA

SAN ISIDRO LABRADOR

SAN JOSE Y NINO JESUS

SAN MIGUEL ARCANGEL

SAN PABLO

SAN ROQUE

SAN ISIDRO LABRADOR

INMACULADA CONCEPCION

STA. MONICA

STO. NINO

STO. NINO

283. Marian Image: OUR LADY OF THE BARANGAY of the "Barangay sang Birhen" Movement

OUR LADY OF THE BARANGAY,
Sunday Times Magazine Cover, Oct. 11,1959

“Barangay Sang Birhen” was a lay Catholic movement that was started in Cadiz, Negros Oriental in 1949, by lay person Antonio Gaston with Henry del Castillo. In its first 10 years, it had become the country’s biggest Catholic mass organization, with aims  to preserve the integrity of the Filipino family, its spiritual unity, cultural distinction and and economic self-sufficiency. By 1959, it had over 2 million member families nationwide.

OUR LADY OF THE BARANGAY, by Fr. Greg Vega
From the Sta. Monica Parish Minalin FB Page

In the mid 1950s, movement leaders commissioned professional and amateur artists to paint a portrait of a Virgin that they hope would be the official image of their patroness.  None had succeeded in executing the portrait to the satisfaction of the leaders.

ARCHBISHOP  YAP, at a leadership seminar, in Negros Occidental

In 1955, Father Pixner, who ministered to the inmates of the Santa Barbara Leper Colony in Palawan, heard about the search, and presented the idea to Crisogono A. Domingo, a leper in his early 30s, whose only art background was as a laborer-helper to a house painter. He decided to take on the assignment, and, after praying 3 Hail Marys, began painting on a blank canvass.

BALINTAWAK-CLAD LADIES in a Barangay Sang Birhen procession

The finished painting showed the Mother and Child overlooking a village with groups of five houses near the seas. The artist had painted from memory a portion of the shoreline of his native Davao Gulf.  The faces of the Mother and Child were foreign, but the Lady wore the balintawak, a Philippine native dress.

LADY OF BARANGAY local gameboard. 1959

At the foot of the Lady is a rock upon which the initials BV (Barangay of the Virgin) is engraved. The houses—in groups of 5—show the primary unit of the Barangay. Five families (which correspond to the 5 mysteries of the rosary)  living in a barangay together may form a Barangay Group, headed by a cabeza. Three groups become a unit of 15 families, while three units compose a Parish Trinity, who report to the Barangay Center headed by the parish priest and an organizational body of leaders.

A CLOSER VIEW OF OUR LADY, as drawn in the gameboard.

When the painting was brought to Msgr. Emmanuel Yap of the Negros archdiocese,  the scholarly archbishop made a hurried research whether the glowing crowns over the heads of the Mother and Child were faithful to the tenets of the church. They were. He acclaimed it to be a work of art, worthy to be venerated as the image of the Barangay patroness. Thus was born the image of “Our Lady of Barangay” that we know today.

A 1960s image of our Lady of the Barangay
in an antique shop.

On January 14, 1981, the original painting was brought back to Bacolod City for the  visit of the Holy Father where the image of the Birhen Sa Barangay was personally blessed by His Holiness, Pope John Paul II.

POSTCARD PHOTO: by Romy Hitosis

Since then, image in the painting has been replicated as sculpted 3-dimensional santo figures, some carved in the round, others to be dressed in the trademark balintawak dress. A shrine “Simbahan Lingin” is dedicated to Our Lady of Barangay in Tagbilaran City, Bohol.