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| STA, MARIA MAGDALENA, RESTORED 2005 |
The
circumstance of how this beautiful Sta. Maria Magdalena image was
delivered to me was one for the books. I had been working with a Bulacan dealer
for sometime, when he called to say that there was an antique santa in
the market available, but I had to decide fast whether to get it or not. To
make my decision faster, he offered to bring it to me in Makati, where I lived
and worked.
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| MAGDALENA, in its original state, when acquired |
Intrigued,
I told him to pass by for me by lunchtime, hitch with him in his van, go home
together to my nearby studio where I can better check out the santa.
Some 2 hours later, he was on his cellphone to tell me of his arrival at my
office building. I hastily rushed down the elevator from my 23rd
floor office, got out of the main door---and there, seated at the groundfloor Starbucks
Café was my dealer, next to an old, naked, wigless santa, and which has started
to attract the stares of the café patrons, building tenants, businessmen, visitors,
and passersby! In a loud voice, he said: “Eto na ang Magdalena mo, boss…what
do you think?”
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| MAGDALENA, with a wan and white complexion. |
“I think
you need to put back the santa in your van NOW!”, I muttered under my breath, while turning red
with embarrassment. Just as a crowd had begun to gather around the santa,
the dealer grabbed the wooden figure, stowed it in the van, and sped away with
me to my place, just 5 minutes away.
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| MAGDALENA'S HEAD, before and after re-encarnacion |
I’ve
never been so stressed at the thought of the commotion we caused at that café.
But all that dissipated when, in the privacy of the closed van, I took a closer
look at the penitent saint.
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| STA. MARIA MAGDALENA, under restoration |
Even in
its state—paint gone pale and peeling, a vertical crack running down the body, shaky
base, plus the usual dings, nicks and scratches—this Sta. Magdalena was
a real beauty, with a long face face slightly frowning in restrained grief. Her
mouth was slightly open, curled downward in sorrow, showing teeth. The slightly
long neck featured 3 shallowly-carved neck folds that almost looked like a
3-strand necklace.
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| STA. MAGDALENA, under restoration |
On the
other hand, her ghostly white hands and slender fingers, and her bare feet were
well-carved and defined. There was the slightest hint of plumpness in her body,
characteristic of old female santas. This processional image was not exactly
tall, only 52 inches, including the base.
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| REPAINTING THE PENITENT SAINT |
The dealer
and I struck a deal, wrote him a check, and Sta. Maria Magdalena was
mine to keep. But it didn’t stay long with me either, for just a scant week
after, I delivered the Magdalena to the atelier of Mr. Francisco “Kiko”
Vecin, Makati’s eminent collector and santo restorer. His workshop
was just across my street, near the Makati City Hall, and the schedule for its
restoration was drawn up in no time at all.
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| THE SAINT AND HER BLONDE-BROWN LONG LOCKS |
As the santa
was complete, I thought restoring it would be a breeze. Other than the crack on
the body, no major repairs were really necessary.
What took long was the repainting of the santa that took some 3 months
to finish. A friend of mine suggested that I stick to the original paleface
kind of encarna, commonly seen in old Semana Santa images. I
opted for a more natural complexion that is more Filipino, rather than the fair,
pinkish Caucasian type.
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| STA. MAGDALENA, CROWNED |
Mang
Kiko commissioned veteran encarnador Eddie Mabaquiao Sr.
to handle the repainting, which took forever to do. But the wait was all worth
it, as the santa’s expression came real and alive with his brush. The
magnifical restoration of Sta. Maria Magdalena was completed in late
2005.
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| VESTMENT BY LOPEZ ATELIER |
Even
long before it was finished, a member of our local pastoral council had saved a
place for me 2006 Holy Week procession. The reservation, however, was not for a
Magdalena, as the town already had one—but for broom-wielding Sta. Maria
Jacobe. The idea was to transform this Magdalena into a Jacobe, by having
her hold a broom—which was very much possible with the grasping position of her
fingers.
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OLD EMBROIDERY RECOVERED AND
USED FOR MAGDALENA'S VETSMENT |
This
threw me into panic, as I had not really planned on having vestments and metal
accessories made just yet. Dr. Raffy Lopez came to the rescue by quickly
making a light blue half-cape and a matching light fuschia tunic decorated with
old gold embroidery. I designed a pukpok broom handle executed in plated brass
by Jeric Canlas, inserted with tambo reeds. A new brass crown that
I had been keeping went to the head of the santa, which looked obviously
bigger. With that the primera salida of this Sta. Maria Magdalena finally
took place in 2006—in the guise of Sta.
Maria Jacobe! I soon had ambivalent feelings about that practice.
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| PRIMERA SALIDA, as Sta, Maria Jacobe, 2006 |
That was
the first and last time this antique santa came out, eventually replaced
by my in-law family’s antique Jacobe. But when a second Magdalena I owned
suffered a similar fate, I have vowed not to allow these “conversions” to
happen again.
In one
corner of our covered porch today stands a glass case, in which the cloth-covered
antique image of Sta. Maria Magdalena reposes. It has not been seen
since 2006, and I intend to keep it that way. It is very much in keeping with a
penitent saint who spent part of her life as a hermit in a cave on a desert—away
from prying eyes. Her life continues to give us an example of how no person is
beyond the saving grace of God, so—by the same token, no broken santo should be left unsaved too.
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| STA. MARIA MAGDALENA, Castro Family |
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