A Glimpse of Our Cultural Heritage Thru Brush Strokes

We were on the way home Friday late afternoon when I noticed the vibrant murals on the foot of the hill where the Provincial Capitol sits. Darn, I should have seen it earlier that day but I was sleeping (no thanks to the traffic jam), lol!

The painting was on the opposite lane and stopping is not allowed in that section of the road and there was no place to pull over as it is just about a hundred meters away from the busy intersection. But thanks to the husband for being receptive and slowing down a bit giving way to some cars trying to get ahead of us, I was able to capture these photos. My apologies though for their quality though.

It was almost impossible to take a decent photograph while inside a running vehicle and more so with other cars coming and going. Some photos had a car, bike, or truck covering the artwork, lol!

Anyhow, the artwork depicts one of the festive traditions of the region. People who have experienced it in real life can easily recognize it.

Looking at it brought some nostalgia to me as I attended a few of those festive parties during my childhood years where food (big chunks of meat we call 'Watwat' plus rice) was served on what I would call an improvised plate using banana trunks and soup on coconut shells.😅

This is where the mural is found. Unfortunately, the snapshot on the map is not yet updated. It could easily be seen if it was.

And this was what the road traffic was like at that time. We just came from the intersection and were in the outer lane but slowly moved to the inner one when we noticed the mural. At half past 3 in the afternoon, the sky was hazy and was warning of a downpour.

Just across the entry road to the capitol's main grounds was another mural on an even larger and taller wall. I gasped at the sight of it as I quickly took some photos. It's been a few months since our last trip to that side of the region so imagine my surprise upon seeing these!

Luckily, our lane was a bit slow and at some split moments, the other side of the road was clear allowing me to take these few pictures. This is related to the other mural, an Indigenous cultural festivity called Cañao practiced by our ancestors in the past (although some are still doing it today but on a much smaller scale).

My curiosity about the paintings got me doing a quick search to learn that they were made possible through the craftsmanship of Iyaman Art Exhibit artists Santos Oyan, Elizardo Ituriaga Jr., Silvino Dulnuan, Ronald Allan De Leon, and Chrysler Cabalo.

Accordingly, the mural is part of their project funded by the National Commission for the Culture and the Arts (NCCA). It was inaugurated recently (June 18th) coinciding with the province's 58th anniversary for its separation from the old Mt. Province.¹

I discovered further through one of the artist's Facebook page that they started cleaning up the walls on the 25th of May and then the sketching commenced on May 30th, based on the time of the uploads.

Click here if you wish to take a peek at the place and the paintings. There is also a month-long exhibit (Celebrating Cultural Abundance and Ancestral Gifts) at the province capitol where works of different artists are showcased and sold. Had we known about it earlier, we could have visited the gallery before we drove home. I hope we get the chance before it wraps up though.

Per my readings, the artists have also been doing other murals on the city streets. Some of them have done paintings in restaurants and other places. They are doing commissioned work for private individuals too. They even do tattoos, charcoal drawings, acrylic on canvas, etc.

It was so nice to see the work of gifted and professional local artists coloring the street walls and other places. I would love to see more of this creativity pop out here and there. They remind us of our cultural heritage - traditions that we (older generations) identify with. Sadly, some of these are no longer widely practiced today.

This is it from me today and until next time!