Above: In the bedroom, a primitively carved antique door from Vigan is propped against the wall. The low Narra table called dulang displays Sukothai stonewares from Thailand, an Ilongot tobacco pouch, a stool and a Mandaya drum. The tall male rice god called Punholdayan lords over the room. Right: The bedroom is furnished with wooden low chairs and round wooden box serving as side table. A portrait of an tribal woman on one wall is left unhanged.

The Baylosis home is populated by highly stylized representational Cordillera art: anthromorpic forms in various postures and degrees of abstraction. They are either standing or squatting, sometimes with arms straight, sometimes crossed with elbows resting on the knees, with or without sexual characteristics, alone or in passionate embrace with another.

Animal motifs, on the other hand, are evidently wide spread among the mountain peoples because of their totemic tradition. They reflect rich rituals such as the canao.

Left: A Laotian cloth hangs on a black-patinated Ifugao ladder reaching to the ceiling. Two seated bulol figures on top of an old chest animate the vignette. Right: A portrait of an Ifugao adorns the low narra table.

The black patina on mountain art is the effect of nearly enclosed homes with open hearths inside. The deposition of soot, aided by oils and other substances, are the result of time and cannot be artificially induced, though forgers are constantly trying. Some critics frown at the amazing range and number of art objects descending from the highland cultural groups and proliferating in the market today. They say these are recent, if not cheap imitations. But ethnographic art grows continuously.

Ricky Baylosis finds no fault with recent art for as long as these objects still serve their original purpose in their community and satisfy universal artistic standards. 'To me, the first criteria is beauty; authenticity is relative".

Words by Ricky Vergara and photos by Dante Mara
Reprinted from Design and Architecture Magazine