“Quilts of Caohagan”

CEBU, Philippines — With ongoing developments and advances in the technology-driven design and manufacturing sectors, is it safe to say that artisanal crafts are going the way of the dodo?

Can it be said with certainty that handcrafted items will soon be no more, what with 3D printers and artificial intelligence-driven tailoring machines being fine-tuned to tirelessly produce all sorts of handicrafts and wares?

An ongoing crafts exhibit at the Mountainwing Atrium of SM Seaside City shows that this isn’t necessarily so.

Titled “Quilts of Caohagan” and running until the end of the month, the creative display features small and large-scale hand-sewn quilts made by residents of Caohagan Island – one of the seven islands that compose the Olango Island Group in Mactan.

Hemmed by cotton-based threads and mainly tailored to form by running and blanket stiches, the quilts on exhibit are the result of the Caohagan Quilters Community livelihood program which was formed on the island in the mid-1990s by Japanese nationals Katsuhiko and Junko Sakiyama.

Mainly under a free-form theme, the quilts produced by the Caohagan Quilters Community combine traditional western quilt blocks or patterns with elements of tropical flora, terrestrial and aquatic biospheres.

Working with bright colored and vividly patterned cloths, most of the featured quilts bear a Marc Chagall-meets-Paul-Gaugin feel – a thematic merger that’s accomplished by combining classic quilt blocks or patterns like the Dresden Plate and Log Cabin with free-form patterns and tableaus that depict island life.

Infusions of Boro and Sashiko stitching, which are traditional stitching and embroidery methods from Japan, also lend a dynamic flair to the quilts produced by the Caohagan quilters.

Limed by a culture crash motif, “Quilts of Caohagan” presents a traditionally western craft, translated by Cebuanos, who learned it from Japanese nationals.

The Caohagan Quilters Community

It was in 1996 when residents of Caohagan Island began to make quilts under the guidance of former McGraw Hill Inc. Japan president Katsuhiko Sakiyama and designer Junko Sakiyama.

A year later, the quilts produced by the quilters were entered in an International Quilt Exhibition in Yokohama, Japan.

The exhibition was followed by various exhibit invitations – the International Quit Exhibition in Nantes, France in 2012, and the American Quilters Society’s “Quilt To Quilt Week” in Michigan, USA in 2013, to name a few.

The Caohagan Quilters Community is currently composed of 70 quilters. The “Quilts of Caohagan” exhibit is the first in Cebu to highlight the works of Caohagan’s quilters.