The Province of Aklan takes great pride in its piña fabric, skillfully woven by the local Aklanons. One of its charms is the Dela Cruz House of Piña who continue to utilize indigenous materials and traditional weaving techniques, producing the highest quality piña cloth. In fact, they continually refine and innovate their designs for the Lourdes Montinola Piña Weaving Competition.
Today, we had the opportunity to sit down with Let Dela Cruz of Dela Cruz House of Piña and hear about her consistent success in winning the prestigious competition.
Let Dela Cruz with the judges of Lourdes Montinola Piña Weaving Competition 2022 with her winning work, “Kahel”
Can you share your experience in joining the Piña competition? How has the competition helped you grow as a weaver?
My name is Ursulita “Let” Marte Dela Cruz. Since 2018, I have participated in the Lourdes Montinola Piña Weaving Competition, winning two consecutive second prizes before receiving the first prize in 2022.
That same year became a pivotal time for me and my family, as I was able to finish the winning piece, Kahel, shortly after we opened our weaving studio in Kalibo to the public.
Kahel by Let Dela Cruz
Let is very keen on keeping with tradition in her use of pure liniwan and floral patterns from her mother’s drafts. For her entry Kahel (#1), she incorporates several pairs of flowers in bright orange hue with white dots interspersed.
Using design motifs and themes that were reminiscent of my mother, Nanay Susima’s work, Kahel is an expression of my love and respect for her. Much of my current work, including what we do in the weaving studio, is dedicated to her.
Let with her loom in their old weaving studio, 1999
Designing and weaving is not easy, I consider it a profession like any other in the world. I started weaving seriously much later in life, in my thirties, following a ten-year career as an industrial engineer. Upon returning, my Nanay was patient enough to teach me the fundamentals again, from setting up the loom to selecting the best liniwan fibers to use. Nanay taught me to respect the materials and the technique, emphasizing the value of patience and precision because piña weaving is all manual work.
Nanay Susima while hand-knotting piña fibers, circa 2016
I routinely assisted my Nanay to keep track of orders ensuring the weaving business operated smoothly while my other siblings helped market the textiles outside our hometown. We always maintained consistent quality over time, so there wasn't much potential for innovation. We always saw complex suksok designs as challenges more than innovations on our end.
As one of the current fourth-generation weavers in my community, I feel profound responsibility to preserve the tradition while also somewhat adapting to the modern world.
The Lourdes Montinola Piña Weaving Competition has given me confidence to weave at the same level as Nanay, especially after her passing in 2017. Exposure to competitions and exhibitions, gave me the opportunity to widen my horizons and experiment with new materials and colors. Including more current approaches in design, while also addressing sustainability.
Where do you find inspiration?
It is definitely interesting to see how weaving has evolved over the years. I remember my Nanay weaving very complex works in her weaves, sometimes involving 50-100 sticks in the looms just to generate a single scene. Traditional designs included bahay kubo and elaborate altar cloths.
These days, designs are simplified and more straightforward.
I do find it motivating to revive and replicate traditional designs. Combining my love for the work with my family's long heritage of piña weaving motivates and challenges me to revive and replicate the difficult and laborious process of creating and crafting these complex designs. To this day, I still consider my Nanay to be my biggest inspiration.
Describe how piña is important to our everyday lives. How can piña cloth stay competitive in the international market regarding innovation, sustainability, and quality?
One of the Philippine's most significant cultural products is its Piña, an ancestral tradition communicated through generation to generation. Essentially instrumental for the communities within Aklan. Now approaching its fifth generational take up, the meticulous process lives on.
Though in recent years fewer and fewer younger people are willing to learn to weave. The loss of this valuable tradition is a cause for concern.
Precy and Baby, also fourth-generation piña weavers, at our Kalibo weaving studio called Haboean. Photo by Trish Lim, 2022
Maintaining such complex, laborious, and manual work in a world so fast and ever-changing, and facing a global market, poses a great challenge for a small weaving studio of about fourteen weavers.
We are not disheartened, though. In our current weaving studio, we make it our aim to produce the finest liniwan fabric we can. This type of piña fabric is undoubtedly the most painstaking and complex to weave due to the nature of the fibers, which make it finer and lighter. Compared to blended piña textiles, it typically costs twice as much and takes twice as long to produce. We take great pride in being able to continue to weave one of the finest types of piña textiles out there, while selling fair market prices and wages to the weavers involved in its production.
Can you share with us your winning entry to the 5th Lourdes Montinola Piña Weaving Prize?
This series of entries pay tribute to Susima ‘Nanay Susing’ Dela Cruz, whose old suksok and pili pieces continue to inspire her children and old students. Many samples of her textile works – mostly in the form of swatches and old articles of clothing – were kept by her daughters. They serve as instruments of inspiration and their physical link to our past.
Nanay Susing was one of the few women in Aklan who continued the tradition of weaving in 1980's, when piña weaving almost came to a halt.
The photo above is a page from Nanay Susima's collection of drawings on graphing paper, where variations of the flower-leaf combination and eight-pointed star/flower patterns have been meticulously drafted. The second one is a very old camisa from Nanay Susima’s baul featuring the eight-point flower pattern with white dots.
Starting her small workshop with the intention of producing more piña fabrics to a curious market after revival efforts were made. Nanay was a diligent and meticulous piña weaver quite determined she could make pina as a viable source of living. Inspired by a creative and entrepreneurial spirit, Nanay Susima’s work was warmly received at home and in cultural circuits where the suksok or pili designs that she frequently used figure prominently.
Let is a fourth generation weaver who was trained by her mother Susima in producing piña cloth with suksok designs. Flowers dominate Nanay Susima's work and Let sees this act of replication as a way of honoring the knowledge and skill once passed on to her.
