Sleeping mats as wall decor

The home of Gilda Cordero-Fernando in Quezon City is bursting with art collected quite late, from the 1980s. No old-school, Forbes-Park-type pictures by Fernando Amorsolo, Fabian de la Rosa, Juan Luna, or Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo in her living room, no works from established artists at the time: Ang Kiukok, Vicente Manansala, Arturo Luz, Cesar Legaspi, Jose Joya, Hernando R. Ocampo, Vicente Edades and others who have since been canonized as National Artists in her dining room. Her home was one of National Artist Leandro Locsin’s early works. National Artist Napoleon Abueva made a floating “bakya” for her fish pond in reference to the legend of Jose Rizal’s slipper that somebody mistook as a stray piece of wood and was thrown away.

From the late 1980s Gilda collected cutting-edge works from artists whose company she enjoyed (Onib Olmedo and Jullie Lluch). She also supported young artists like Elmer Borlongan, Manny Garibay and Roland Ventura, choices now vindicated by today’s frenzied art market.

Before the art arrived, Gilda’s home had many antiques—not the ivory statues in “virinas,” none of the 18th-century altar tables that go for seven figures today. Her antiques were probably the unsold items from “Junque,” her former antiques shop in Ermita. These were colorful, folk craft that gave her home its signature look. I remember that she had beautiful mats from the South propped on a wall instead of on the floor. Those are but a memory to me now, just as the mats made in Samar and Leyte are now but memories to a region devastated by “Yolanda.”

Long before we had orthopedic beds and ergonomic mattresses, Filipinos slept on mats or banig  woven from strips of pandan or buri palm. Made of lightweight, organic material, these were spread on floors, providing a cool place of rest in a tropical home. Rolled up during the day and kept in cabinets together with the pillows, blankets, and the indispensable mosquito nets, the banig—unlike fixed beds—was a great space-saver, too. With the changes in Philippine architecture, the preference for air-conditioning, and the growing popularity of beds, the woven sleeping mat is slowly becoming a thing of the past and is starting to be appreciated more for its artistic rather than functional use. Colorful Laminusa mats from Sulu or Basey mats from Leyte are often spread on a wall like paintings instead of unfurled on floors for sleeping.

Mats are traditionally made by women. The process begins with the gathering and then the stripping, boiling, dyeing, and weaving of palm leaves. Originally made for sleeping, the mats must be soft but also provide a protective cushion between the person and the perceived unhealthy drafts from the floor. Woven mats usually come in various shades of dull brown, depending on the region. But weavers tackled the monotony by dyeing some of the fibers in various colors and adding ornamental borders to the mats. In time the designs became more elaborate and colorful, producing a functional work of art.

Weaving is not confined to the oversized sleeping mats. There are smaller versions of banig  used as throw pillows, bags, wall decoration, and area rugs. Sometimes one can order personalized sleeping mats very much like personalized blankets and embroidered towels—to give away as wedding presents. The names of the bride and groom are woven into the center of the mat, often with the name of the gift-giver as a constant (and irritating) reminder of utang na loob.

Depending on the region, mats come in various shapes and sizes, but the most prized are the Laminusa and Basey mats.

Laminusa mats are woven by Samal women in an island off Siasi in Sulu. These are admired not only for their intricate and colorful geometric designs but also for the softness and sheen that make people mistake the mats for cloth. Laminusa mats are actually two mats in one because the decorated mat is mounted on a plain but thicker mat for greater durability. However, these are not used as bedding anymore. Valued for their artwork, they are hung on walls like tapestries or used as carpets for special occasions.

Although they also use geometric designs, Basey mats from a town outside Tacloban, Leyte, are more figurative in design. Standard Basey mats are embellished with the image of the Santo Niño, the patron of the Visayas, or of San Juanico Bridge, the landmark of the Samar-Leyte region. While a homesick Leyteño or Samareño  can lie on a mat with a landscape of San Juanico Bridge, I doubt if he will ever sleep on a Señor Santo Niño mat. Thus, the design of the Basey mats has modified its original function—these mats are hung on walls and, in the case of those with the Santo Niño design, even become a focus of religious devotion.

Basey weavers who made numerous Ninoy Aquino mats in the 1980s found themselves with a new cottage industry. Instead of using only the traditional flowers on mats, they took orders for portraits transferred from photographs to sleeping mats.

Gilda Cordero-Fernando, always a style setter, used sleeping mats to decorate her walls three decades ago, showing that while the mats for sleeping have fallen into disuse in many parts of the country, the art of mat weaving remains a living tradition in the Philippines that should be supported and continuously passed from one generation to the next.

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