Filipino artist and designer extraordinaire Patis Tesoro showcased her textile art and tapestry collection in “Busisi” exhibit held at the Mega Fashion Hall in SM Megamall.
A joint project of SM in partnership with Finale Art File and curated by Gino Gonzales, the exhibition featured a selection of exquisite textile art and intricate tapestries characterizing Tesoro’s approach to graphic art and textile design.
The Filipino word busisi translates to fastidiousness; its adjective mabusisi means meticulous. In the arts and crafts, being mabusisi connotes attention to minute details. It also articulates a unique Filipino sensibility that permeates Tesoro’s embroidered textiles and fabric collages.
As a textile designer and prominent advocate for the promotion and conservation of indigenous and traditional Philippine fashion and textiles, Tesoro has worked with artisans in Kalibo, Aklan, where piña is still woven today, and in Lumban, Laguna to embroider piña cloth. In the 1980s, Tesoro was at the forefront of the production of piña-seda (a textile that combines pineapple and silk threads) and piña-abaca (pineapple and abaca fibers). She also admonished the use of natural dyes and the farming of plants that produce these pigments.
After more than 30 years in the fashion business, Tesoro moved to the more rustic setting of Putol, Laguna. It was in this place where she cultivated an environment which reflected her philosophy of harmonious co-existence with nature.
Over the last four years she designed tapestries that combined printed cloth, embroidered nipis [a generic term referring to fabrics made from fine fibers of abaca, pineapple, maguey, raw silk or a combination of these in the nineteenth century, as well as hand-dyed materials.
In contrast to the flourishes of traditional embroidery on piña cloth, Tesoro’s compositions of the diaphanous material produced vivid geometric patterns. Pieces of natural, sepia, and black colored piña were combined to create checkerboard, argyle, and bricks – all reminiscent of 20th century pattern design. There were also references to the triangular linework of indigenous ikats.
While emphasizing the graphic compositions, the needlework also imbued the works with a more personal stamp. A hand embroidered flower or fern occasionally emerged to disrupt the repetitive motif. The rogue patches certainly belonged to a bolt of embroidered piña. In any case, the tiny peculiarities contributed micro histories within the larger story of a tapestry.
Maria Beatriz “Patis” Pamintuan Tesoro is also a social activist, heritage conservationist, serial entrepreneur and lifestyle icon. Known as the Grand Dame of Philippine Fashion, Tesoro got her start learning from her mother, a dressmaker, while growing up in Iloilo. She learned how to embroider in high school, and, after marrying into the Tesoro family (a family well-known as purveyors of fine Filipino handicrafts), she learned the business of making indigenous and traditional art sustainable from her mother-in-law.
