Topic 8

SOULMAKING: MAKING AND DERIVING MEANING FROM ART

Introduction
In order for humans to make sense of language and derive meanings from words,
semantics and grammatical rules the important elements to be considered. Aside from this,
context and symbolisms are also considered to interpret and analyze either verbal or written
works. When it comes to art, in order to make sense of the work, it would require understanding
the visual elements where art was grounded on, especially the principles of design. It is
important to note that the audience of the artwork must have a certain level of awareness to the
style, form, and content of the said work. Without such understanding, it would be difficult to
appreciate the arts in its fullness and entirety (Caslib, B et. al., 2018)

Learning Outcomes:
At the end of the topic, you are expected to:

       a. discuss the concept of soulmaking;

       b. describe the categories of soul making; and
       c. develop and present an individual art talk. 

 
Discussion
        What is soulmaking?
What comes to your mind when you hear the word soulmaking? Write your ideas on the blanks.
_____________________________ _______________________________
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_____________________________           ________________________________
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The term “soulmaking”(craftmaking) is an alternative venue for knowing ourselves and looking
into the depths and real meaning of what we are doing for our everyday life. 
It is a form of crafting stories or transforming brief moments into images or symbols.
It is also connecting with people, understanding culture, and embodying tolerance and peace.
Soulmaking can be an innate gift or a learned skill, or a combination of both. It has no time
reference, it occurs anytime.
    
   What are the categories of soulmaking? Describe each category.

      The Categories of soulmaking are the following:

1. Crafting Images. It refers to imaging or representing in any form, which may be through

painting, sculpting, drawing, storytelling, poetry, dancing, composing.

 2. Crafting Stories. The moment we write, engrave and inscribe our own thoughts, ideas,
commentaries, criticisms, and positive and negative emotions, we are crafting stories. Stories that
can be presented in any form, - image, words, objects, and musical composition.
3. Crafting Instruments. An instrument maker is a bridge toward the unknown because the
instrument produces sound that transcend our feelings, emotions, and sensation.

4. Crafting movements.  Our life is full of movements; it is filled with various beats. Life if
full of flowing images accompanied by narratives. Everything we do in life is a performance,
we perform life.
5. Crafting techniques.  Anything can be crafting by using different evocative descriptions
of experiences and explorations like photograph studies, puppets and masks, constructions,
and notepad studies.

Topic 9

DA VINCIAN PRINCIPLES

Leonardo da Vinci was the ultimate high achiever with simultaneous careers as a world-
class artist, architect, scientist, inventor, and engineer. In his spare time, he was also an
accomplished cook and played musical instruments to a professional level. Therefore, if anybody
can exemplify how to apply creativity and learning skills productively, da Vinci is the
consummate role model. 
While it is true that Leonardo da Vinci was a genius, it is also true that most people
typically use only a fraction of their potential brain-power. Therefore, by analyzing how da Vinci
achieved so much, a system for personal and professional achievement can be developed. In
essence, this system has seven key principles (Gelb, M. 1998).

What are the seven da Vincian principles?

The seven Da Vincian Principles are the following:

1. Curiosita or curiosity, making his insatiable quest for knowledge and continuous    

    improvement. 
2. Dimostrazion or demonstration, testing knowledge through personal experience rather than
taking others’ reports for granted.

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3. Sensazione or sensation, continued refinement of the senses to sharpen observation

and response.

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4. Sfumato. A painting technique employed by Da Vinci to create an ethereal quality in his 

work, showing his ability to embrace ambiguity and change.

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5. Arte/scienza. The balance between art and science or the science of art, which he 
   demonstrated in his whole-brain thinking.

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6. Coroporalita or “of the body”, representing his belief that a healthy mind requires a
healthy body and the importance of cultivating both fitness and poise.

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7. Connessione or connection, for his habit of weaving together multiple disciplines around
a single idea, recognizing and appreciating that all pheomena are connected.

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 Topic 9

APPROPRIATION OF ART

What is art appropriation?

Appropriation in Art

- It refers to borrowing images that are recognizable from different sources and using these

borrowed images to make a new art form.

- The context of pictures is absolutely integral to their meaning, taking something for one’s own

use, typically without permission from, or acknowledgement of, the owner, creator, or culture

origin.

 - Appropriation in art and art history refers to the practice of artists using pre-existing objects or
images in their art with little transformation of the original.
- This means borrowing, copying, and altering images and objects that already exists.
Appropriation has been a strategy used by artists for a super long time.

         Example:
1. Edward Manet and Pablo Picasso took historical artworks as departure points for   their
own pieces.
2. Pablo Picasso, Glass and Bottle of Suze (1912)
3. Marcel Duchamp infamously appropriated urinal in his 1915 work Fountain
4. Surrealism also made extensive use of appropriation in collages and objects such as
Salvador Dali’s Lobster Telephone.
- Appropriation took a new significance in mid-20 –century America and Britain with the rise of
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consumerism and proliferatio of popular images through mass media outlets from magazines.
- Appropriated images and objects appear extensively in Pop art of Jasper Johns, Robert
Rauschenberg, Class Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, Tom Wesselman, and Roy Lichtenstein. They
reproduced , juxtaposed, or repeated mundane, everyday images, from popular culture.

2. What are the posit five (5) acts of cultural appropriation?

a. Material appropriation
Material appropriation occurs when the possession of a tangible object (such as s sculpture) is
transferred from members of one culture to members of another culture. The removal of the
friezes from the Parthenon by Lord Elgin is often regarded  as a case of material appropriation.
b. Non-material appropriation
This form of appropriation involves the reproduction, by a member of one culture, of non-
tangible works (such as stories, musical compositions or dramatic works) produced by some
other culture. A musician who sings the songs of another culture has engaged in non-material
appropriation, as has the writer who re-tells stories produced by a culture other than his own.

c. Stylistic appropriation
Sometimes artists do not reproduce works produced by another culture, but still take something
from that culture. In such cases, artists produce works with stylistic elements in common with
the works of another culture. White musicians who compose jazz or blue music are often said to
have engaged in appropriation in this sense.

d. Motif appropriation
This form of appropriation is related to stylistic appropriation. Sometimes artists are influenced
by the art of a culture other than their own without creating works in the same style. Picasso, for
example, was influences by African carving, but his works are not and African style. Similarly,
Ravel was influenced by the jazz of African-Americans, but his compositions are not in a jazz
idiom. Rather than appropriating an entire style, such artists have appropriated only basic ideas
or motifs.

e. Subject appropriation
Subject appropriation occurs when someone from one culture represents members or aspects of
another culture. Many of Joseph Conrad’s novels involve subject appropriation, since Conrad
frequently wrote cultures other than his own.

Topic 10:   Indigenous Art

Indigenous Arts are those native arts that have grown naturally through the years
in a certain locality. Indigenous arts include the Torogan of Muslim Mindanao (previously
discussed), bahay-kubo, bahay bale, bahay na bato, and other indigenous house. Traditional arts
and crafts are not indigenous arts per se since these arts did not naturally existed in the particular
area from time immemorial.
Some of these Indigenous Art are:
1. Architecture
Wander over the world heritage site, Banaue Rice Terraces, Eighth Wonder of the World
carved from the high Cordilleras over 2,000 years ago. These rice terraces were carved out of the
mountains by the native Ifugao people. The Ifugao made the walls out of hardened mud and clay
while they flattened the slopes it could hold water essential for rice growth. It had been the way
of life of the Ifugao mountain tribes for the past 2,000 years, kept alive up to this day.

2. Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials,
typically stone such as marble, metal, glass, or wood, or plastic materials such as clay, textiles,
polymers and softer metals. Carving is one of the techniques used in sculpture. The most
important type of sculpture, in its quality, quantity and continuing use, are wooden bulul or bulol
carved by Ifugao craftsmen of Mountain Province, Luzon. Often made in pairs, male and female,
bulul represent guardian deities and are placed in rice granaries to ensure beautiful rice.
3. Weaving
Weaving means to make cloth and other objects. Threads or strands of material are
passed under and over each other. Most of the common forms of weaving in the Philippines are
in the form of hats, mats, bags, baskets and textiles (clothes and blankets). This brought the ikat
technique of resist – dyeing of the warp thread and the concept of using textiles in death
ceremonies. Weavers were further influenced by imported materials: they imitated the new
designs, integrating them with their traditional textiles. Weaver imigrants appear to have brought
the ikat technique to the Isinai and Ifugao people of Luzon.
Abaca fiber derived from the abaca plant is widely grown in certain regions ‘n the
country. It is woven mainly to make ‘sinamay’ fabric and abaca rope, as well as specialty papers
like vacuum bags, currency, and tea bags.
4. Pottery
Pottery are objects that are first shaped of wet clay, then hardened by baking. Pottery
includes both decorative and practical items such as bowls, vases, dishes, and lamps. Pottery in
the Philippines varies in forms and functions. The forms of the pots are directly influenced by the
functions of the pots and the tradition of the community or local area. An example of this is the
palayok, which is used for cooking, Banga and Tapayan are used for storing liquids. There is
also the clay-made stove or kalan. The burnay pottery in Ilocos Sur is still a lively tradition that
continues up to the present. 
5. Body Adornment
Physical ornamentation can be categorized into three areas specifically the use of
traditional costumes (textile), jewelries and tattoos. The design vary depending on the location,
users and function of the ornaments. Since the early 16 century, jewelry making in the country
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has been practiced. 

Indigenous Materials
The materials in indigenous arts come from native materials or local materials that are
found in the locality. Some of these are the sawali, coco coir, bagasse, abaca, bamboo, palm
frond stems, mud bricks, rattan, rice husks, cogon, wood, and stone.
1. Sawali. This material comes from the outer covering of bamboo poles. It is woven into mats
and ideal for cement backing.
2. Coco coir. This by-product of coconut is used to minimize the use of cement and as sandwich
panels for insulation.

3. Bagasse. This is sugar cane waste used for insulation or cement backing.

4. Abaca. This is a fiber material obtained from the leaf stalk of a banana plant. Most of these
materials are found in the Bicol Region.
5. Bamboo. This indigenous material has low degree of elasticity, low concrete adhesion, but
wide variable moisture content. It is very useful in architectural forms and designs, mainly as
reinforcement to concrete.

The use of bamboo materials can lead to substantial savings and increased employment in
the locality.

6. Mud Bricks. This material is brittle, has less strength, and cannot stand up well to tension.
However, it is the choice of the building materials in places with hot, dry climates due to its low
thermal conductivity.

Indigenous materials are widely used in architecture such as in the construction of

bahay-kubo, bahay bale, bahay na bato and other indigenous architectural structures.

Bahay Kubo
 -is a cultural icon, a cultural heritage and as a symbol of togetherness. Bahay kubo is also
known as “nipa-hut”. This typical hut symbolizes the typical Filipino family as a close knit
family.

Bahay na Bato
- it is also known as “house of stone” or better still, “stone house”. This type of house is
considered as an updated version of the traditional bahay kubo whereas in the bahay. This type
of indigenous house uses a Chinese tiled roof or sometimes nipa or cogon roof but today, these
roofings are being replaced by styled galvanized irons with various shapes and designs.

Ifugao Bale (or Native House)

-This type of indigenous house is sometimes referred to as “No-Nail House” because it
was constructed without the use of nails.it is considered to be one of the most indigenous and
nearly perfect architectural constructs ever made by man. They are known as the “architectural
marvel” of the century.
 Local carpenters of Banaue who are called “munhabats” built the Ifugao bale as part of
dangah or free service.the bale evolved from primitive dwelling called “abong” which is
equivalent to “house” in Pangasinan dialect.

Answer the following questions.

1. What is the significance of Bahay Kubo in Philippine cultural values?

2. Why are there no partition for rooms in Bahay Kubo, Ifugao Bale, and Bahay na
Bato? What do these symbolize?

3. Identify some places in the Philippines where indigenous art is still practiced.
8.  Assessment Task
Miniature Activity
Create a decoupage:
Use recyclable glass bottle and decorate using indigenous materials, applying the
symmetry of okir/ukkil. (be resourceful). Proof of legitimacy(Picture/video) 
Sample video Okir art: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnuYmSO2brQ

http://www.slideshare `https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/images/
9. References 
Ariola, Mariano M. 2018. Art Appreciation. Intramuros Manila: Unlimited Books
Library Services and Publishing Inc.
Leano Roman D., Agtani, Jenny Marsha B. Art Appreciation. Manila. Mindshapers
Co.,Inc.