Works of the Artist

Abel, known as Inabel in Ilocano dialect, is the process of weaving in the Ilocos region. Before starting to weave, one must know patience and endurance in doing the Ilocano weaving as tying the warp threads too hard will cause it to snap and reveal bumps in the fabric, while tying it too loosely will cause the pattern to fall apart. In addition, keeping the rhythm steady is also important to maintain a smooth finish when the weft threads passes through the warp. This practice can be programmed in machines for faster production but weavers like Magdalena Gamayo repeats the process everyday without any machinery, just pure skillmanship and experience. Examples of her work are binakol, a signature weave of ilocos norte that illustrates optical illusion of virating spheres, circles, and cruci forms, and kosikos, a variant of binakol, in which the design represents whirlwind that is inspired from tingguian from the Abra indigenous group.