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source of information: quazen.com

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Even if Antique is adapting high-technology environment, the art of pottery struggles to live and remains a functional art form and delicate process, making this piece of folk art priceless. The Bari potters or “manugdihon kang kuron” of Sibalom, Antique still adapts the traditional process of molding earthen products. Famous for their quality and durable clay-made stove or “kalan”, cooking pots or “dabahan” and water jars or “banga”. The manugdihons still experimenting in producing innovative products such as folk toys, souvenirs and decorative jars for market demands.

Pottery is one of the most primordial arts that combine design and function. It comes from a wide variety shapes and decorative techniques. The designs were usually geometric with stylized nature motif; later pottery became more functional.

Barangay Bari in Sibalom, Antique is very famous in terms of quality and durability. The craftsman that manufactures earthen products is called potters locally termed as manugdihon. The most common earthenware they produce are the kuron or daba, a round-bottomed, wide-mouthed native cooking pot; kalan, an earthen stove; paso or plant pot; and banga, used exclusively for storing drinking water. These products are usually being sold in local market and exported in nearby islands and provinces, such as Cuyo, Palawan.

Even if Antique is adapting high-technology environment, the art of pottery struggles to live.

Earthenware is made of clay produced in a swampy area and a clay field, or in open fields near riverbanks. The materials used in manufacturing these clay products are clay, fine sand and red soil and the proper proportion of water

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Pottery making in Bari is very traditional. Clay is sourced from the fields near Sibalom River. Then it is mixed manually (pagmasa) or through footwork (paglinas).The paghurma or molding process, the potters cautiously paddles using a pamikpik or wooden paddle; the thin layer of clay for the kuron or clay pot which makes it more durable and perfect for storing and cooking. The freshly molded earth is kept for days under the lower part of their houses or in a kamalig or hutwhich also serve as their working area to keep them away from the direct rays of the sun. It is believed that air-dried pots are more durable than sun dried ones.

The paghaplas or burnishing and addition of slipping solution or haraplas lend a fine finish. It is usually applied to exterior surface not necessarily reaching the mouth rim of the pot. The haraplas, a solution of fine red soil, usually found in Mount Itay-itay in Lacaron, Sibalom and water, gives the Bari earthenware their rich dark red after being fired. The bulalo or a special stone is used to polish to the outer part of the ware to achieve the final texture and color.

The pagpagba or firing is the last phase; the manugdihon of Bari still uses the old practice of pagpagba, the open firing or semi-bonfire type which takes only about one hour or two to cook the earthen ware. They use dagami (dried rice hay), ramay (dried banana leaves), tuod (bamboo trunks) and dried woods.