Ernesto Balangto Dul-ang

Ernesto’s Works

At first, Ernesto salvaged and collected scattered wood but when the mayor of Banaue discovered his creative talent, their local municipality supplied him with timber, an essential for his needs in his career. The Tools that he uses consists of chisels, wood carving mallet, measuring stick for scaling, sandpaper and varnish. Before he starts carving his craft, he scales the design using a custom scaling stick for the desired or requested size by his clients then draws templates of it on cardboard. If it’s a bust-sized commission, he sketches or prints four specific fixed views (top view, left view, right view and back view) for a three-dimensional project. The templates are sketched on to the wood as a guide for carving his design. Ernesto’s process for cutting the finer details differs from other carvers for his intricacy in depth as seen on the facial expressions of his other works, yet his methods and techniques are similar to other artisans. He etches his name as his signature at the back of each project. After he’s done carving, he applies wood varnish three times while fine sanding in between varnishing for a polished outcome. Larger projects take up to 4 months to accomplish and 1:1 scale bust size is finished approximately a month. 

It’s important to him to continue such tradition not only for the continuous demand of his works and his unrelenting passion to keep on creating up until his current age, but it’s his dedication to share and express his pride as a filipino artist and a home grown talent of Ifugao through his craft showcased across the country and internationally. 

The only difficulty that he has throughout his career as a wood carver is the intense complexity of designs that clients request from him, nevertheless, given his “eye for detail” and unyielding perseverance of discipline on his craft, he can capture any likeness of his references accurately. Being a modest gentleman in my own given opinion, he jokingly shared that he dislikes carving nudity but if the demand of any intensity persists, expect that Ernesto will exceed anyone’s expectations for his awards and accolades that he received are a statement on how passionately talented and dedicated he is.  

 Ernesto also taught in workshops at universities as he shares to the students a part of the process that he is fond of which is how an artist interprets what he sees from a reference as he carves it into the wood. He adores the feeling of satisfaction even with minor errors that can be easily fixed and adjusted. He sees a project beautiful and well done if it is intricately and neatly done in execution especially in the finer details.

Wood carving was Ernesto’s career throughout the years as he was acknowledged by Various organizations and by Gloria Macapagal Arroyo while in her term as president of the philippines. Not only he received such prestigious recognition in our country but overseas as well due to his talent and astonishing style in wood carving.