The jewelry of Celia Molano: Treasures across time

As early as the first Millennium B.C., the Philippines had a rich tradition of personal adornment. It enjoyed a lively trade of glass beads and semi-precious stones with India and China. Its pre-colonial era was dominated by princesses and women warriors who adorned themselves wi   th the finest gold woven as sashes, or designed as intricate earrings and elaborate necklaces. Even then, exquisite jewelry was integral to being Filipina.

From this heritage emerges jewelry artist Celia Molano, who keeps the tradition vibrant and reveals her own ease with elegance. She spent her childhood in the aristocratic south playing with her grandmother’s heirloom pieces as though they were favorite toys. This background reflects the lifestyle of generations before her, and elucidates her refined feel for jewelry that comes naturally, like mists of beautiful memories. Steeped in artistic history and tradition, Celia Molano creates timeless treasures for the sophisticated woman. She executes designs of superb quality and refreshing innovation, threading together excavated beads, tambourines, fresh water pearls, gold, silver, and semi-precious stones in a delightful mix beyond imagining. She has no boundaries in thought and expression. And this inner excitement she successfully conveys through her art.

The exhibition at the Kampa Museum in Prague is a tribute to the history of Philippine jewelry while being magnificently modern. It displays dramatic, oversized necklaces of original pre-Hispanic beads and reproductions of gold finials once worn by sultans and powerful women. They exude an air of majesty while remaining authentically primitive.

Then there are the delicate ornaments: necklaces of exquisite granulated flowerettes alongside tambourines, cameos, and ribbons of the finest pearls overlapping like waves at sea. There are flirtatious gold earrings that dance and dangle with supreme subtlety, evoking fantasies of lace and ephemeral splendor reminiscent of the Spanish era when femininity was unrivaled.

But the era of glamor never wanes. Celia Molano’s extensive travels in India and Indonesia inspire lavish combinations of excavated beads in every size, shape and color: round, oval, clay, glass, faience, multicolored, striped. With stunning creativity, these beads are accented by an ancient mamuli pendant, or interspersed with finely carved gold and silver “balls” that echo every unique design. The effect is matchless.

So is the artist’s imagination. Baroque pearls are replicated in gold or silver, and then combined to make fabulous necklaces, brooches, bracelets, earrings. Bronze pearls are mixed with matte gold filigree. Carved aquamarine butterflies serve as whimsical pendants. Pearl, coral, gold, silver “sticks” are freely strung to fashion ornaments that subtly shift with the movement of the wearer. A magical world is created.

Celebrated in her own country, Celia Molano has captured the imagination of collectors all over the world: in Australia, Austria, China, Colombia, France, Greece, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Singapore, Switzerland, Thailand, and the United States among others. Her works have been exhibited in museums and galleries in the United States, Indonesia, and the Philippines. An internationally renowned jewelry artist, she expresses the grandeur of Philippine design and the rich nuances of Eastern elegance.

An exhibit of Celia Molano’s jewelry opens at the White Cube Gallery of the Metropolitan Museum of Manila on Oct. 14. It is her first exhibit in ten years. The author is former president and trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Manila.