AS you walk on the narrow and crowded sidewalk along Assumption Road in Baguio City, you will pass through lines of assorted business stores—a second-hand bookshop, street food, an optical shop, electronic shops, a fabric retail and lowland ambulant vendors playing cat and mouse with apprehending anti-sidewalk vending personnel.
It’s the usual busy-street scenario speaking of the stress brought on by the rush in a highly urbanized place. Somewhere near the end of the row from a tiny façade entrance, the eye catches a quaint structure of mosaic tiles and a mandala made from colored glass on a strikingly red wall. Fronting it is a small counter crowded with the blossoms of a flower shop. It is the unexpected soft touch in a hurried walk down the road in the complex known as Ili-likha Artist Village.
The shop called Anthoniuz is owned by Anthon Paulite, the most known flower arranger and artist in the city. As one approaches the counter, the soft-spoken Paulite begins to speak of the flowers on display.
His gentle ways strikingly are almost as soft as petals floating down, not surprisingly, for almost his entire life, he touched and carried flowers in his hands.
His artistry has given love on Valentine’s Day, added joy to weddings; brightness to parades and festivals; comfort in funeral homes and bedsides of the sick; pride in a graduation march; and most of all, developed the potentials of newbies in the art of flower arrangements.
Expressing love through flowers started as a kid. Like most little sons, he picked wildflowers to give to his mother or gathered some to lay on his teacher’s table as a morning greeting.
Even as a child, Paulite arranged flowers for the traditional Flores de Mayo in his Camarines Sur hometown. He would wake up at dawn to start collecting camachiles, zinnias, rosals, bougainvilleas and whatever flowers he found growing around the neighborhood. He would then make a floral bouquet in a basket filled with loose petals, part of the whole design.
After finishing high school, like many other youth in the province, he found himself thrust in a city job in 1985 to fend for himself and, perhaps, help with the family expenses back in the province. He and his brother started working as part of the kitchen staff and all-around help in the Divine Word Retreat House in Baguio City. But it was the big garden where dendrobium orchids, snapdragons, daisies, lilies and many other varieties grew that awed him.
He also became part of the church choir that practiced every Saturday.
“But it was the flower arrangements for the altar that fascinated me,” he said.
Time and again, Paulite tried his hand in the arrangements that others welcomed, until, eventually, the task was assigned to him. So delighted was he that he started to peruse magazines, clipping out floral arrangements and trying them out for Sunday service. Actually, while the church only changed flowers for the Sunday Mass, Paulite changed them practically every day.
People noticed, and that gave him a sense of fulfillment. But sadly, in 1988, there was a turnover of management and Paulite was one of those removed.
Moving to Manila, he landed a job as a sales boy in a construction-supply shop. It was a thing so far removed from his passion, but he found a way to pursue his dream.
“I never gave up my passion for flowers. I used my free time looking for flower shops where I could work,” he said.
His efforts paid off as he was hired as an all-around florist by El Carlos, one of the only three flower shops in Manila. After work, he would stroll off to the National Bookstore, browse through books on flower arrangements, and pick one out that he would try to make in the shop the next day.
“This hands-on experience in the shop gave me confidence and lots of learning,” he said.
But he felt he needed more. Somehow, his drive to keep getting better with his passion shaped the future for him. One of his determined dreams was to have a certificate that would qualify him for a professional status in the industry.
He found no school except for the International Correspondence School. For years, he would see this billboard as he traveled to Baguio from Manila. He enrolled in the flower-arrangement course in its home-study program. He used the P5,000 he got as separation pay after six years of working at the construction shop to start the P26,000-worth course he painstakingly took up while working in the floral shop. He earned a diploma from the one-year course.
Things started really happening after he finished his course, thanks to his relentless pursuit of a dream.
In 1995 a church member called him back to Baguio, and Paulite once again felt the thrill of doing flower arrangements in the service of God. In a floral-arrangement competition during the first Flower Festival (now known as Panagbenga), Paulite easily took the second prize, encouraging him to join every contest and seminar thereafter.
In another competition sponsored by Mon and Pop, he won first prize.
“I made a New Wave design of birds-of-paradise and leaves painted black and blue,” he recalled.
His vivid recollections of his compositions show how each work had come from the heart.
In 1997 he said he joined another contest in Makati City and did a composition with young coconuts and birds-of-paradise, describing in detail the arrangement. From there, he won the mayor’s trophy as a top winner.
In February of the same year, he joined an on-the-spot competition in Quezon City organized by the Philippine Orchid Society.
“I made a basic design using dendrobium orchids following the serpentine line inspired by 18th century artist William Hogart,” he said. The S-shape theory signifies liveliness which attracts the attention of the viewer. Straight lines in contrast signify inanimate objects.
Famous bonsai and ikebana artist Met Metilla took note of his talent from this presentation and started bringing him to more seminars and introducing him to other florists where the exchange of ideas only enlivened Paulite’s craft.
In 1999 he became the grand champion in a national-skills competition sponsored by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda), which eventually paved the way for him to be a Tesda lecturer.
After winning the Flower Festival flower-arrangement contest, the Rural Bank of Baguio, which was then offering craft workshops, took Paulite in as a mentor. He went on to gain several other awards, a notable one being the Ramon Magsaysay Outstanding Filipino Worker in the self-employed category in 2001.
From once an eager learner, Paulite is now giving back, giving seminars on his own a few times a year. He also established “Floriferus,” a group of floral artists who banded to gain a voice aside from enriching each other’s craft.
To this day, Paulite continues to serve the Society of the Divine Word, arranging flowers for weddings and Sunday church and is still part of the Sunnyside choir, where as a young member, he had his first glimpses of the garden of flowers that he fell in love with.
Paulite first set up shop in 1999 at the La Azotea on Session Road, at the foot of the six flights of stairs, with the tagline, “We’re not happy until you are.” He was invited by the building owner, the late Virginia de Guia, perhaps, in a way of gracing the beginning of the day with his flowers. He recently moved to Ili-likha to blend with the creative minds occupying the space.
Paulite can keep getting bigger and earn a real fortune from his craft. But he says he is happy where he is, making his clients happy with his personal touch. Getting bigger will delegate the job to workers, he said.
He revels in the thought that he was once a high-school nobody to somebody with a perfumed name in the field of floral arrangements. Like the flowers he lovingly arranges every day, he said it is best to be as humble as the silence of the flowers and let beauty standout and give joy to others.
Now in his mid-40s, he makes enough for himself and help out some of his siblings, and that’s all he needs, he said.
For as long as flowers bloom, there will be Anthoniuz, behind that little counter of bouquets, quietly adding his bit of joy to all occasions.
Image credits: Karl Lapniten