The Company
BrushArt™ is a trademark of Philippine Finecrafts Export (PFE), a trading company owned by Englishman Paul Holme. Paul is originally from London , and is the designer and, through PFE, the sole distributor of the BrushArt™ line.
After several years doing development work with the UN in Southeast Asia in the seventies, Paul became a permanent resident of the Philippines in 1978. With an initial capitalisation of $30,000 he registered PFE with the Philippine Board of Investments in 1979 as an export trading firm dealing in Philippine handicrafts.
PFE banks with the Bank of Commerce, Paseo de Roxas branch (fax: 632-815-4279, ph: 632-817-1451, formerly Traders Royal Bank), and has done so since it began business.
Until 1994, the company exported chiefly baskets, pottery and furniture. Then, concerned about dwindling supplies of wood, rattan, and the other staples of the handicraft industry, as well as increasing competition from neighboring Asian countries, Paul began searching for more plentiful and environmentally friendly materials with which to work. In 1994, Mike Dychingco, then a supplier of his, showed him the first brush animal made in the Philippines . The vegetable fiber, leaves and seeds the animal was made of were the sympathetic and environmentally friendly materials Paul had been looking for. In April 1995 they partnered at the Manila FAME Show in the first Philippine exhibit of brush animals, for which Mike received the Katha Award for Best Product Line. In 1996 Paul began designing his own unique and exclusive line of animals at PFE. The BrushArt line was born. Over the ensuing years Paul has incorporated new materials and techniques which have broadened the range, and helped gain it a reputation forquality , innovation and design excellence in markets from Western Europe, through America , to East Asia .
We now have a truly marvelous, exciting, and constantly growing collection; one which we hope will bring you as much pleasure - and success - as it has brought us.
Our Philosophy
Please excuse us for a moment while we moralize a bit...
Conservation has been a serious issue since the 1960's, but almost fifty years on we're still mining and logging and burning and poisoning and hunting and fishing and disposing our way closer to the brink of ecological catastrophe with each passing year, and, folks, it ain't looking good!
Doubtless this is a stage, like the "terrible two's", we all have to go through. But now it's really time to grow up, and to honor our parent - Mother Earth - in deed as well as in word. What excuses are holding us back?
There are some who say that 'progress' - their own or their nation's - is paramount, so ecological destruction must be tolerated. There are some who say "I am just one among billions! What possible difference can my behavior make?" There are still some who say that humanity is intrinsically evil, so let's hasten it to its well-deserved end by encouraging all this destruction. And there are some again who say "If I am alone in my good behavior I shall simply be subsidizing - and therefore prolonging - the thoughtless behavior of others."
All of these attitudes betray the same mindset; a lack of 'amor propre' : the proper, appropriate, natural love for our Mother Earth - a love which all aboriginal peoples share, but which we forgot somewhere on the way to the bank. Original peoples don't just treat our Earth well because it's in their best interests to do so. They treat her well because they love her. There is absolutely no calculation in this. Respect for the Earth arises from the heart; it is not manufactured in the head.
As children of this planet we all contain within us
the moral imperative to embrace a lifestyle
that does not compromise the future
for the sake of the present.
The Aborigines of Australia put it more simply: "Touch the earth lightly!"
My behavior is the measure of my morality, regardless of what others do. I will not join others in harming the world, because I know that to do so will bring me no true satisfaction. I shan't feel that I'm ‘missing out', or that I am sacrificing for them; I am simply expressing my values – as, presumably, they are expressing theirs.
While we occasionally use a bit more wood than we would like, Brushart animals represent a sincere attempt to live by this precept.
Paul Holme - 15 August, 2005 |
