SOUTHEAST METRO ARTS INC. was established in 1994. With a staff of four, we embarked on an ambitious project of making decorative products using Mt. Pinatubo stones, an abundance in our area. Such a daunting task in uncharted waters proved to be successful. What was once a crisis, today provides a sustainable livelihood for all the artisans who came from a once devastated wasteland.

The Mt. Pinatubo Eruption in June 1991 came after 635 years of dormancy, and produced the largest and most violent terrestrial eruption of the 20th century. Ejecting more than 10 billion metric tons of magma and 20 million tons of sulphur dioxide, these particles remained suspended in the atmosphere reaching as far as Russia and North America.