08 June - 02 July, Yogyakarta, Java, Indonesia - 4th Chapter

Batik

Jogja is famed for batik, this traditional art has been practised in Indonesia for at least 800 years. It comes in various forms: some are printed on cotton sheets using copper block stamps; others are hand-painted on silk over several days by skilled artists. The making may involve several rounds of applying wax with a pen-like tool, soaking the cloth in colour, drying and then removing the wax in order to combine colours on the canvas. Mass-produced T-shirts and other clothes come as cheap as IDR 15.000 (HUF 300), while real artwork can easily have a price tag of a few million.





He seems to be having a good sleep inspired by batik ...



One day we join Susy’s batik workshop from 9am to 2pm. She welcomes us, introduces her 3 workers who are going to guide us, and after a short talk she apologizes because she has to leave. We feel we have been cheated but the guys are also really skilled and helpful.
First we can choose from simple patterns painted on 30x30cm canvas. We pick the simplest one and indigo-copy them to empty canvas with a pencil. Évi admires the dragonflies painted on Susy's T-shirt, made by one of her sons. She is advised to put one into the middle of her geckos. That's how she starts to make the simple pattern more complicated.



It’s time to get to know the canting tool: putting wax all along the pencil line. Oh, yes, it is dropping easily. We need to be shown again and again how much wax we should put into the tool, and how to hold it and draw a line from left to right, going upwards only. Still, we give our tutors some extra work to clean the unnecessary wax spots from the canvas. They seem to be getting used to it, and they don't complain at all but keep on telling us, "it's OK, it can be cleaned"!





After waxing, the colouring process starts. They try to explain to us the different techniques in a nutshell and then we go on with choosing the colours, putting on the first layer and then drying the canvas. The colour we would like to preserve needs to be covered with wax before the next layer.





While we are working on our simple designs, the staff keep on going with their recent orders. They produce mostly for wholesalers in the USA, Europe or Australia. The work itself takes place around Susy’s house in a nice kampung with narrow, shadowy streets. Sometimes we walk one or two blocks to find the best spots with sunshine to dry the canvas. But the hairdryer also becomes our friend to make it quicker. We need it since Évi figures out newer and newer patterns which means more and more layers of colour, wax and rounds of drying.



Atti has already finished but Évi is still working at around 4pm when Susy arrives home. She talks about her sons living in different parts of the world, explaining her leading role at the kampung, which is normally done by men, and how she supports the neighbours with rice and advises them on their lives.
Our ‘masterpieces' are done by 5pm and are as colourful as the favourite bird of the team.

Milas

We keep coming back to Milas, an exceptional vegetarian restaurant close to our homey Delta. The menu has mostly local dishes, some of them spiced with western flavours using MSG-free, organic products. Tasting their delicious meals, sitting in one of the open bamboo huts placed around a garden is quite pleasant. They run not only the restaurant but also a shop with locally made handicrafts, toiletries and delicacies (for example, jams from Bumi Langit), and the garden is home to an organic food market twice a week. It’s no wonder that the place is popular with locals and tourists as well.
There is one of our picks in the below picture: fresh salad with cashew nuts, tempeh sate with peanut sauce, and brown rice topped with fried onion.



There are excellent examples of re-using rubber tyres in Milas. Actually, we keep discovering these items here and there, first as furniture at Maninjau Lake, then as waste bins on the streets of Malang (our post is coming about that soon).