The Beach @ Mawun, Lombok Island ...

Well, this isn't something about batik, also not about wastra nusantara* either. 
Couple of weeks ago me and my friends went to Lombok Island, east of world-famous Bali Island. This was our first trip there and how we enjoyed every seconds of our time there. There were beaches everywhere, like you just put your finger down the "beach" menu. There's Kuta Beach near Mataram city (capital of Lombok), the famous Senggigi Beach, etc... But my heart belonged to Mawun, that secluded uninterrupted Mawun Beach.
Pristine white, without the usual 'coral lines' at its sands, the Mawun Beach create almost half lagoon-like for it was like trapped between two hills on its side. 
To go to this relatively non-popular spot, we (me and friends) took rented car , and the route was as follow 

Rute Mataram-Cakranegara-Kediri-Praya-Penujak-Selong Belanak-Mawun, 
or  
rute Mataram-Cakranegara-Kediri-Praya-Batunyale-Sengkol-Rambitan-Sade-Kuta-Mawu ,

The information above was from our journey, and from  http://id.lombokindonesia.org/pantai-mawun-lombok/
   
  

Another Classical Approach on Batik Tulungagung

Here some pictures with batik from batikker group of Mas Bobby Satriyo of "Batik Liris Manis Majan"  (you might see him on Facebook under that name). It has kain panjang format, and in pagi-sore-section. 
The color seem unusual since it has greenish tinge.but everything's within the recognizable gajah modo color scheme. 

The left section is the garland (loosely pictured buketan) while the right section is mythical bird of paradise against diagonal stripes of various isen-isen like ukel, beras wutah, kricak, parang etc (you might find these patterns under different names all over the places, due to the local dialect or different interpretation of the same pictures). 

The Classic Approach on Tulungagung Batik

Sometimes you just blown away with something so classic you feels instant connection to it. Classic batiks for the most indonesian was part of their memory of younger era of themselves. Mom went to formal function with neatly tucked hip-wrapper batik sogan, Pop being dress-up in long-sleeve, their baby borother's sling batik craddle, image of their night blanket, etc. 
And so is this one, well, in some extent...
A piece of batik classic Tulungagung in Majan Gajah Mada style, by mbak Yunar. 
It's classic, with known color scheme of 5, blue, black, yelllow, green , and of course , sogan brown and traditional process. I means that the first step was to start with darkest color of blue to make outlines of design, and then boil it down to rid off the first waxing process. It means more time and resources. And automatically , more expensive batik. 
As you notice from detailed pics, the outline's not even a line. It consist of tiny white dots within a dark blue portion. rows of dots like boats on the river. More time-consuming process to get through.... 

You have to notice that it isnt evenly designed through out the body. there's square that has different pattern from adjacent area. It is called tumpal, special portion in a sarong that indicate special area to wear in front or behind the body. 








Design of the body follow the classic lereng, family of diagonal-oriented design, called "Udan Liris" , or "gentle rain" dpicting variety of different stripes of patterns, always odd in number. The larger motif is bird of paradise, symbol of great beauty and personality.

Here and there we could recognize fans, proof for oriental influence. Overall, this design follow those of Central Java "Sudagaran" , classic pattern of either Sultanate of Yogyakarta or Surakarta, but added with merchant-class more personal flavor. 

     

Feeling Nostalgic : my First PiecesBt

Well, it was when we started a while ago, we , that means me and the Pamekasan creative teams, producing couple of batik that were fine in quality and can be bit pricey at the time. 
Looking at the quality now, it's good. 

This one, the burgundy-maroon background batik ws from around 4 years ago. As we can see it was depicting bouquet, "buketan" they said in local dialect. 
The key to understanding a piece of Pamekasan Batik is to look at the background. It always busy, just like "semarangan" did. It was and still believe that fine quality batik should be 'busy' at the background 
By the way, if you see the background leaves, it contains 3 different color, white, yellow and red/burgundy. 
And you know from this fact that it took 3 times process of exposing one-third of leaves to chemical dye, while the latter was closed by some fine wax to prevent penetration of unwanted piece. 

Silky Feeling : Another batch of Luxury

Well, i'd posted second batch of our silk stock, and here they are.
Btw, some of them were posted in my facebook account ; wahyu subiyantoro; , and perhaps if you have a crush on them, and if they're still available, you could buy them. Just contact me and i'll see if they're still there (well, half of them are in my house, another is in Royal Plaza Outlet).
And oh yeah : these are buckels that also available in our outlets, in case our customer want the total (ethnic) look. 
It's hand-made buckle in burned-finished copper. Pretty arent they....