Pamekasan Pictures back in time...

 

Jumputan : newfound interest

For you who treated your Batik collection as part of your active wardrobe ensemble, it is evidently important to have "as many as possible" arrays of traditional brouses mathced with any possible combinations of your batik treasures. Or you just made things up o have reasons to shop more.
Anyway, my friends have folow the rather-late trend of using jumputan as their fabric to make kebaya kutubaru , tradtional blouse with panel between right & left side of your shirt (you'll see few of illustration. However, none are my original pictures)

Jumputan is both the fabric name & the technique to apply design to otherwise blank sheet of linen (or silk or whatever you want to work with).
The technique is actually simple : you tied part of fabric you wont want the coloring agent to seep-into the respective part, so it remain as the fabric was originally appears. 
The result was very elegan and traditionally classic and super-feminine kebaya. 

* the image of fabric was FB Blog of "Jumputan Cindelaras"
* i just couldn't remember the blog or websides was , but mostly the kebaya jumputan's images was from the very-successfull show of Anne Avantie, the queen of Kebaya in Indonesia

    

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. 

     

Silky Feeling : those luxurious fabric around your hips

It's kind of funny on how one marketing strategy can helps sales tremendeously. Well, not that dramatic, of course. But you get the idea. 
The batik tulis ( hand-drawn batik) on silk is something deemed not very popular these days since it usually connected to the old-fashion feeling, more mature silk-shirt father (or even grandfather) kind of thing. Not cool. And quite expensive.
That's too bad since silk batik was and still something i find rather alluring, on how come someone rejected the idea of added luxury into your otherwise everyday clothes ensemble. 

Well, in our store, for months we tried to sell those hand-drawn batik on silk with not-so-encouraging result. And then i saw friends use more affordable viscose stamp-batik for hip wrapper, beach-style but this time, topped with embroidered traditional cotton blouse (we called Kebaya) for informal function (and sometimes in more elaborate functions as well). 
And we starts to sell , marketing our hand-drawn silk batik as luxurious alternative of beach hip wrapper. 
And people buy to the idea.
Well, at least we can help our friends specialized in producing silk-based hand-drawn batik in Pamekasan, while aso producing healthy profit (not much, but healthy). 
And i can find a good excuse to buy more of it (cannot help myself, they're gorgeous)

Here are some of our h

and-drawn Pamekasan style silk-based batik of our own.   

Banyuwangi Visit

Actually it was a while a go, this visit to Banyuwangi, and i dont want to write this as a strict journal, rather than a (distant) sketch of my memory of the actual visit.
All of my friends (a bus-load of friends that is) couldnt be agreed  that the highlight of this trip was a visit to Kampung Wisata Osing owned by Pak Iwan, Coffee Maker (and automatically the owner of coffee industry based in Banyuwangi). This artistically-arranged desa wisata was only a couple of km away from central Banyuwangi, the closed-gate compound with several teak-wood antique houses surrounded by lush greenery and great ambience.
No doubt that the night's mood was settled in more relaxed atmosphere when we went into the front small courtyard welcomed by strange but familiar sound : the nature sound of ladies playing lesung, a traditional rice-processing device that now serves as musical instruments. It was magical experience to see these old ladies creating rythm and beautiful music from such a simple everyday objects. My ever enthusiast friends didnt hesitate to join the ladies to merry the night.
After sumptuous dinner with brief local culinary lecture, the night was held to its height by a couple of Jejer dancer, the seducing dance of old Blambangan Kingdom welcoming dignitaries and demand participation from each of our bus' members.

Little did we know that the highlight of the night wasnt the Jejer dance, it wasnt also the brief explanation of the dance, the outfits, cultural significance of the dance and discussion afterward, but a batik parade. Yes, it was batik parade , held by senior ladies with black kebaya that previously being musicians.With obvious pride, each ladies held wide the heirloom of each families, piece of old Banyuwangi Batik that has been in family, many-many years. With each ladies assumed their place in front of us, we couldnt held ourselves more, ransacking front to see up-close and took lots of pictures and make a buzzling sound of admirations. Shortly : it was chaotic. In a rather fun and beautiful way. 
Each ladies was telling stories of the batik they held, helped by translator since many of the ladies couldnt express their thoughts in bahasa indonesia. We were formed many circles around each ladies, enjoying their personal stories and hearing explanation from Banyuwangi Expertise. After this, we drank some specially-brewed coffee and tea, and it was simply heaven.
A good story, merry dance, beautiful batik, delicious cofee, lots of friends.
Couldnt asked more.
   
 

 

 

 

 

 

I'll tell you about something : Tulungagung & Trenggalek Batik Trip

This time i wouldnt go into something serius.
Last week me and my 18 friends from KIBAS went to Tulungagung and Trenggalek. It was out-of-radar batik centers, especially Trenggalek. Tulungagung was relatively unknown to East Javanese Batik connoiseur, albeit the outside world. The thing is : this region produce some of the most recognizable yet full of fusions from other influence. It is called Majan's Tulungagung.
See for yourself

 

 

 

 

Those are from the atelier of Batik Yunar Tulungagung. You can easily find her account on FB under ther very same name. It has fine craftmanship, enchanted, both traditional and gave bit of modern twist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those beautiful 'thing' was actually from a single 'sarung' , so diverse its part that my friend had thought that i'd show him a couple of samples. Those are picture from a relatively old sarung (around 50 y.o.) and gave us some clear evident that once Batik Tulungagung was as fine as other more important and famous batik center.

( we saw it at Mas Bobby's place).