Tied Heritage

I'd stubled upon this image of beautiful and exotic textiles from the company named VLISCO, major producer of wax-resistant textile process that dominated the upper market of Africa's affluent segment . It's vibrant color instantly caught my attention, especially for their resemblance of equally bold graphic and hue of Batik Madura. Turns out that this company has long history with batik industry in Indonesia especially in Central Java (as you know, South Africa was once dominated by Dutch as was the case with Indonesia). 
It's kind of interesting story on how this unique process of textile creation can make themselves much relevant with current situation without sacrificing too much of its originality (many of their products still use wax-resistant process although the major process is now more mechanical than it was once before). 
Positive alternative to our batik industry, though..

It's Gone

Well, something happened couple weeks ago : someone was broke into my house, stole things non-significant except my batik collection, several of them had already displayed in this blog. 
It was kind of sad experience, since there were personal stories in each of every items, whether it was about their uniqueness in quality, the way i purchased it, or just me admiring their stunningly beautiful craftmanship.
My fellow collectors had showed great sympathy, some even lend their vast network to grab something;well, anything; news about the re-appearance of this high-quality batik.
You know that this 'batik world's kind of inter-connected, people shared the same passion seems to be connected each other through the mutual love of this special art, and when we're talking about distribution of something not-too-cheap like these collector's quality batiks , we're talking about few people that both appreciative and don;t mind to spend premium price upon something rare and special. 
Well, days had gone and we were chasing the wrong path (i did call police this time) but i'd learned something that it's kind of better not to love something too deep that we're already know that eventually everything will vanish sometime. 


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Worth to be loved : Collector’s Item

It’s very subjective when we choose things we love, especially when it come in terms of the work of art. But who could blame me when I say that these items worth your attention? These Classic-style Bangkalan Tanjungbumi hand-drawn batik was the item. It’s not rare, at least not in a while. But you can see that it’s enchanted, unique and real. Patterned after sea life, theme dears to the Maduranese people depicting sea creatures, boat, stylized waves and all things marine.

Done in bold manner, these piece of art has unusually fine “tumpal” , part that indicates direction on how we wear this sarong, depends on the fashion of the day. These tumpals has soft ivory-white background and finely-detailed patterns almost like the more elaborate and expensive “gentongan”.

This combination has rarely seen since the badan can be seen as bold-and-quick kind of craftsmanship. Simple observation brings to our imagination to the explanation that these sarongs has at least two people with different batiking skills.Like the legendary “dua negeri ‘or more expensive “tiga negeri”, this practice of brings batik into different regions “just” to get certain treatments ; whether it was coloring process or laboring the crowded background with specific isen-isen; it still continue today.

Perfect Piece

On how you describe the feeling of ‘meet’ the ideal piece of art ? love ? Awe ? admire ? the truth is they ‘communicate’ with silence words of perfection, through every details, every color composition, and even its imperfection seems to enhance the other parts, become the agent of contrast, perfect in its own term.

This piece of art is on loan , belong to Mrs. Mis, the owner of House Batik Original Pamekasan, the supplier of fine hand-drawn Maduranese Batik and a friend of mine.

It’s not antique, at least not in the standard of ‘old’ in age, but certainly it’s not new piece since this one’s once belonged to her mother. The composition’s actually quite common, bouquet with ‘nitik’ finishing, the simple two-tone with no color playing very common in Maduranese Batik.

But it all change with the perfect execution.

Starting with unusual combination of two-color, deep salem-red that’s rare in Batik Madura, perfect lines, perfect dots, simple and only few ‘isen-isen’ patterns involved that feels almost restrained.

If one could use the word ‘flaws’ in this art object, only because its maker (deliberately) avoid using isen-isen technique that has three-dimension effect, instead using super neat dots and lines to make each leaves perfectly execute. Perfection rules!.

PS : if you happens to be in Pamekasan, you could consider to visit Ms. Mis in her “House Batik Original” , 2nd floor Pasar Batik , Jokotole Street Number 17. You’ll find collector’s class piece along with batik for your everyday needs.

Personal Favourite

This is one of my personal favourite patterns of batik i encounter in Madura. Karjagad, i read it once; derived from two words 'kart' in dutch means 'chart' or map, and jagad , of course rooted in sanskrit that means universe, the two combined into one meaning of the map of the universe. Popularized now as "sekarjagad" or Bunga Semesta" it usually contains two major elements : the first elements are variety of patterns that puzzle-squeezed each other to make random composition ,and the second one is usually garlands or flowery branches that double standing as border between blocks of patterns. And sometimes it appears with third pattern that usually depicting bird-of-paradise or local 'phoenix' pattern. This Karjagad/Sekarjagad particularly different from the neat-and-well-ordered tumpal/tambal pattern in central java (not to be confused with tumpal in sarong). If anyone interesting in its philosophy, this patterns originally didn't intended to carry such concept but decorative pattern, but now it is known as batik for 'great personality & high dignity". On why exactly this particular pattern attracts my attention? i couldn't analyze it, but maybe because i saw something economic yet very beautiful in this 'chaotic and random' composition. In one piece of fabric you'll get almost every basic patterns imaginable, sort of 'tutty-frutty' of batik world, yet it's elegance is undisputed since the ones i like the most are those done with tradition brown 'sogan' , the warm earth tone that evokes simple and dignified world of batik that it once belong.