The Language of Cloth

Arts of Pacific Asia Show

daniel — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 23:54:12 +0000

I have the wonderful opportunity to assist Rudloph Smend in presenting a beautiful collection of museum quality batik sarongs and kain panjang in the San Francisco Arts of Pacific Asia Exhibition. He is a very gracious and knowledgeable man who is as passionate as I am about batik. He has been collecting for 38 yerars. Here are a few examples from the pieces in the show:

This is a detail from a lovely girls sarong circa 1920.

Detail from the kepala of a sarong circa 1940.

Click on image to see more images of Gallerie Smend collection at the San Francsico Pacific Asia Arts

Exhibition.

Annual December “Pop-up” Shop, San Francisco

daniel — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 16:23:48 +0000

(Click on the photo below to see a preview of some of the collection offered this year:)

Kue Batik! (batik cake)

daniel — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 17:10:10 +0000

Often cloth printed with batik images is mistakenly called “batik”. In the west, most people don’t realize that batik is not a printed cloth at all, but something much more specific and complex. Batik is a process in which designs are applied to cloth by hand with melted wax, then immersed in a dye bath, after which the wax is removed to reveal the design on the areas of the cloth that resisted the color because of the wax. This is called a wax resist and it is an ancient form of decorating cloth. It has reached it’s highest artistic achievement however in Java during the last several centuries.

Recently I commissioned my friend Cecile Gady at Cakework who has been making beautiful cakes that have achieved a very high level of artistic creativity for over 25 years to create a cake decorated with batik images. Of course it is not really a batik cake as there was no wax resist process used to create it, just as there is no wax resist used to make most cloth that is commonly called batik. Cecile uses a technique that reproduces digital images in edible food coloring on a thin flat sheet of rolled white chocolate. The cake is then wrapped with this edible “material”.

The images were taken from a very special batik from the workshop of Oey Siok Kiem, a Pernakan, or Chinese-Indonesian batik-maker whose workshop was in Pekalongan on the north coast of Java in the 1950’s. The style is called pesisir or coastal, because of the influence that coastal trade had on design elements of batik from that area. The bouquet motif was very popular in this type of batik and demonstrates a European influence. It works quite well on a cake too!

(Click on this photo to see more.)

A New Appreciation of Batik

daniel — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 05:52:38 +0000

The Batik Trunk Show at the San Francisco Asian Art Museum was a great success. Many people came and learned about the incredible skill and craftsmanship that goes in to creating each piece. It was very gratifying for me to have the support and expertise in presenting my collection at the museum for the first time.

It was significant that this trunk show was presented during the current major exhibit of Balinese art. The ancient Hindu-Buddhist traditions from which both Javanese and Balinese cultures share common origins makes batik an important addition.

Batik at the Trunk Show and Sale

daniel — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 17:14:44 +0000

The San Francisco Asian Art Museum http://www.asianart.org/storeevents.htm is presenting a Trunk Show and Sale of my batik collection on Friday and Saturday, July 15th and 16th from 10 to 5. There are many new designs from all over Java. It’s free and you don’t need admission to the museum to come. It’s a wonderful opportunity to see and touch some of the finest batik silk scarves and shawls in the US. There will be many affordable pieces as well as masterpieces of the art of batik.

CLICK ON THIS PHOTO TO SEE OTHER EXAMPLES OF BATIK IN THE SHOW:

Just returned from a batik odyssey

daniel — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 19:44:02 +0000

Detail:New scarf design mid-century modern ” , Bentuk Bebas Series, #1

Detail waxed cloth before coloring. Bentuk Bebas #1, batik tulis, hand-drawn on hand-woven jepara silk.

Finished scarves hanging to dry after finakl coloring at Batik Asif Workshop, Pekalongan, Java.

Batik Asif Workshop, Pekalongan, Java

Pak Amin, master colorist at Batik Asif Workshop, taking wax out.

Hanging to dry after taking out the wax (lorod)

New scarf design, “Rumput Laut”, sea grass, batik tulis, hand-drawn on hand-woven Jepara silk

Asif (white shirt) discussing steps in coloring with Pak Amin.

Asif inspects finished scarves hanging to dry.

Coloring batik in the method used in Pekalongan. The cloth is immersed into the v-shaped trough of dye bath. With a heavy hardwood roller holding it to the bottom, the cloth is pulled out from one end to the other by two people, back and forth going through the dye bath until the right amount of color is absorbed.

Coloring.

Coloring

Batik cap. The design is applied in wax with a copper stamp.

Finished batik

Beautiful silk from Cambodia

daniel — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 18:06:06 +0000

Sea kelp scarf, hand-drawn batik on hand woven Cambodian raw silk

(click on photo above to see more designs on Cambodian silk)

This is some of the most beautiful silk we have ever used for batik. It is very soft and keeps its lovely hand through the batik process while taking the color beautifully. It is difficult to get and I’ve only been able to get it once before. The designs are simple without filling the cloth with the typical issen-issen (filler motifs) normally used on smooth silk.

Batik tulis scarves and shawls based on French Art Nouveau designs

daniel — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:27:25 +0000

The Language of Cloth presents a collection of batik scarves, shawls, and large cloths based on French Art Nouveau designs from the turn of the century. Please click on the photo above to see the batik currently on exhibition.

Mega mendung with factory smokestacks

daniel — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 19:45:03 +0000

Mega mendung is the name of a batik pattern which originates in Cirebon on the north coast of Java. The name refers to clouds. The origin is Chinese, probably influenced by cloud decoration on 7th century Chinese bronze vessels. It is characterized by a gradation of color from light to dark. The effect is achieved by the batik process by applying successive lines of wax next to each other, with a dye bath of the same color after each application. When the wax is removed the successive lines of color from light to dark create the distinctive gradation that makes this pattern so appealing.

The mega mendung motif in this kain panjang (hip wrapper) batik os adapted to illustrate the carbon monoxide emissions in factory smokestacks.

Detail

This is the final dye bath. At this point 5 successive adjacent lines of wax have been applied, with a dye bath after each one. The entire area of the cloth has been covered with wax except the central area of each cloud. It was not covered with wax during the entire process and consequently received all the successive dye baths, so it is the darkest color in the gradation. After this dye bath the wax will be removed by immersing the cloth in a vat of boiling water.

Carbon Emissions Batik

daniel — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:09:40 +0000

This batik is in the Kain panjang format and is a statement about the carbon dioxide emitted by our use of fossil fuels for transportation. It is based on a traditional mega mendung or cloud/rock pattern which originated in Cirebon on the north coast of Java. It is in the tradition of the batik dongeng, or story batik which were popular during the Dutch colonization of Indonesia. It was produced by Wirama Wastra Batik in Kliwonan, Sragen, not far from Solo in Central Java, It is one in a series of dongneg batik planned for future exhibition.