Another big day with Apikri visiting artisans and seeing the sights around Jogja. We started out at 7:30 and drove southeast of Jogja up into the hills around Bobung. We visited the workshops of Kemiran and Slamet who do batik painting on wood, specializing in masks that are used for Ramayana performances and for decorative purposes.
Kemiran and Amir (Apikri) had a great time explaining the work of Apikri. Kemiran is a long time member of Apikri. He is also a local politician and head of the cultural committee for his village.
Cutting wood at Slamet's workshop. They use pule (pool-lay) wood that is harvested from plantations. Pule is fast growing, a tree can grow to 8 inches in diameter in 4 years.
Tumin is one of the carvers at Slamet's workshop. It's amazing what a skilled person can do with just an adze. A block of wood quickly becomes a rough-shaped mask.
Slamet takes the rough mask and carves it into its finished form. He learned carving from his dad. Actually, he says his dad did not encourage him so he snuck some wood into his room and practiced on his own, after closely watching his dad. One day his dad found his stash of carved masks in his room and was amazed at what Slamet could already do. After that Slamet's dad taught him everything he knew about carving and Slamet soon became a master carver.
Carved pule wood products waiting to be finished.
Carved pule wood masks ready for batik painting.
We all got a chance to try our hand at batik painting on a mask. Charlotte is carefully applying a design in wax by using a tool called a canting (chanting). Amy is in the background doing the same.
No matter how careful you are, some blobs of wax always show up just where you don't want them.
Ila shows Alicia how to properly use the canting to apply wax to a mask.
Ila is an expert batik painter on wooden masks. She doesn't seem to make any mistakes.
Mariati, Slamet's wife and business partner, holding their youngest son.
Therese and Chris tried to be really careful as they applied wax to their batik masks.
Batick tools: 4 cantings in an aluminum wax cooking pan heated by an electric heater. The liquid wax is scooped up into the brass container on the front of the canting and then dripped and dribbled through the narrow spout onto the wooden mask.
The masks were then dipped into two dyes, a yellow one to soak into the wood and set up the process for the second dye. After the first dye-dunk, the mask comes out a light yellow color.
The second dye starts out as a yellow dye-powder but when the mask is dipped into the dye it immediately turns red. The wax on the mask resists the dye and will be boiled off to create a contrasting pattern.
Danang shows how to dip a mask into boiling water in order to melt off the wax and reveal the contrasting batik pattern.
Charlotte successfully dips her mask into the boiling water to melt off the wax she applied earlier.
Christina gets some help from Yanti who does marketing for Apikri in Jogja.
Mariati congratulates Christina upon producing a fine batik painted mask.
All of our mask makers at Slamet's workshop are so proud of their work that they can't bear to show their faces. Yanti is not so shy.
When Amir came to encourage them, our now expert batik mask painters lowered their masks and proudly posed with Yanti and Amir - Chris, Alicia, Christina, Charlotte, Therese and Amy.
Beautiful tropical plants are everywhere. This one was gracing the front yard of Slamet's neighbor.
After a great lunch at Kemiran's house we were treated to a dance and gamelan orchestra performance. The dancers depicted a story taken from the Ramayana.
The dancers wore elaborate and colorful costumes. Many of them had painted wicker horses to 'ride'.
The local gamelan orchestra accompanied the dance.
One of the female dancers.
One of the main characters in the story - the guy with the big green nose.
Two of the horse dancers with masks perched on their heads after the performance.
We were honored to pose with the dancers and orchestra players for a big group photo. Amir Panzuri, Apikri Director is in the middle front (black shirt) and Imam Pituduh, retired director of Pekerti is next to him (striped shirt).
Betty got a quick lesson in gamelan playing and was soon banging out some pleasing tunes.
Amy is trying to reproduce what she heard from the gamelan xylophone just a few minutes ago.
Apikri and it's members like Kemiran and Slamet are involved in tree planting. Here Amir and Kemiran are showing Kemiran's plantation plot. He is growing teak, mahoghany and some other faster growing woods to benefit his neighborhood. Their tree planting slogan is: Use one tree, plant ten more in its place'.
Pak Manwar with his batick painted herons, a Villages product. Manwar is a neighbor of Kemiran and Slamet in Bobung.
On the way back to Jogja we crossed a river on a bridge and noticed that there were some pretty dirty cows wading in the river.
They looked like they could use some help to wash the dirt and muck off of their hides.
The cow herds invited us down to help them wash their cows. Therese and Betty joined right in.
Christina helped out too.
The farmers were mildly amused at our attempt to help with cow washing. Washing a cow is supposed to bring you good luck and good fortune. We now have extra insurance for the rest of our learning tour in Indonesia.
Tomorrow morning Apikri will take us to the Jogja airport and we will fly over to Bali where Agung Alit and his friends at Mitra Bali will meet us at the Denpasar airport. We are looking forward to enjoying 3 days on Bali.
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