On Thursday morning we flew on a Lion Air prop plane from Denpasar, Bali to Mataram, Lombok. The flight took about 30 minutes.
It was raining when we landed at the Lombok airport in Mataram, the largest city on Lombok.
We were met by 3 representatives from Lombok Pottery Centre, our tourist guide, Mr. Basar, and our big blue bus. The 3 people from Lombok Pottery were: Ayu, Marketing Manager, Ketut and Novi. We got on the bus and drove to Banyumulek village to visit some potters in action. The more than 200 potters are all women, as are the management staff. The only men at Lombok Pottery are employed to do packing and shipping. This is extraordinary since the population on Lombok is over 90% Muslim and usually women are not in charge of businesses and don't due hard manual labor like pottery making.
Lombok Pottery employs 215 member potters and employs 16 people in their offices, showroom and warehouse. It got started with a joint New Zealand-Indonesia government grant back in 1988. Since then they have become indepent and are owned the women potters who are all members of the Lombok Pottery co-op. Ten Thousand Villages USA is their biggest customer and they hope we will buy even more in the future since most of the women employed making pottery only on a part time basis.
We were first taken to see how firing of the pots is done. They pointed out that Ten Thousand Villages contributed some money a few years ago to build the roof structure that covers their firing area.
The firing process is pretty simple and a bit primitive. Some bricks are laid on the ground to provide a few inches ground clearance when an steel grate of rebars is laid on top of the bricks. Unfired pots are stacked on the grate, wood is shoved under the grate and a bunch of rice straw and rice husks are dumped on top of the pots. The wood is then lit on fire and the tenders of the firing process keep heaping straw and rice husks on the pile until the pots are fired long enough to get done.
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Here you can see the steel grate, the fire and some pots in the 'kiln'.
Here you can see the steel grate, the fire and some pots in the 'kiln'.
The back roads and alleys in Banyumulek are pretty narrow, way too narrow for our bus, so we climbed into horse carts, the local taxi cabs, and trotted off to visit some potters at their home workshops. Judith and Therese got into this nice blue cart.
Chris and Charlotte crawled into a yellow cart and Emily is climbing into another horse cart in the background while Bruce takes photos of the action.
Christina and Amy are in the green cart and taking photos even before fully sitting down.
Wendy and Dave are enjoying their ride.
Ayu from Lombok Pottery Centre encouraged us all to get in a horse cart and was delighted to see us all trot off to visit a few potters.
Our first stop was at the home workshop of Inak Rum. She showed us how she builds up a pot with big ropes of clay that she kneads, scrapes and coaxes into a big clay pot.
Inak's daughter helps her to move a big unfinished pot onto a small turntable so Inak can complete the pot.
Inak is adding a rim to the pot.
She kneads big chunks of clay into thick ropes and applies them around the rim of the pot.
She then smoothes out the clay rim to get closer to a complete pot.
Inak's oldest daughter, Ila, applies tamarind dye and then polishes the pot with a cloth rag and a smooth black stone collected from the nearby river. The women gather up tamarind seeds from their neighborhood and make their own dye.
Ayu watches as Inak explains basic pottery making techniques to Therese. Chris is taking pictures and a bunch of neighborhood kids are watching too.
Lombok Pottery Centre made a banner in recognition of our visit so we posed for a photo at Inak's home workshop. Left to right: Ketut, Lombok Pottery, Chris, Bruce, Therese, Emily, Dave, Alicia, Amy hiding behind Alicia, Judith, Inak, Charlotte, Novi, Lombok Pottery, Christina and Mustiah of Lombok Pottery.
Our horse carts drove us over the home workshop of Musriah and her husband Naam. Musriah is a potter and Naam has joined her in the business by 'scratching' designs into the pottery. Their etching tool (Lombok Pottery calls it a scratching tool) is a length of sharpened file inserted into a piece of bamboo - sort of like lead in a pencil. An inexpensive, homemade tool that works just fine.
Naam is sharpening his scratching tool on a sharpening stone.
Naam first uses a template to draw the outline of the pattern that he wants to scratch into the pottery. Later on, during our discussions at the Lombok Pottery office, the women told us that women are much better potters than men while men are better scratchers (etchers) than women. The men work for the women.
Two young future potters looking on with great interest.
Our next stop was at the home of Mamum. She was working on a shallow round pan with fluted edges.
She was obviously pleased with her work and told us that her income from pottery helps to pay for her kids' education.
Here's another Lombok Pottery member working on a variety of clay pots and utensils at a larger building that also serves as a warehouse for pots made in Banyumulek.
Big clay pots with a woven rattan topping.
The rattan is securely fastened to the top of the pot by 'sewing' the rattan through holes bored into the rim of the clay pot.
We had a tremendous Lombok traditional lunch at the Taliwang Irama Restaurant in Mataram. Bruce, Ayu (waving), Christina, Dave, Judith and Charlotte are at this table. One of the snack specialties was deep fried, crispy cow lung. It really did taste good.
At the end of our first day on Lombok we were driven north up the coast to Senggigi Beach where we checked into our hotel, the Senggigi Beach Hotel, owned and operated by the Indonesian National Airline - Garuda.
Tomorrow we will continue our vist with Lombok Pottery Centre on Lombok.
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