Culture Files: Batik

Last week, a friend of mine and I went to the local Batik "shop", and took a Batik class. It was so much fun! Batik is an Indonesian specialty, and it's process has been refined through the ages. The best batik is still done by hand here, and we got to watch, learn and try.   

It all starts with a white sheet of cloth. Special stamps, or cap (say: chop) are designed out of copper to hold he hot wax and leave a design behind on the fabric. The cap is then dipped in hot wax and placed carefully on the fabric in the pattern that the artist is going for. 

It's much harder than they make it look! The wax is heated "the old fashioned way" over an open flame. More than once, hot, waxy smoke drifted into my eyes and left me momentarily blind and teary. The cap is heavy, and my friend and I both left with blistered hands from our fun.

 

Once the fabric is waxed, it's ready for dye.

These guys made a special color just for us. They normally do light colors in this region, but we asked for very dark blue. Somehow this yellow looking dye made our cloth a midnight blue. We loved it! 

The dyed fabric is then boiled to remove the wax, and inspected to remove any imperfections left by unmelted wax.

 The fabric dried for about an hour while we sat and drank fresh coconut water out of a freshly downed coconut. Delicious!

Once the fabric was dry, we each had 2 meters of our very own hand crafted batik! Here's a close up of the cloth i worked on.