BATIK

Batik A Cultural Heritage

Batik, been famous since the 17^th century, was originally written and painted on the palm leaves. At that time, the pattern of batik was dominated by the form of animals and plants.

I was stunned when seeing the process of making batik. The craftsman carved the pattern beautifully into a piece of cloth or silk using canting containing hot wax. This complicated process of making batik is carefully done and for the sake of obtaining a unique batik pattern. Canting is a device shaped like a pen and made of bamboo with a conical copper heads. It is needed to ladle the hot liquid wax which used as a protective covering of dyes in the coloring process.

BATIK = AMBATIK

The word batik is derived from a word in the Java language “ambatik”, means writing or incising dots. Altough the word “batik” is derived from the Javanese language, the presence of batik in Java itself has never been discovered.

At the beginning of the batik production process, the carftsman will incise wax on a white fabric using canting. But before the incising of the wax, the fabric must be first dipped into oil plants and soda solution, in order to facilitate the wax so that it will be easier for the fabric to absorb dyes. Each time a new color has to be painted, other parts that should not be exposed will be closed with wax. The more colors used to decorate batik, the longer it takes to close the unexposed area. At the last step, the wax layer covers the cloth will be removed by immersing the fabric into boiling water which has been given a soda ash solution to perpetuate the batik colors.

 by : VIP YOURS