August 25, 2010
PindaKAAS light
PindaKAAS light is on the 25 of September in the Scheltema in Leiden, NL. PindaKAAS means Peanut butter in Dutch. The name reference to the nicknames peanut and cheesehead, but are now used as sobriquet.
I'm invited to show my wallpaper installation "The journey of Batik". I'm very happy with that, because the festival is organized specifically for and by people with Indonesian roots or with a strong bond with Indonesia. The goal is to show art with a strong connection with or influence by Indonesia.
More about PindaKAAS on there website en on the YouTube channel AsianTraveller. More practical information will follow soon.
August 10, 2010
"All we can give are coffee & cigarettes"
"All we can give (as presents) are coffee & cigarettes" said Pitra Hutomo (from the organization IVAA) when she visited me in Breda (NL). I told her that's a great thing, we can only give cheese & clogs (and weed, but it's not really a good present in most countries). But off course Indonesia has so much more to give and share. They have many traditions & crafts in which they produce beautiful things, like wood sculptures, Batik and Wayang kulit.
When I came across this photo, I remembered an Indonesian tradition I really liked. Batik expert William Kwan showed me pictures of this tradition called Cethe.
Cethe are cigarette decorated with coffee. The applying of the coffee on the cigarettes is called Nyethe. This craft is originally from Tulungagung in East Java. I haven't had the pleasure of seeing this craft in real life, but on the pictures I saw I noticed that the pattern are similar to Batik patterns. And I really like it that they combined two things I love (and aren't good for you) into a piece of art, so that's why I wanted to share this with you.
More about Cethe, the making and the tradition on the great blog called "Everything about Coffee, Chocolate and Cigarette". Coffee, Chocolate and Cigarette make u better relax and enjoy!
When I came across this photo, I remembered an Indonesian tradition I really liked. Batik expert William Kwan showed me pictures of this tradition called Cethe.
Cethe are cigarette decorated with coffee. The applying of the coffee on the cigarettes is called Nyethe. This craft is originally from Tulungagung in East Java. I haven't had the pleasure of seeing this craft in real life, but on the pictures I saw I noticed that the pattern are similar to Batik patterns. And I really like it that they combined two things I love (and aren't good for you) into a piece of art, so that's why I wanted to share this with you.
More about Cethe, the making and the tradition on the great blog called "Everything about Coffee, Chocolate and Cigarette". Coffee, Chocolate and Cigarette make u better relax and enjoy!
July 29, 2010
Batik Buketan
Again I watched the movie "Marie Antoinette" by Sofia Coppola. The movie tells the impressive story of Marie Antoinette and the lifestyle of the France royalty. It shows the interior and clothing from those days and the beautiful & very luxurious motifs in Versailles.
This scene always catch my attention and now I realized why. The pattern in the background shows a lot of similarities with the pattern used in Batik Buketan. Buketan comes from the Dutch word "boeket" (bouquet in English). This floral pattern is typical for Batik Belanda (Dutch Batik), but for me it's not typically Dutch.
During my stay on Java in Indonesia I noticed that my favorite Batiks were made (designed) by Dutch women. In two museums I visited I loved them the most. I didn't like that in all honestly, because I don't like the fact that we intruded this culture and made everything more the way we like it...And even I liked this Batik better.
I think for a great part it's because we can read and understand this pattern. If you know more about the meaning of the original Batik patterns, the Batik Buketan pattern seems very flat and layerless. On the other hand they have freshness (due to the colors) and are so different, new almost, but of course they were made a long time ago.
They say Batik Belanda is based on Delfts Blauw. I don't know a lot about Delftware, so I will get some books from the library before saying things I can't back up. But I would still like to say this about it.
The typical Dutch patterns are normally very abstract, the flowers are simplified like the pattern "Boerenbond". The Delftware is both abstract and figurative. The figurative porcelain are little stories. They show things like houses, windmills, cows & traditional clothing. But bouquets and exotic birds as in the Batik Buketan are not the first things you'll find in Delftware.
I think the real inspiration for Batik Buketan is not our Delftware, but in fact the Chinese porcelain on which our Delftware is based in the first place, or you could say "borrowed" from.
Maybe it's time to visit Delft, I found out they have a museum there called Nusantara about Indonesia (it's closed now, but the shop is open) and I still have to visit an archaeologist I met and she knows a lot about pottery!)
More about Batik Buketan and Batik Belanda in English on the blog Classic Javanese Batik
This scene always catch my attention and now I realized why. The pattern in the background shows a lot of similarities with the pattern used in Batik Buketan. Buketan comes from the Dutch word "boeket" (bouquet in English). This floral pattern is typical for Batik Belanda (Dutch Batik), but for me it's not typically Dutch.
During my stay on Java in Indonesia I noticed that my favorite Batiks were made (designed) by Dutch women. In two museums I visited I loved them the most. I didn't like that in all honestly, because I don't like the fact that we intruded this culture and made everything more the way we like it...And even I liked this Batik better.
I think for a great part it's because we can read and understand this pattern. If you know more about the meaning of the original Batik patterns, the Batik Buketan pattern seems very flat and layerless. On the other hand they have freshness (due to the colors) and are so different, new almost, but of course they were made a long time ago.
Batik by Eliza van Zuylen
They say Batik Belanda is based on Delfts Blauw. I don't know a lot about Delftware, so I will get some books from the library before saying things I can't back up. But I would still like to say this about it.
The typical Dutch patterns are normally very abstract, the flowers are simplified like the pattern "Boerenbond". The Delftware is both abstract and figurative. The figurative porcelain are little stories. They show things like houses, windmills, cows & traditional clothing. But bouquets and exotic birds as in the Batik Buketan are not the first things you'll find in Delftware.
I think the real inspiration for Batik Buketan is not our Delftware, but in fact the Chinese porcelain on which our Delftware is based in the first place, or you could say "borrowed" from. Maybe it's time to visit Delft, I found out they have a museum there called Nusantara about Indonesia (it's closed now, but the shop is open) and I still have to visit an archaeologist I met and she knows a lot about pottery!)
More about Batik Buketan and Batik Belanda in English on the blog Classic Javanese Batik
July 22, 2010
Batik on Facebook
Lately I'm looking on Facebook for people that sell Batik online. There are a lot of "shops" selling Batik fabrics, clothing, bags and all kind of other things. A lot of these pages show pictures of women (and men) making Batik by cating, but it's not really clear if the Batiks are made by these women (mostly the pictures are copied of internet, I recognized pictures I used myself on my blog) and where the Batik, they are selling, come from.
How can you tell if a Batik is authentic? I don't want to imply that the Batik shown on these pages are printed, but it difficult to see with the online pictures if it's really made by canting or cap. However I think it's great that there is so much Batik online, the motifs and colours are beautiful and inspiring. When your "friends" with these Batikshops you'll see that the aim of it is to sell, and this should never be the case with artworks if you want to go for quality & beauty.
In the beginning there was a dot..
then time pass, the dots evolve into an artwork of high sensibility..
July 12, 2010
ZomerGrensGeluiden
Gisterenochtend waren ik & Koen de Wit te gast bij het radioprogramma ZomerGrensGeluiden op Stadsradio Breda. De radio host Deborah Jacobs, een zeer interessante zangeres, songwriter, bassist & percussionist uit Breda van Indische afkomst, had ons gevraagd om wat meer te vertellen over onze dagelijkse bezigheden. Zo kwam uiteraard Koen's muziek en ook zijn fotografie aanbod en speelde hij live on air klarinet. We hadden het over Vanuit bed, mijn project "De dans in een rijsttapijt" waar tevens een fragment va werd gedraaid, mijn huidige expositie "Paper in progress" en mijn interesse in Batik, de inspiratie die het mij geeft, de wens om in de leer te gaan in Indonesië en de huidige Batik industrie op Java.
July 7, 2010
De reis van Batik / The journey of Batik
Wallpaper-installation at the exhibition "Paper in progress". The exhibition opens Friday 9 Juli at 16h and will last till 25 Juli. The painting on the wallpaper is based on the famous "Batik Lasem". During my stay in Indonesia I visited the workshop in Lasem and bought a really beautiful Batik there. I also used the motif of the birds in my ricecarpet. 
The other wallpaper parts feature my bird named Batik. Real versus translated birds. This part of the installation I showed already during the Open Studio Route last year at Rosa.
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