Making Batik- For Rudy! : )

Batik is a style of making material or cloth, created by the Javanese hundreds of years ago. Batik has become a trademark of Indonesia and it is still very popular and worn widespread throughout Indonesia in both traditional and modern clothing. The process of making Batik is meticulous and requires much time and diligent work. I was lucky enough to observe several steps to the process of making Batik when I accompanied SMK 6 grade 10 on a field trip one afternoon.

First, the design is sketched on plain fabric. The design may come from a stencil or may be an original work of the artist creating the batik.

After the design is stenciled onto the fabric, it will be traced in hot wax. Another way to create a batik design is to use a stamp instead of a tracing a stencil or making a sketch. The stamp is dipped in hot wax and them applied to the fabric.

At the particular batik producer we visited, many iron stamps were available for creating designs.

Below, a woman traces a batik stencil in hot wax. The wax will act as a resistor when the fabric is dipped in dye, so that the dye is absorbed only by the exposed fabric and not the parts covered in wax. The wax will actually seep through to the other side of the fabric, making the pattern appear on both sides of the product.

The process of dying the fabric may be repeated several times, applying wax over desired areas to create different color shades and effects.

In the final stage of the process, the wax will be boiled off the fabric to reveal the final design of the batik.

Below, some students studying clothing design at SMK 6 practice making batik in the courtyard.

Batik is still worn throughout Indonesia and has become a well-recognized trademark of the country. A great amount of time, diligence and energy is required to make this style of fabric that has been around for so many years. It is a highly respected and celebrated form of dress for these reasons. Every Tuesday and Thursday at SMK 6 teachers will abandon the standard school uniform for batik attire, and on Fridays students wear batik shirts as well to celebrate the traditional clothing of Java.