Hello again! Surprised to be back. I spent most of July suffering from the rampant winter colds and flu. A flu A strain has mutated this season and a lot of people including myself caught it. The authorities said the vaccine helped to make you suffer not too much, well I would have hated to not have had the vaccine. I seemed to spend most of winter feeling terrible.
I did have another Java Batik trip to look forward to in September.
Monday Sept 10 saw a group of us waiting at the airport ( you guessed it Virgin delayed the flight again 6 hours this time!) for our flight into Bali. Finally got there close to midnight.
My school friend Georgina was on the trip too, she is also an avid swimmer, so we swam in the rooftop pool the next morning before our flight into Java with Garuda Airlines.
Arriving at Yogyakarta airport for our trip to Solo Baru.
Along the way we visited Borobudor and Prambanam temples for a history lesson and sightseeing.
Solo Baru (Surakarta) is one centre of batik making in Indonesia. We went to a different factory from the one I was at on my last visit. This one was more modernised and run very efficiently by very nice people. This, was to me, the most important bench in the place. The dyemaster and his apprentice work here, calculating the dyes and weights for 5 metre lengths for the colours we selected. There are seven dyes used to make all of the combinations possible. I haven't included photos of the process as I do not want to breach any copyright rules from that factory.
We visited a different factory where a different process is used, being a combination of stamping, painting, tjanting and over dying. This is more traditional than what we know in our commercial fabric we purchase here in Aus.
This is the overdying pieces " cooking in the sun" and the finished pieces drying on the poles.
My bundle of 50 metres of fabric. We started with white fabric. Selected a colour/colours to go under the wax stamp, this was the first dye, treated with waterglass, dried, stamped with the tjap (waxed), discharged to remove the unwaxed dye, dyed with the second colour/colours, treated with waterglass, boiled to remove the wax and finally dried. Commercial fabrics also are treated with a sizing conditioner and folded and pressed onto a bolt for sale. So it is a lengthy process but so worth the colours. We did wander around the street where the factory was and we found one screenprinting about 60 metres fabric in minutes. So we saw many different ways of batik making. I also purchased one more art piece to add to my collection. A visit to a Tjap maker and the markets where I purchased a couple of old tjaps, and the Batik Museum of the royal family were also highlights of the trip.
After the 4 days we became tourists and went up to mountains to Lake Telarga Serangan. We went on a 3 km hike to find the waterfall we heard about on our last visit.
3 of our group made it to the top,was very steep and very interesting.
Along the way were small huts and farms like this. It is a very popular tourist attraction, with pathside stalls selling bottles of water and Pocari Sweat. They were most welcome as it was a very hot day.
This was one of two enterprising Javanes men. He offered to take a photo of the 3 of us at the top. We declined as we thought how could he deliver them. When we rejoined our group lower down the hill, here he was offering to take a photo of us again. He has ridden past us on his scooter ( the path is about 1 metre wide) and waited for us with the rest of the group. So we parted with $1 each and watched our photos being printed from this Canon printer. The other guy sold bamboo walking sticks on the way up and collected them on the way down.
Georgina and I left the group 2 days early and jetted into Darwin for a friend's 60th birthday. This is about the only photo I took.
Virgin now has internet access on some flights, so I could post a copy of my trip progress to my husband waiting at the airport so he could estimate our arrival time better.
Back home, feet firmly planted on the ground, survived the trip with no ill effects ( not like last time), the house was waiting. After a few days of sorting things out and unpacking, I thought I would start with small jobs as I had to be back at work in a few days as well. I had finally finished one set of doors with varnishing after sanding and staining and metal painting the knob plate.
They look really good I think and am hoping they stand up to the weather for awhile. Now for the transom window above. I am thinking of painting in white on the inside, staining on the outside. From the inside you see the white aluminium screen doors. Still mulling but not quite sure yet. Will have to decide soon though.
I get back to work and we are about to move into our new renovated work space. The thing most concerning me was the lottery for our new lockers. Not the fact that now on a single operator shift we will be walking a LOT MORE due to the space, I really did not want to get a locker close to the floor as my knees would not have coped. I was so happy to see I got the 4th one along to the right on the Top Row!. I think it was rigged but have been told No, most of the people that got ones on the top are all tall with me probably the shortest. The only problem is my teacup now has further to fall so I envisage a few more broken ones. We move in by October 11th. I will then have worked in 3 different laboratories at the same site over 39 years, definitely time I retired.
I have received a reminder from the Wondai Art Gallery that I am having an Exhibition in Gallery 3 in November 2020, so the planning must start now. Bit scary I feel, there is a weaver booked for Gallery 1 and Elaine Madill ( the art gallery co-ordinator )thinks my quilts will "add to" their work and vice versa so I hope I can rise to the challenge of all that work ahead of me. Wait and see, hopefully I can plot some progress on here.
