Artist dreams of making 474 'ondel-ondel'

By Multa Fidrus

JAKARTA (JP): Despite financial constraints, Suprayogi and his workers are determined to produce 474 ondel-ondel, Betawi traditional puppets, to commemorate the city's 474th anniversary.

Speaking from his work area in the Ragunan Zoo in South Jakarta, Yogi, an artist from Lamongan, East Java, said he had made over 270 ondel-ondel, or about 60 percent of his target.

He plans to display all of the puppets at the National Monument, if the city administration grants him a permit.

Initially, he planned to display all 474 of the puppets on June 22, when the city celebrated its 474th anniversary. However, because of financial constraints he was unable to achieve this goal.

Yogi said the city administration, through deputy governor Fauzie Alvi Yasin, promised him in December last year to finance the production of the 474 puppets. However, the administration failed to deliver the money.

"I am tired of going to City Hall asking for the promised financial support. High-ranking officials who met me at City Hall just kept promising the funding, but never disbursed it," he told The Jakarta Post.

Yogi said he had spent Rp 116 million (about US$10,000) to finance the project. "Half of the money was from my wife and from my own savings, while I borrowed the other half from my colleagues."

Yogi said he had also sent proposals to about 80 businesses and institutions asking for financing for the project, but to no avail.

With no financial help in sight, Yogi said the project to create 474 puppets would likely fail, just as his attempt to make 2,001 puppets to celebrate the year 2001 failed, again because of no financial aid.

Besides making puppets, Yogi, a graduate of the Teachers Training Institute in Jakarta (since renamed the Jakarta State University), also teaches art at three private high schools, writes script for a radio serial drama and dubs cartoons and Chinese series aired by local television stations.

Yogi, a father of one daughter, said he began making ondel- ondel in 1995, during Indonesia's golden anniversary when there were numerous orders for the puppets.

He spent five years studying the culture of the Betawi and really began creating his own style of the puppets in August last year.

He used to have 20 workers helping him in the creation of the ondel-ondel, but now he has only seven people. He pays his employees between Rp 17,000 and Rp 25,000 a day.

The ondel-ondel business is not always dry, especially during the city's anniversary.

Yogi sold a dozen pairs of ondel-ondel to state Bank Mandiri for Rp 800,000 (about $70) a pair. Bintaro Plaza and McDonalds also purchased several pairs of puppets from him.

When the Post interviewed him last week, Yogi and five of his employees were working on 80 puppets ordered by the Ancol Dreamland Park in North Jakarta for a celebration of the capital's anniversary.

In addition, Yogi also rents out his ondel-ondel for between Rp 200,000 and Rp 300,000 per pair per event.

While the process of making ondel-ondel is not difficult, it requires time and money. It takes one person three days to make one puppet.

Preparing bamboo strips to make the frame of the puppet is the most time-consuming part of the process, Yogi said.

The puppets' masks are made separately and painted at Yogi's house in Cilandak, South Jakarta. Yogi said often made the masks by himself, sometimes creating the female masks to resemble popular actresses.

The puppets Yogi creates average 2.5 meters in height and 1.25 meters in width at their shoulders and 90 centimeters at their feet.

Yogi said he had no difficulty obtaining the materials used in making the puppets.

The materials and cost of labor for one puppet costs Yogi about Rp 300,000. The most expensive parts of a puppet are the mask and the cloth. One doll mask costs about Rp 75,000 to create, while the material for a doll's clothes costs about Rp 50,000.

"I'm an artist. I don't create the puppets thinking about profit," Yogi said.

Given his financial difficulties, Yogi is thankful he was given a space to work by the management of the Ragunan Zoo at no charge.