Banyumasan batik hopes to regain past glory

Agus Maryono, The Jakarta Post, Banyumas, Central Java

About 20 years ago, Banyumas batik was famous, with many batik industrial centers found throughout the area. But these days, people are only familiar with batik coming from Pekalongan and Surakarta in Central Java and Yogyakarta, leaving out Banyumas in the progress.

At its peak, Banyumas had some 990 batik industrial units, mostly in Banyumas, Sokaraja, east of Purwokerto, Somagede and Kebasen districts.

At present, only Mruyung village in Banyumas which holds on to the tradition, keeping the batik industry alive.

Slamet Hadi Prayitno, the only batik businessman in Mruyung, said he was not sure of the reasons which made less and less people interested in the business, suggesting the complicated batik-making process as one of possible reasons.

"These days, it's very difficult to find young girls who are willing to sit, hold the canting and paint the batik on cloth. Only housewives and aging women are willing," said Slamet, who hires mostly aging women in his business. Canting is a small dipper used to apply wax.

Apart from the difficult batik-making process and lack of manpower, he also found that within the market, it was difficult to compete with much more innovative batik designs from other places, mostly Surakarta, Yogyakarta and Pekalongan.

Moreover, it's hard to find raw material for the industry in Banyumas, forcing him to go as far as Pekalongan to buy raw materials, thus increasing production costs.

"These problems are not good for the business since the batik industry has long been in need of fresh investment. We are hoping the local government can help us, but they have never offered," Slamet lamented.

The chief of the Banyumas Industry, Trade and Cooperatives Office Budi Cahyono admitted a lack of batik industry progress in his region, insisting that his office had tried hard to find a way to put the industry back on track. One of the efforts was through product diversification, he said.

The local goverment, Budi said, also had to work on developing natural silk in the Kaliori region. In the long term, it is expected that Banyumas batik can be produced on silk.

"But, there's a problem, mainly our lack of equipment to weave silk," Budi said.

A craftsman like Slamet, however, found such an idea unrealistic and unnecessary, insisting they only needed fresh capital investment and easy access of raw materials in Banyumas.

Slamet, whose business has been running for generations, said his business was still ok, despite the problems, with some 40 employees working for him. Each month he has the capacity to produce some 2,000 pieces of printed batiks and an additional 400 pieces of hand-painted ones when the market is good.

"At present, the market for hand-painted batiks is slow so we produce only about 40 pieces a month," said Slamet.

Hand-painted batik is sold at between Rp 60,000 and Rp 100,000 each while printed ones are sold for Rp 20,000 to Rp 50,000 each. Prices depend on the manufacturing process; the more complicated, the more expensive it is.

Historically, there is no clear information on the exact time when Banyumasan batik first made, but many believe it has been there since the 1800s. Some say the batik-making process started with the existing customary law in the area while others believe it was Pangeran Diponegoro who brought the tradition to the region while he was involved in guerilla warfare against the Dutch government of Java at the time.

In terms of motif, Banyumas batik does have some unique characteristics. Jonasan and sosrok motifs were believed to be the originated in Banyumasan and used to be very famous among Banyumas batik lovers. Other Banyumas motifs were said to be influenced by motifs from Pekalongan, Surakarta or Yogyakarta batik, in efforts to meet market demands.

Jonasan batik is classified into a non-geometric motif with white or brownish white as a base color and brown and black for the color. The motifs are usually derived from plants, flowers or butterflies. The distinct characteristic of this batik motif lies in the hem colors of either red or black that surround the cloth's entire design.

Sosrok batik, on the other hand, is mostly characterized with either straight lines (for sosrok garis) or a half-circle and waving line (for sosrok ukel) motifs. The uniqueness of this particular motif lies in the processing wherein the wax is removed by scratching it from the cloth. Sosrok garis motif is usually dominated by brownish yellow, brown, or black colors, while sosrok ukel usually has white as it base color and is therefore also called latar putih (white background) motif.

Other popular Banyumas batik designs include trem, or printed batik, and modern or new style motif.

Trem, which has the base color of yellow with brown and black for the colors of its motif, is grouped into geometrical patterns. Modern or new style designs are usually hand-painted with non-geometrical patterns like flowers, plants, leaves and animal's wings and this particular motif usually uses more bright colors like green, blue, violet and red.