Glass carving business blossoms in Sukoharjo

By Singgir Kartana

SUKOHARJO, Central Java (JP): One cannot entirely depend on one's intellect to be successful; creativity and persistence are also necessary ingredients. For Bambang Rudjito, this principle is very much true.

Bambang, who was born in Bojonegoro, East Java, on Nov. 3, 1952, can now savor his success. The glass carving business he started nine years ago in Sukoharjo, a small town close to Surakarta, is now a source of income for him and his family, as well as a number of his neighbors who work for him.

Bambang's products are unique and distinct, particularly considering there are few other such businesses. Demand for carved glass seems to be rising, with sales of the products reaching international markets, including Australia, Africa, Lebanon, the United Kingdom and the United States. These sales have resulted in a turnover of millions of rupiah.

Although his business has become a success, Bambang maintains his original simple style. You cannot even detect a sense of self-satisfaction in him.

"There are still a lot of things that I need to develop in this venture. For these products, I feel the need to improve their artistic touches so they don't give the handcrafted impression. With such creation process, these products should be considered as objects of art," Bambang told The Jakarta Post in Manang village, Sukoharjo.

Bambang is a person who is not easily satisfied, which helps him maintain his creativity. This attitude is reflected in his career before he began his glass carving business.

Two years after graduating from vocational senior high school STM Migas in Cepu, East Java, in 1970, Bambang, who has studied English since junior high school, landed a job at state-owned oil company Pertamina in Cilegon, West Java. Although the job was good, it bored him and after seven years he decided to quit.

Looking for new employment, he tried his luck in 1981 as a cabin boy for the Holland American cruise line, making US$500 per month. He only lasted in this work for a year. In 1982, he moved to Carnival Cruise Line, where he got $4,000 a month. This salary enticed him to stay on the job for six years, before he decided to leave his seafaring career entirely in 1986.

"Always having to work far from home wasn't profoundly satisfying for me. It may be suitable for those who are single, but I had the urge to build a family and it was best if I left such work," says the husband of 27-year-old Dewi Retnosari Wijayanti.

And it was lucky for him he made this decision, for it was not long after leaving the sea that Bambang had an experience which led to his current work. This particular experience happened in 1986 when he visited Mexico. While visiting an art shop, he saw wonderful glass-carved ornaments.

Seeing the interesting art objects piqued his curiosity. Without much difficulty, he found out where the glass carvings came from and he was soon studying to become a glass carver. For two years, Bambang was a student of glass carving artist Marisol at Brass Glass in Mazatlan. After two years of study, he returned to Indonesia.

Bambang accidentally met in 1989 Masrikan, a glass carver whose creations resembled those he saw in Mexico. However, Masrikan's glass carving business was on the verge of collapse.

Bambang made an offer for the business which Masrikan accepted. With an initial investment of Rp 4 million, Bambang had a glass carving business, with Masrikan as one of his employees.

In the beginning, Bambang was directly involved in the designing process as well as marketing. Every effort was made to introduce his products to the public, from door-to-door sales to participating in various exhibitions.

Now, Bambang Rudjito Glass & Craft can be accessed on the Internet through a home page belong to Resource Indonesia, an agency which advertises Indonesian products to international buyers.

Bambang's venture gets bigger yearly, producing various products using glass and mirrors as raw materials. Apart from carved mirrors in various sizes, he also sells various souvenirs, such as candy trays, stone paintings, jewelry boxes, wayang paintings and window and door ornaments. All of these products are produced by hand.

The complicated production process may be why his products are considered expensive. The cheapest items are wayang paintings, costing Rp 30,000 each, while the most expensive are carved mirrors costing Rp 600,000 each.

In line with his success, Bambang has built a production house and showroom on a 3,500-square-meter plot of land in Manang village, Sukoharjo. With 98 employees, he is kept busy with the business.

To assure the quality of his products, not all glass or mirrors can be used as raw material. For mirrors, he uses Asahimas with a thickness between three to five millimeters. However, he would not explain the reasons behind his choice of raw materials or carving tools. He did say that those materials not used in his products were sold for Rp 2,000 per kilogram.

Witnessing Bambang's success, both locally and internationally, there are those who try to imitate his work, but still cannot match the quality of his products. Still, these copycats upset him. He said one of them even copied his promotional brochures.

"Even the brochures have been imitated. Isn't that annoying?"