Sculpt artisans musch needed but underpaid

Sugeng Budiarto, Contributor, Magelang, Central Java

The Muntilan streets that link Yogyakarta and Magelang are famous for their bustling sculpture businesses.

This art very much helps make Muntilan, some 11 kilometers to the west of the famed Borobudur temple, alive. Dozens of workshops with stone carvings offer sculptures with a broad variety of makes, sizes and shapes.

The best-known model is probably miniature of famous temples in Central Java. They are made on order from major cities, such as Jakarta.

They sometimes receive orders for large-sized temple replicas, measuring over 5-by-5 meters, towering some 6 meters high.

For the production of larger, miniature temples, complete with statues, the help of stone carving workers is usually needed.

According to Widi, 21, of Jambean village in Menayu, Muntilan, who works in Jayaprana workshop, the production of a temple miniature involves at least 10 artisans.

Presently, Jayaprana is doing a miniature temple at the request of someone in Jakarta.

"We have worked on it for months, and this could take up to one year to complete," said Widi; he was assisting a sculpture artist making a duplicate of the Pringapus Temple, an ancient shrine in Ngadirejo, Temanggung regency, Central Java.

"Stone carvers have been working for six months to finish the petal of this miniature, and will then turn to building and carving its upper parts," he explained.

Temple miniatures are not cheap. The highest price can be Rp 150 million per unit. Artisans involved in this work, however, receive only between Rp 10,000 and Rp 15,000 per person per day, according to Afid, 22, an artisan from Jambean village in Menayu, Muntilan.

Artisans in Muntilan generally come from poor farm families. This explains why they accept such low wages.

Their educational backgrounds are generally at junior high school or even elementary school level.

"After finishing junior high school, I learned stone carving by assisting a sculptor who made me what I am now," Widi said.

The artisans largely hail from nearby areas, such as Menayu and Keji villages. "Some 30 of those workers come from my village, Jambean," said Afid.

At the beginning, they watched and followed instructions instead of studying in a more formal environment.

Only a few are born artisans.