Batik Tulis: The Timeless Beauty of Indonesia's Traditional Craft

Batik Tulis is a practice that follows wax resistant dying techniques. These pieces are crafted with an arduous hand process that requires creativity and immense skill. The result of which are specialty art pieces that are an ode to heritage, culture, and craft.

Each process begins with pencil drawings directly onto the blank fabric to create the desired design. A traditional hand tool called Canting is used to apply wax to all parts of the design that would remain dye resistant. The wax is kept at the required temperature of 60-70 degrees Celsius with a little wok over a flame. The application of the wax is traditionally done by women, but the cooking of the wax and the dying is carried out by men.

After the first dying is carried out, a second layer of wax is applied to retain the newly dyed color. The procedure of removing the wax in between dying colors, as dictated by the intended design is called Pelorodan.

The process between Canting and Pelorodan is repeated for every new layer or exposure of color, usually a minimum of four times. Each piece of this Batik collection took the artisan two to three months to produce.