We have recently returned from a trip to Yogyakarta, our first real Sunday Morning Design business trip sans boyfriends/husbands and kids in tow. It was wonderful and confirmed everything we love about Indonesia.
We stayed in Tembi just south of Yogyakarta at a homestay situated in the rice fields called Yabbiekayu. The rooms are modelled on old Javanese Joglos, built using an earthquake proofing design which turned out to be reassuring as there was a series of earth rumbles while we were there! It was the same place we had stayed last year so it was nice to be back to see everyone again and also to see their progress with the eco friendly homestay that also houses the offices for the owners disaster relief organisation. A thriving edible tropical garden had been planted since we were there last so we were surrounded by banana trees, passionfruit vines, eggplants, trailing pumpkin vines and papayas as well as fireflies, frogs butterflies and dragonflies! It was a great place to come home to after meetings and buying trips each day and we ended up extending our stay for nearly the whole trip.
One of our main reasons for being in Yogyakarta was to get some of Dylan’s designs made up in Batik, a process which suits Dylan’s style perfectly. Like our super skilled screenprinters in Melbourne (we love you guys!!), the trick was to find masters of the trade who would be undaunted by Dylan’s incredibly detailed fine line work. Luckily, our wonderful local friends introduced us to Rika, a textile artist and batik guru (literally – Guru is teacher or master in Bahasa Indonesian) who is now working on getting copper stamps made for repeat patterns of Dylan’s images. We are delighted to also be stocking Rika’s own designs on silk scarves (online and in store soon!) and we are incorporating some beautiful shibori method textiles she has created for us into our current clothing range.
Lichen then made a trip out to the idyllic studio of Abdul a master batik maker who specialises in sustaining traditional techniques and has worked with many artists in the past on batik work for exhibitions, including doing the costumes recently for Punkasila. Punkasila are an Indonesian mystic punk band who, along with collaborators Slave Pianos, were the standout of the recent Mona Foma festival with their performance of Lepidopters – an opera about an alien moth invasion of the Indonesian archipelago. There is good news if you missed it like us, Punklasila will be back in Melbourne in April.
Abdul was happy to take on the task of re tracing Dylan’s fine line drawings. We are very much looking forward to seeing the results and in true Sunday Morning’s slow design style, we anticipate the process will take months to complete. Lichen got to see some beautiful examples of his intricate batik pieces which used amazingly fine lines, incredible considering its all hand painted with a wax filled tool called a canting (from the word cantik which means beautiful). A big thank you to Edwina and Lyok and everyone else who has continued assisting with this project after our departure!! We will update you with photos and a video of the process in the next few weeks.
We had the pleasure of visiting Bumi Permuda Rahayu an organisation dedicated to sustainable development and education with a focus on the Arts. Last year when we met Marco Kusumawijaya, Bumi Permuda Rahayu’s founder who also has a background in disaster relief management, he described BPR as having an emphasis on lo-fi tropics. We were instantly hooked and had to make the trip out to visit! And it didn’t disappoint, they have built an incredible bamboo hall, studios and artists residence about 30 minutes drive from Yogyakarta where they organise workshops for the local community hosted by visiting artists in residence. Our friend Kristi Monfries who is working for BPR gave us a tour of the beautiful buildings, the moss covered forested amphitheatre and bamboo hall, showed us some examples of recent works completed there and treated us to an incredible feast of cous cous made from cassava, fished baked in banana leaves.
WOMADelaide
In between the meetings, the eatings, the relaxing in Tembi and the socialising in Indonesia, we also did some serious buying for the shop and for our upcoming stall at WOMADelaide. We will be taking our Indo style bike on an excursion and setting up stall at Womad for 4 days from Friday 7 March. So Adelaide friends come and visit! Hopefully we can sneak off and see Femi Kuti play 😉 WOMADelaide 2014 7 – 10 March Botanic Park, Adelaide Stall number 25, Global Village.
Sunday Morning Sets Up Permanently
Things will be frantic when we get back from our stall at WOMADelaide, as we will be busy working on the fit out of our permanent shop venture with our friends from Klei! Our planned date is to re-open early April at the same spot, 269 High Street Northcote, with a new fit out and a new name!
The new shop will be filled with beautiful batik women’s dresses and kids clothes, enamels and other pieces from Yogyakarta, as well as our new range of printed mens, women’s and kids tops, and new Party Dress colours. We are also ecstatic to launch new labels including Chloe and Dominique Jewellery, sunglasses by Bespec’d, wallets by Preston Zly and enamelled jewellery by Victoria Mason among other treasures.