a lifetime of repetition—that they can draw from memory. But for others, the designs are drawn on paper first, then fastened by pins (or even a few grains of cooked rice) to the fabric and finally traced in pencil on the cotton. The cloth is then ready to receive its first waxing, known as ngrengreng.
Mixing the Wax. Beeswax, often imported from the islands of Sumba and Timor, is the wax most commonly used in the batik process. The wax is mixed with resins: gandarokan (resin of the eucalyptus tree), matakucing (the Javanese word for "cat's eye," another resin), and kendal (the fat from cows). Because the composition of the wax mixture affects the appearance of the finished product, the recipe varies according to the type of design, and the proportions are always a well-guarded secret. Mrs. Oey Soe Tjoen of Kedungwuni, for example, believes the beauty of her exquisitely detailed designs is due to her wax recipe: the ingredients are known to many, the proportions only to her.
A Simple Tool. Hand-drawn batik is called tulis, after the Javanese word for "writing." Combining the finest designs with the best cottons, tulis is the most time-consuming, expensive, and highly prized batik. Except in the Cirebon area where, more than half a century ago, hand-drawing was a male prerogative, tulis batik is usually made by women. The basic tool is the canting (also spelled tjanting) with which liquid wax is drawn on cloth. This simplest of tools is not found in any other batik region in the world.
The canting works much like a fountain pen. It has a bamboo or reed handle, about six inches long, with a small, thin copper cup from which a tiny pipe protrudes. (Copper is used for both cup and pipe because it conducts heat and keeps the wax warm and fluid.) A woman holds the canting by its bamboo handle, scooping up the heated wax and blowing through the tip of the pipe to keep the wax fluid. Then, using the canting's pipe as a pen, she draws the design on the fabric, outlining with wax instead of ink.
The first waxing, or ngrengreng, is nearly completed. A worker would sit on a low stool with the wax and canting near at hand.
The essential tool of hand-drawn batik is the canting, which may have one or several spouts depending upon the design.
A worker blows through the canting's tip to keep the wax flowing smoothly.
The size and diameter of the canting's copper bowl and pipe are determined by the job at hand—whether the tool is to be used for coarse outlining or for fine details. Some cantings have two pipes, others as many as seven, with openings varying in size and shape—some are square instead of round. When there is a large area to be waxed, a wad of cotton is attached to the mouth of the pipe, to spread the wax more freely.
Before wax is applied, the cloth is draped over a bamboo frame called gawungan and weighted on one side to keep it from blowing in the wind while the waxing takes place. The batiker sits between the cloth and the pan of wax and begins her work with the canting. Her free hand supports the underside of the fabric, and she covers her lap with a napkin or taplak to protect herself from dripping hot wax.
Skilled workers are usually chosen to apply the first wax outline, the ngrengreng, to the cloth, because this will largely determine the quality of the batik. Less skilled workers perform the next step, retracing the outline in wax. Depending on the number of colors, the waxing process may be repeated again and again, each time by a different worker.
Enter, the Cap. Around 1840 the invention of the cap (or tjap)—a copper block that applies an entire design onto the cloth with a single imprint—revolutionized the batik industry. With cap, a worker can wax twenty pieces a day rather than spending up to forty-five days to hand-wax a single piece of cloth. Traditionally, men had dyed and women waxed, but with the introduction of the cap, a heavy block more easily handled by men than women, men became more important to the batik industry.
The cap, made by soldering copper shapes into the desired pattern, resembles a flat iron and is held by a metal handle attached to the back. In the cap process, the cloth is spread on a padded table, and the design is applied by dipping the copper block in wax and stamping it on the fabric. Small metal pins attached to the corners of the cap are used to align one cap impression with the next.
As with tulis batik, in fine cap work wax is applied to both sides of the cloth. Often two or three different caps are used for one batik, one for each successive color or design. Quite commonly, both tulis and cap techniques are combined to produce a piece of batik.
Another tool, used in both tulis and cap batiks, is the cemplogen (also tjemplogen). Especially common to the Indramayu region on Java's north coast, the cemplogen is a block of short gold, silver, or steel needles attached to a wooden handle—rather like a wire brush. Young school children spend their afternoons using this tool to puncture wax on solid background areas, and the dye then penetrates the small holes, producing hundreds of tiny dots.
With the efficient cap, the Javanese could begin to build a batik textile industry. The growing business also attracted Chinese and Arab middlemen who had the capital to acquire caps, cotton, wax, and dyes and to pay the workers. Eventually, the trade in cap batik extended beyond the East Indian archipelago to Singapore, Africa, and Europe.
Interestingly, the invention of the cap did not mean the end of fine, hand-drawn tulis; instead there evolved an almost symbiotic relationship between tulis and cap batik, with different classes of people adopting the two—or combinations of them. Competition from cap, of course, encouraged the tulis makers to find ways to get their goods to market faster.
Unlike tulis, which is made by women, batik made by a printing block, or cap, is the work of men. Each man stands at a padded table with his own wax and caps, imprinting the white cotton.
The cemplogen, often used in tulis batik, punctures wax that has been poured onto a solid background. Dye penetrates these holes, producing hundreds of tiny dots on the finished batik Cemplogens are especially common to the Indramayu area.
Of several new production systems two were important. In the first, the work was organized by villages. Cloth and patterns would be consigned to women in a particular village by entrepreneurs or their agents, and the entire tulis process would be completed in that village. Either that, or people in one village might be assigned only to wax the cloth; middlemen would then take the waxed cloth to another village for dyeing and finishing.
The second system of production was an attempt to industrialize. Entrepreneurs established a series of batik factories, mostly on the north coast, so that they could control the quality of the cloth, designs, wax, and dyes. They introduced new motifs and techniques. With the introduction of aniline dyes at the end of the nineteenth century and synthetic dyes twenty years later, they were able to change the spectrum of colors. The factories proved that batik, even if hand drawn, need no longer be made at home. Batik, both cap and tulis—and sometimes a combination of the two—was now more readily available to a growing market.
Dye recipes are passed from generation to generation. Stones are often used to weigh down the batik while it is immersed in the secret dye.
Dyeing and Finishing. A well-executed
