Traditional Job

Traditional Job in Mojokerto

The word batik is from a word in Javanese language is the means ambatik about the writing or incised dots. In the process of making batik cloth, batik craftsmen carve the motifs into a beautiful cloth using canthing containing hot wax. Batik process is done carefully and often have a batik craftsman to carve a series of points to gain a complex batik motif. Tools for batik is canting. A tool shaped like a pen and made of bamboo, copper-headed and narrow-mouthed at the edges. This canting is used to ladle the hot liquid wax, which is used as a cover or protection against dye coloring at the time. At the beginning of the process of making batik, batik carve a candle in a white cloth using canthing. But prior to drawing incised motifs with hot wax, cloth must be used first dipped into oil of plants and a soda solution, to facilitate the candle stick and to the fabric can more easily absorb the dye. Every time the cloth was given to another color, the parts that should not be subject to dye covered with wax, so more colors used to decorate the batik cloth, it gets too close it work. In the final stage, a layer of wax cloth cover is removed by boiling the cloth in boiling water after soaking in a solution of soda ash (sodium silicate) to perpetuate the batik colors. As a final result is a piece of batik cloth with beautiful motifs are stunning.

Batik technique is thousands of years old. Some experts even say that the batik technique may have originated from the ancient cultures of the nations in Africa, the Middle East (the ancient Sumerians) and several ancient nations in Asia to continue to spread until he came to Indonesia. The spread of batik techniques and culture can get to Indonesia, apparently thanks to the merchants from India who had visited areas in Indonesia in the past few centuries. Initially batik cloth known only limited environment or the royal palace where batik cloth originally worn only by nobles and kings. But along with the development, then the next batik cloth is widely known among the people and continue to grow until the present. The number and type of batik motifs that reaches thousands of this type has the characteristic of each region in Indonesia. Although there are types of printed batik, batik cloth but made and painted by using canthing still occupying the top level and preferences are still so attractive to consumers in the country and abroad. The level of difficulty and complexity and the type of fabric used also influence the selling price. Today not only batik cloth fabric, but also has a lot of batik cloth found fabric polyester, rayon, to silk. Even batik cloth made of silk material price could reach millions of rupiah.