Newsletter of the Threads of Life Indonesian Textile Arts Center
Ubud, Bali. February 2006
Visit the center's website at : http://www.threadsoflife.com
Donations to the Threads of Life Foundation my be made via : https://www.registrationfactory.com/v3/?EventUUID=7CC43262
Dear Friends

2005 was a remarkable year in so many ways. The most exciting thing was seeing the Threads of Staff go from strength to strength as we faced the challenges of the past year. The primary driving force was the need to organize and coordinate the inaugural Indonesian Indigenous Weavers' Festival, which you can read about in this newsletter.

Madé Pung, known for many years as nature guide for tour groups, has become one of Indonesia's most knowledgeable specialists on natural dye techniques and resources. Meanwhile, Madé Lolet is becoming more and more impassioned about helping indigenous communities record and write about their heritage.
Our female staff members are beginning to gain confidence, too. Their understanding of the weavers' work is deepening and Wayan Su was the first to travel off Bali to Sumba to begin to work in the community. Komang, a weaver herself, is interested to begin to explore more of the dye work with weavers and will start to travel with Pung. It is exciting to watch the development of these women, especially given the cultural restrictions on Balinese women working off-island. We expect that they will become as effective in the field as Pung and Lolet over the next few years.
Good friends have suggested that we publish our newsletter more frequently. So we are making an earnest effort to get news of Threads of Life activities to you more regularly than once a year. The Threads of Life team aims to provide monthly news of their experiences in the field along with news from weavers themselves, like from Leonardus Wou below.
Thanks to so many of you who have supported us over the years. We look forward to an exciting 2006.
Love and blessings,
Jean & William
News From the Gallery
Textile of the Month
This month we feature the work of the Kerek batik and indigo artists mentioned below. The community is predominately Muslim and still maintains traditional Javanese practices, including maintaining their original textile motifs and ritual uses. This textile is a Sayut and would be used as sling for carrying a baby or as a shroud for the dead
Sayut Textile
Village
Weaver
Island
Batik Artist
Size
Indigo Dyer
Year Made
Threads
Dyes		 : Sayut
: Kerek
: Ruminto Wati
: Central Java
: Al ‘Ma’Idah
: 56 x 308 cm
: Ibu Uswatun
: 2005
: Handspun cotton
: Natural indigo
Kain Sayut, Kerek, Central Java
Cotton Research in Java
Madé Pung and Anang spent a week of January in rain-sodden central Java searching for areas of cotton production and distribution. Despite the weather, the trip was necessitated by a complete lack of cotton thread supplies in Sulawesi for the Torajan weavers we work with. Traveling by bus and car they visited producers and growers in Yogyakarta, Klaten, Semarang, Toroso, Tuban, Jepara, Kerek and Surabaya. With the weavers' cooperatives we know across Indonesia complaining that sellers increase profits by mixing rayon with the cotton in a way that does not take natural dye well, it was important to find a reliable, quality source of thread. This Pung finally secured in Surabaya.
Uswatun Pung and Anang passed through Toroso where factories mass produce synthetically dyed ikat textiles. "Traditional weavers cannot compete with this industry," commented Pung. "About four hundred people work in one factory tying ikat, dyeing and weaving on large industrial machines. They use all the traditional motifs we find in the textiles from Toraja, Sumba, Flores, and Kalimantan, and can sell them for about a tenth of the price." The main markets for these textiles are the souvenir shops in Bali. Weavers from traditional communities can only compete by making high quality weavings and seeking an informed market that can discern the difference.

"But the exciting part of the trip was visiting Kerek," said Pung. Here he met cotton growers, hand-spinners, backstrap loom weavers, batik artists and indigo dyers who are struggling hard to maintain their textile tradition.
Ibu Uswatun is the head of a cooperative of batik artists, indigo dyers and weavers who create these beautiful textiles when the community is not focused on their agricultural cycle. Through sales she helps finance some of the children's education whose parents are unable.
Watublapi Music CD Released
Uswatun “The music of the Sanggar Bliran Sina cooperative from the village of Watublapi, Flores, bears witness to a complex cultural history. Ancient animistic agricultural songs mark the tilling, planting and harvest seasons with surprisingly powerful harmonies. A gong and bamboo ensemble holds the rhythm for dances that mark life transitions, including the exchange of goods that accompany marriage. By contrast, lilting serenades are accompanied on homemade violin, banjo, ukulele, guitar and bass fiddle.”

This 40-minute CD, financed by Threads of Life and co-produced with the Sanggar Bliran Sina, includes 10 tracks and a 20-page booklet in English and Indonesian explaining the songs and music. The CD costs Rp 90,000 (US$9.95) and is available at Threads of Life or via tac@threadsolife.com
About the Gallery
The Threads of Life Indonesian Textile Arts Center is a fairtrade business founded in 1998 that works directly with weavers to sustain the indigenous textile arts and the cultural heritage these arts express. It works to empower women, to commission natural-dyed textiles, and sell the textiles thus produced. It also holds classes in textile appreciation and natural-dye batik to raise awareness of the traditional textile arts.
News From the Foundation
Dye Training in Nusa
Sayut

Between 20-22 January, Yayasan Pecinta Budaya Bebali staff members Gde, Frog and Yansu went to Nusa Penida, the small island next to Bali, to conduct a natural dye training with weavers in Ampel and Tanglad villages. The focus was on indigo plant use, now that the rains have brought the indigo plants up. The training was very useful, as the dyers had been chopping up the indigo leaves prior to soaking them, which promoted oxidation of the dye and guaranteed very poor results. All stages of the process were explained, from plant harvesting, through dye vat care, to dyeing. Red dyeing using Morinda sp was also discussed but the lack of a source of the Symplocos sp barks used to fix the red dye to cotton continue to hamper their progress.

“I was embarrassed that we Balinese had so little to show of our traditional weavings at the last [Indonesian Indigenous Weavers’] Festival compared to other weaving communities like Timor and Flores,” said Ni Putu Asmini (at center of photo), a weaver from Nusa Penida.

“I am determined to bring natural dyed weavings made from plants we grew on Nusa Penida, like the old cloths that our grandmothers used to weave [to the next festival].”
DVD now available
"Ninety-six traditional weavers and cultural leaders from communities across Indonesia came together for the inaugural Indonesian Indigenous Weavers' Festival between the 27th of July and the 3rd of August 2005. They came to the village of Waimatan on the island of Lembata from eighteen communities on the islands of Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Bali, Flores, Sumba, Timor, Adonara and Lembata.
Uswatun

This remarkable documentary chronicles the Festival and explores the traditional cultures and weaving arts of Indonesia from the perspective of the people for whom they are a way of life. Through informal conversation, facilitated discussion, workshops on the weaving arts, and cultural exchange, Festival participants worked together, seeking empowerment for themselves and their communities."

The DVD includes:
- a 15-minute version
- a 40-minute version
- an English narrative and subtitles for both versions
- an Indonesian narrative for both versions

A third of the Rp150,000 (US$16.95) retail price of the DVD will help cover travel expenses of participants to future Indonesian Indigenous Weavers' Festivals. The Indonesian Indigenous Weavers' Festival 2005 was organized by Threads of Life's nonprofit sister organization, the Yayasan Pecinta Budaya Bebali. To get your copy of the DVD please visit Threads of Life or contact tac@threadsolife.com
Indonesian Indigenous Weavers' Festival 2005
Site Selection
for Indonesian Indigenous Weavers' Festival 2006

After the success of the July 2005 Indonesian Indigenous Weavers' Festival in Waimatan, Lembata, which brought together 93 weavers, dyers and cultural leaders from 17 communities on 7 islands across Indonesia, funding has been secured for a second festival in July 2006. Two applications to host the 2006 event had been received by the December 31st deadline. These were from the Sanggar Bliran Sina in Watublapi, Flores, and from Amarasi, Timor.

In order to maintain the transparent, participatory nature of festival processes, we will assess both applicant communities together with festival participants when we visit both villages in February. The challenge for us in the office was to create an assessment tool that numerically values the competing communities in a way that can be understood by all concerned and shows no favor. Work on this continued throughout January and continues into February. Consultation with participants in the villages will also be necessary to refine the tool at the start of the onsite assessments.

The changes made in the village infrastructure of Waimatan, which hosted the 2005 Festival in Lembata, made us realize that hosting the Indonesian Indigenous Weavers' Festival can have a catalyzing impact on a village, just as the Olympics can revitalize a city. We therefore want to make sure that the festival hosts are eager to reap the possible benefits.

It is exciting to see the enthusiasm both to host and participate in the festival project. We are looking forward to the end of the rainy season and the opportunity to return to all communities participating in the festival. By the end of 2005, a lot of energy had been put into fulfilling local action plans set at the last festival. It will be exciting to see how projects such as dye plant and cotton cultivation have developed with the help of the monsoons.
About the Foundation
The Threads of Life Foundation supports the work of the Yayasan Pecinta Budaya Bebali, which is the Indonesian nonprofit sister organization of the Threads of Life gallery in Ubud, Bali. The Yayasan Pecinta Budaya Bebali is dedicated to sustaining the traditional textile arts of Indonesia and the cultural heritage these arts express. It works directly with hundreds of weavers on Timor, Lembata, Flores, Sumba, Sulawesi, Kalimantan and Bali to develop natural dye skills, to empower community, to develop local and international markets for the weavers, and to facilitate an ongoing dialogue between weavers and dyers of different traditions.
We Need Your Support
The Indonesian Indigenous Weavers Festival Initiative will cost US$150,000 this year. The main expenses are the costs of travel to the communities to facilitate the development of local action based on decisions made at the Festival, and the costs of getting participants to and from the Festival itself. We have raised US$100,000 from a large institutional donor, and US$10,000 from a US foundation for the participation of weavers in West Kalimantan. Donations from many of you to our Threads of Life Foundation already total US$5,000, so we are seeking another US$35,000 in contributions of any size to keep this innovative project going!
Secure Online Donations
The Threads of Life Foundation is a U.S. nonprofit 501(c)(3), 509(a)(1) under the National Heritage Foundation and shares its federal tax status (Tax Identification Number 58-2085326). Secure online credit card donations to the Threads of Life Foundation may be made at:
https://www.registrationfactory.com/v3/?EventUUID=7CC43262