The Year of Batik
This week our blog celebrates the International Year of Batik (2024-2025) with seven online features on resist-dye techniques and their histories around the world. We are joined by international batik artist, Jonathan Evans, whose batik paintings are world-class and wonderful expressions of what is possible with wax resist and painting with dyes, to introduce the year of batik.
Guest edited by Jonathan S. Evans
When I threw out an idea right off the top of my head at a Batik Guild Committee meeting, I had no idea what I had started nor what I would be getting into. I am a lifelong- almost 60 years and counting- professional Batik artist, Chairman of the Batik Guild and sometimes feel like an agent provocateur in the Batik community. It is a small rather elite community of artists who have discovered and fallen in love with the process and its idiosyncrasies and endless pitfalls. But for those of us who have committed to this unforgiving and tricky process, it is a constant delight, an endless unfolding mystery and very addictive. Amongst ourselves, we talk of the Zen of Batik. Would that more people knew about this art form, especially in the USA where I live and run Shalawalla Art Gallery with my wife Beth, also a well known batiker.
Image: a men's head cloth covered in Islamic script - Rudolf Smend - 83 x 88cm - Perceived as having the power to protect - Batik tulis on cotton - early 20th century - bought from a family in Jambi, South-Samatra in 1996 Collection - Cologne. Image above: Noel Dyrenforth - Batik on cotton and cold water dyes.
Europeans learned about batik from their colonies but it is largely unknown in this country. I have gotten very tired of explaining over and over again what Batik is to the public. Mostly I point at a sign on the wall which says “What is Batik”. And when a young man came in wanting batik classes, but under the impression that it was some exotic martial art akin to KungFu, I think that something snapped!
I have lived all my life as an artist working in a field that has a questionable reputation. Batik is generally considered to be akin to Tie-dye and what we call Grateful Dead art, a “soft” women’s craft in the West while solely practiced in Asia in the making of fabric for clothes in small factories. It is never seen as an incredibly complicated and challenging art form and medium with an as yet un-realised artistic potential. It has long been my dream to promote and publicise the process and to legitamise it as an important medium, comparable to oil painting or water colours- only harder and much slower!
Perhaps I just got tired of rolling my batik boulder up an interminably high mountain and decided that I should give the whole thing a last push before I got too old to wield a tjanting or a pen anymore. So I threw the idea out at a meeting that we should designate 2024-25 as “The year of Batik”.
Memories Java - Heather Koumi - Batik on cotton and cold water dyes.
To my total surprise, it was greeted with enthusiasm by the Batik Guild- and we decided to put the idea into action. Of course, we had no idea what we had started, what we were doing or how to go about implementing such an ambitious project. We are just artists after all! We formed a very small group of four to start with and had some meetings. We got a treasurer luckily, who is indispensable to the organisation. I think a very savvy move was to decide to keep it small- lean and mean- and to realise that we would get more done with a tiny, focused group. A close friend suggested that we spearheaded the whole year with an International Batik Competition and we took that idea on board.
Finding seed money to get the show on the road was our first priority and the Batik Guild very generously agreed to be a sponsor and gave us money to take the first important step- to build a big website. We needed, before anything else, a platform to collect and collate Batik events from all over the world, a forum where batik artist could meet and congregate and talk. We needed a gallery of the very best artists from all around the world and a place to discuss our art. We needed pictures and videos and articles and a place to post the history of our art.
And we got it: www.batikinternational.com
Image: Aztec Rainbow, Noel Dyrenforth - Batik on cotton and cold water dyes.
It is a huge website, by far the biggest Batik site on the net and it grows daily. I think that we are seeing that it will continue as an international Batik platform beyond this year. We are slowly learning how to operate efficiently and effectively and are putting out regular Newsletters and updates every month. We are advertising the Competition and entries are slowly coming in. We are busy on several social media websites and have so far managed to find funding to continue to maintain such an active website although money is of course still an issue. We are setting up Batik shows all over the world currently; the year will kick off with a Batik Guild show at Naples Botanical Gardens in Naples, Florida, there is a show scheduled at the Rugby Art Gallery and Museum in the UK in
July and my wife and I are organising the very first all-American Batik show in the beautiful new Estelle Creative art center here in Colorado in September with over 20 American batikers signed up. We are helping to organise and publicise exhibitions and shows in Europe, Asia and South America. Batik workshops and classes will be held all over the world in 2024.
Image: Karama Saidykhan (The Gambia, West Africa) - Batik on cotton and cold water dyes.
But perhaps the most interesting and important thing that has happened so far is that Batikers are coming out of the woodwork from all over the world, artists we have never come across before. There was a need for an international Internet meeting ground that we have met. The loneliness that most of us have experienced working in this marginalised medium seems to be over and we are all coming together. The Batik Guild is getting many more members as a result and there is a palpable feeling that things are starting to move and to crystalise.
Our project has been embraced by the massive Quilt community in the USA. Quilting is the #1 art and craft medium in this country and there are hundreds of thousands of quilters here. My wife and I have now done 2 TV interviews and demonstrations of Batik for a TV channel and already have had a big response from this exposure.
Image: Samsuddin Abu Baker (Kuala Lympur, Malaysia) - Batik on cotton and cold water dyes.
So we continue to search for financial sponsorship, for support and for the participation of all interested parties in this huge project. We are open to all advice and ideas and welcome further involvement from the art community around the world.
We may be contacted at info@batikinternational.com and look forward to hearing from any and all of you.
Find out more:
www.batikinternational.com
On Saturday 8 June 2024 at 14:00 BST, we will be holding an Online Symposium inspired by issue 117: Irresistible of Selvedge Magazine inviting a discussion around the irresistible nature of resist-dyeing techniques around the world. Join us to discuss batik and its history and legacy. Book your tickets now: www.selvedge.org/products/-online-symposium-irresistible
Guest edited by Jonathan S. Evans
When I threw out an idea right off the top of my head at a Batik Guild Committee meeting, I had no idea what I had started nor what I would be getting into. I am a lifelong- almost 60 years and counting- professional Batik artist, Chairman of the Batik Guild and sometimes feel like an agent provocateur in the Batik community. It is a small rather elite community of artists who have discovered and fallen in love with the process and its idiosyncrasies and endless pitfalls. But for those of us who have committed to this unforgiving and tricky process, it is a constant delight, an endless unfolding mystery and very addictive. Amongst ourselves, we talk of the Zen of Batik. Would that more people knew about this art form, especially in the USA where I live and run Shalawalla Art Gallery with my wife Beth, also a well known batiker.
Image: a men's head cloth covered in Islamic script - Rudolf Smend - 83 x 88cm - Perceived as having the power to protect - Batik tulis on cotton - early 20th century - bought from a family in Jambi, South-Samatra in 1996 Collection - Cologne. Image above: Noel Dyrenforth - Batik on cotton and cold water dyes.
Europeans learned about batik from their colonies but it is largely unknown in this country. I have gotten very tired of explaining over and over again what Batik is to the public. Mostly I point at a sign on the wall which says “What is Batik”. And when a young man came in wanting batik classes, but under the impression that it was some exotic martial art akin to KungFu, I think that something snapped!
I have lived all my life as an artist working in a field that has a questionable reputation. Batik is generally considered to be akin to Tie-dye and what we call Grateful Dead art, a “soft” women’s craft in the West while solely practiced in Asia in the making of fabric for clothes in small factories. It is never seen as an incredibly complicated and challenging art form and medium with an as yet un-realised artistic potential. It has long been my dream to promote and publicise the process and to legitamise it as an important medium, comparable to oil painting or water colours- only harder and much slower!
Perhaps I just got tired of rolling my batik boulder up an interminably high mountain and decided that I should give the whole thing a last push before I got too old to wield a tjanting or a pen anymore. So I threw the idea out at a meeting that we should designate 2024-25 as “The year of Batik”.
Memories Java - Heather Koumi - Batik on cotton and cold water dyes.
To my total surprise, it was greeted with enthusiasm by the Batik Guild- and we decided to put the idea into action. Of course, we had no idea what we had started, what we were doing or how to go about implementing such an ambitious project. We are just artists after all! We formed a very small group of four to start with and had some meetings. We got a treasurer luckily, who is indispensable to the organisation. I think a very savvy move was to decide to keep it small- lean and mean- and to realise that we would get more done with a tiny, focused group. A close friend suggested that we spearheaded the whole year with an International Batik Competition and we took that idea on board.
Finding seed money to get the show on the road was our first priority and the Batik Guild very generously agreed to be a sponsor and gave us money to take the first important step- to build a big website. We needed, before anything else, a platform to collect and collate Batik events from all over the world, a forum where batik artist could meet and congregate and talk. We needed a gallery of the very best artists from all around the world and a place to discuss our art. We needed pictures and videos and articles and a place to post the history of our art.
And we got it: www.batikinternational.com
Image: Aztec Rainbow, Noel Dyrenforth - Batik on cotton and cold water dyes.
It is a huge website, by far the biggest Batik site on the net and it grows daily. I think that we are seeing that it will continue as an international Batik platform beyond this year. We are slowly learning how to operate efficiently and effectively and are putting out regular Newsletters and updates every month. We are advertising the Competition and entries are slowly coming in. We are busy on several social media websites and have so far managed to find funding to continue to maintain such an active website although money is of course still an issue. We are setting up Batik shows all over the world currently; the year will kick off with a Batik Guild show at Naples Botanical Gardens in Naples, Florida, there is a show scheduled at the Rugby Art Gallery and Museum in the UK in
July and my wife and I are organising the very first all-American Batik show in the beautiful new Estelle Creative art center here in Colorado in September with over 20 American batikers signed up. We are helping to organise and publicise exhibitions and shows in Europe, Asia and South America. Batik workshops and classes will be held all over the world in 2024.
Image: Karama Saidykhan (The Gambia, West Africa) - Batik on cotton and cold water dyes.
But perhaps the most interesting and important thing that has happened so far is that Batikers are coming out of the woodwork from all over the world, artists we have never come across before. There was a need for an international Internet meeting ground that we have met. The loneliness that most of us have experienced working in this marginalised medium seems to be over and we are all coming together. The Batik Guild is getting many more members as a result and there is a palpable feeling that things are starting to move and to crystalise.
Our project has been embraced by the massive Quilt community in the USA. Quilting is the #1 art and craft medium in this country and there are hundreds of thousands of quilters here. My wife and I have now done 2 TV interviews and demonstrations of Batik for a TV channel and already have had a big response from this exposure.
Image: Samsuddin Abu Baker (Kuala Lympur, Malaysia) - Batik on cotton and cold water dyes.
So we continue to search for financial sponsorship, for support and for the participation of all interested parties in this huge project. We are open to all advice and ideas and welcome further involvement from the art community around the world.
We may be contacted at info@batikinternational.com and look forward to hearing from any and all of you.
Find out more:
www.batikinternational.com
On Saturday 8 June 2024 at 14:00 BST, we will be holding an Online Symposium inspired by issue 117: Irresistible of Selvedge Magazine inviting a discussion around the irresistible nature of resist-dyeing techniques around the world. Join us to discuss batik and its history and legacy. Book your tickets now: www.selvedge.org/products/-online-symposium-irresistible