Everyone, I have a huge announcement: my mom just won first place in the 'American Batik Design Competition', organized by the Embassy of Indonesia!!! In addition to being recognized at an international level, she won a 2 week trip to Jakarta, Solo, Yogyakarta, Bali, Palembang, Mataram, and Makasar, an award of $5,000, exhibitions in the US (San Francisco and Washington D.C.), and in Indonesia (Jakarta).

We all couldn't be happier for her so I thought it warranted a post:)

oh, I guess I should post some pics, but I don't have any of the actual piece she submitted yet.

In the meantime, if you need to buy your girl some jewelry, check out her site I had made for her last year:


http://www.paintedcharms.com/

Congrats

Beautiful bracelets on that site

ok, this was the design...



...and you have to understand a few things...

- batik is usually done on fabric (even though she uses the same techniques on hard surfaces, as well as cloth.)
- this contest was to combine US symbols and imagery with Indonesian manufacturing techniques... so her part was purely design.
- batik is basically a 'wax resist' method of patterning silk - whatever you do NOT want colored you paint with wax, then you dye the fabric, then wax more, change colors, dye again, wax more, etc., until you are finished.  It is extremely time and labor intensive, and you really need to see the 'negative image' in your minds eye and think through your designs before you start, or you'll screw the whole thing up.

Congrats to your Mum... you must be a proud son!

thats brilliant Dogboy What a great prize as well!

thanks folks:) Yeah, I'm really excited for her. It's really a life achievement award for her to be recognized in this way.

Congrats. Beautiful stuff she's making

Nice stuff DB, tell your mom I said congrats!

...yeah, cool things with ceramic tile too:


http://www.batiktile.com (ironic that was my start in SEO and today it looks like it is all in flash:) Ah well...)

... but imagine, everywhere you (don't) see a white line above, she was dripping hot wax. then painted glaze, fired, wax burns off, cool, more wax, paint, redo...

> tell your mom
will do, LM:)

Awesome stuff Dogboy and Mama Dogboy

>>Makasar

I was here a few years ago for a couple days on the front and back of a trip into the mountains on the island of Sulawesi. It is crazy how different cities like that are from the US but also how similar they can be.

One of the coolest things we did was take a little boat to an island about 8 miles off the coast. I think it was called Kodengareng Keke or something like that. It is probably only a couple acres but nice sand and good snorkling.

(long) Video of the event...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-jzBXrWAUI&feature=youtube_gdata_player

...There were 9 finalists that they flew out to San Fran and they announced her last, saying she got by far the most votes from the judges, eventhough there were 3 first places (however that works) and she was one of them. Its cool to see the final piece worn by the model. Supposedly there is a contract involved that will be offered to her at the indonesian embassy in DC.