As many friends and colleagues know, I am working on a book about Iwan Tirta, and the fabulous collection of his batik wall hangings owned by the American Embassy Jakarta. The wall hangings were probably acquired for the Embassy between 1973–1985. They are bold, colorful, enlarged Javanese batik motifs such as singa lion, flowers, phoenix, […]
Fit for a Queen: Remarkable Restoration, Exquisite Embroidery & Innovative Invisible Mannequins
In Celebration of Her Majesty’s 7th cycle Birthday 2016 July is always a busy month at the Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles in Bangkok, as annual preparations take place for Her Majesty’s August birthday. This year was a big one—7 cycles of 12 is very auspicious and the museum pulled out all the stops. Two new […]
Puppet Masters: Conservation in Miniature
In the first partnership of its kind, I led the The Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles in Bangkok and the Taiyuan Asian Puppet Museum in Taipei for a puppet textile conservation training workshop. In the lively one-week session, conservators Nuchada Piranprasankit and Yaowalak Bunnag, from the Queen Sirikit Museum of Textiles, and I trained staff […]
Farewell, adieu Sam-pay ketamu lagi Museum Tekstil Jakarta!
Hats off to a great project and stay here in Jakarta! Ending on a wonderfully high note, 75 textile lovers attended my Talk Show covering the Conservation of the Iwan Tirta batiks…great turnout, gorgeous batik sarong and attire and brilliant discussion. today! Here I am with my so cool and eloquent MC Dyan–perfectly dressed […]
Jakarta Post 3#: I am BECOMING batik!!
I am BECOMING batik! It’s my daily language, looking at patterns, learning the names, asking millions of questions, feeling the soft cotton, learning about maestros such as Go Tik Swan -who I now want to make a film about. Everyone at the Museum Tekstil is so knowledgeable about batik, symbolism, history and ritual. It’s […]
Julia returns to Jakarta: Installment #1
Julia returns to her birthplace of Java, on a mission to preserve a national batik treasure. In early April, Julia returned to her birthplace of Java, to preserve an important collection of batik by Iwan Tirta; a joint project of the US Embassy and Musuem Tekstil–the batik of diplomacy. This is the first of several […]
