Chaos and Craft, Evolving

The small city of Yogyakarta bleeds culture and life: street art adorns every alley and garage. Potted plants hang from concrete walls. Brightly colored houses line narrow, twisting alleys. Streets scream with a half-organized frenzy of cars, minibuses, hoardes of motorbikes, horse-drawn carriages, and this particular city’s version of ojeks: two-person carriages propelled by a man on a very tall, (occasionally) motorized bicycle.

Yogya is self-governed, in a way: although recognized as a “Special Region,” the sultan still seems to have something to do with ruling the city in his own right. Really still not sure how that all works out. In any case, the city is a vibrant, multilayered center of craft evolution, somehow managing to retain a strong, deep, vibrant, ancient cultural history while simultaneously developing traditional craft for modern uses.

I spend my first couple days wandering. I find my way to the Water Palace, an estate filled with stone carvings and gardens and pools where the sultan and his many wives vacationed when not conducting business. I think. I also manage to stumble across a bed in a small side chamber: prime site for boom boom once the sultan made his pick for the evening.


I lose myself in batik shops, where artists show me the process of dripping wax through tiny pipettes, laying dye, and then boiling off wax… over and over and over again. It’s somewhat like meditation, they tell me. While the craft has been used for centuries to create sarongs and other lengths of fabric, a new generation of artists has utilized the form to create wall hangings. I wander canvases for hours, immersed in cranes and dragons and abstract countryside landscapes and more modern art styles.

Some time during the week I meet a man who leads me through a maze of narrow, twisting alleys lined with potted plants and tight-packed houses, arriving at a workshop belonging to the man whose family for six generations has produced shadow puppets for the sultan.

The artist’s uncle walks me through the process of transforming cow hide into brightly painted puppets, vibrant painted details giving way to intricate, lacey patterns and shapes as light casts shadows on a screen raised behind them. He explains how each color and shape carries a different meaning, from merging elements to protection and soul, depending on which character is depicted. Although the whole family works to create puppets, each person learns only one craft: the primary artist treats and carves leather, his brother paints and his uncle carves and uses heat to shape buffalo horn into puppeteer’s sticks. Each individual’s craft will be passed from father to son, from generation to generation.

I spend a day wandering thousand-year-old temples. The Buddhist icon of Borobudur rises in above rolling jungled hills, hundreds of latticed stone stupas built around Buddhas who gaze outward over steep, multi-tiered, corridors filled with intricate, carved tapestries. The temples comprising Prambanan’s complex tower in a cluster of tall, slender spires dedicated to individual gods, lessons and histories and animals carved into almost every inch of exposed rock.

My last day in Yogya brings me to the Sultan’s palace, built of stained glass and wood and accented in gold leaf. While the building is stunning, I find myself mesmerized by shadow puppetry being performed in the main courtyard. Dozens of people execute the art to completion in complex, practiced harmony: The puppeteer sits under a single light bulb behind a broad cotton screen, framed by hundreds of puppets arranged by size on a bamboo pole. His voice weaves an alien world as he sings a mythical creation story, voicing up to 150 characters throughout the course of his tale. Through voice and puppet movement, backed by an ensemble of over 50 musicians and five female vocalists, the puppeteer evokes whimsical, forceful, fleeting and strong and cheerful emotion. One single man’s sole purpose is selecting the correct character, preparing puppets to be passed to the puppeteer at the appropriate time. Every member of the cast wears a ceremonial cap and batik sarong, a keris held tight against the back by a broad sash. Next to every set of bare feet rests a cup of tea… along with a pack of cigarettes.

The next day I leave behind one of the most beautiful countries I’ve had I’ve been graced with good fortune to experience. At the airport, some archaic counting method determines I’ve overstayed my visa by a day. When I return from the ATM, cash in hand, the immigration officer informs me the fee “If you want to leave the country” has increased by half in the last five minutes.

Thanks, guys.

And on that very businesslike note, I board my plane to Malaysia.