Local Updates of Bali

Perhaps most of us will disbelieve that West Loloan village famous for its Muslim community also has cultural inheritance potential such as string-woven that nowadays being forgotten gradually. Rahmat Hidayat (30) is the only one string-woven artisan who still survive in the middle of fabric textile interference.

When met in his house at Jalan Masjid Mujahidin, on Friday (March 26), Ayat, Rahmat Hidayat friendly nickname, who is busy grappling with his non-machine loom at the back of his house.

From his non-machine loom that looks shabby born the string-woven. “It is called string-woven because when the making of its motive, the cloth-making material is made from tiding threads into varied of specific forms,” said Ayat as he began the conversation.
The woven pattern is varied enough, starting from decorated parallel lines, pots, brackets stars, dodol slices and sweet pomegranates. “But it is not a standard motive, the consumer still could request their preferable motives,” he explained.

In order to finish one sheet of string-woven cloth sized 110 cm x 120 cm, Ayat need only three days to finish it priced for Rp 145 thousand up to 160 thousand per sheet.

“Today the order is full but I still have two workers with me so every month we could produce up to 20 sheets,” he said. In fact, Ayat has seven non-machine looms but only three of them could be use due to the lack of labor,” he said.

Usually, Ayat added, the consumer who most of them ordered the string-woven for marriage, pilgrimage or for gift. “Once there was tourist from Malaysia who bought from me,” Ayat confessed.

In the middle of the order, Ayat confessed that he is anxious with the existence of string-woven fabric. It is considering the sole artisan of this string-woven is Ayat only. The other chose to close their business since they were unable to survive in the middle of factory textile interference which is now flooding the market.

“Nowadays, not lot people could weaving so it’s hard for me to find labor. If I desperately want a new labor then they should be teach first,” he said.

According to Ayat, the business he run today is an inheritance from his grandfather, Suni who had passed away. “Since five years ago, tens of my great, great grandfather had run this business,” he said. After his grandfather died, the string-woven business fell to his father, Husin who had already passed away too.

“Since my father died months ago, I continued this business,” he added. At first, Ayat confessed that he had no interest at all with continuing family business but his father sudden death left lots of orders. “First it because I was forced to do it since my father left lots of order to finish and I had to pay it,” he said.

In marketing his production, Ayat confessed that he does not sticking any brand in his string-woven productions. “It only lots of people called my string-woven as Husin Suni family production, it came from my father and grandfather name,” he said.

News by Bali News