Indonesians in Focus: Wirda Hanim

One day in 1993, Wirda Hanim, a long-time resident of the West Sumatra provincial capital Padang, attended a traditional celebration at her village, Sumani, in Tanah Datar regency. During the festivity, she observed some women and men wearing clay batik shawls, known locally as batik tanah liek. The shawls were already very old and worn, with patches everywhere. Local people, however, still wore the shawls with pride as a piece of traditional Minangkabau clothing.

Taking a closer look at the batik, Wirda realized the people handled the shawls with extreme care so they would not tear. Out of curiosity she asked some people about the batik and was astonished to learn that clay batik had not been made for about 70 years.

“I was worried (that clay batik would disappear forever), which moved me to produce batik tanah liek, just like the pieces they were wearing,” Wirda said recently.

Batik tanah liek is a hallmark of the Minangkabau people of West Sumatra. It got its name because craftsmen use clay to dye the cloth. There is no historical record as to when clay batik first appeared in West Sumatra.

Many people believe batik tanah liek was influenced by Chinese culture and first appeared in what is now Tanah Datar regency.

Clay batik suddenly disappeared during World War II, in particular during the Japanese occupation of Indonesia from 1942 to 1945

In 1993, Wirda already had an embroidery business in Padang, which she established in 1986. Her limited knowledge and experience in batik-making, particularly clay batik-making, however, did not discourage her.

Wirda consulted a batik teacher at a fine arts high school and asked him to experiment, imitating clay batik using synthetic materials. The teacher asked several students at the school to help out. Wirda provided the materials for the project, including the cloth and dye needed to make clay batik. The results were rather disappointing.

“While looking for a way out, I searched for and imitated the seahorse and phoenix motifs of old clay batik in my village. Aside from that, I also drew inspiration from Minang motifs in woodcarving and traditional cloths, and created new motifs by mixing up the old motifs,” said Wirda, who was born on May 8, 1952, in Batusangkar, also West Sumatra.

Wirda’s attempts to revive batik tanah liek seemed to have moved local officials. Six months later, the National Handicraft Council of West Sumatra organized a clay batik training course for 20 participants from Solok and Pesisir Selatan regencies. Although Wirda was not invited to attend the training, she paid her own expenses just to participate in the program.

Still, she was disappointed with the training, and she decided to go to Yogyakarta to learn batik craft. However, after attending training in Yogyakarta for a few days she had to go back to Padang to attend to her embroidery business. Wirda then asked the Yogyakarta Batik Council to send an instructor to Padang on a three-month contract.

Before the instructor left for Padang, Wirda asked him to make copies of some old clay batik she brought along from Padang. Soon after making the copies, the instructor flew to Padang together with a young assistant, with Wirda paying all their expenses.

“Upon his arrival in Padang, he showed me the copies and I was extremely disappointed as they were not quite what I had expected. In fact, after working for two and a half months, none of the pieces they produced resembled the color of batik tanah liek that I liked,” she said.

For the experiments she spent more than Rp 20 million (US$2,300) which she borrowed from her husband Rusland Majid, a 71-year-old trader. She spent most of the money on silk, batik materials and equipment.

Still, the failures and high cost did not deter her. A week before the contract of the Yogya instructor ended, she recalled a color decorating lesson when she took a wedding cake course in Jakarta years earlier. She tested some coloring agents to find one compatible with the clay-like hue of the old batik.

“I tried them on 10 sheets of fabric, each measuring two meters long, and finally I got the tanah liek batik color, although only two pieces were comparatively good,” she said.

While experimenting, Wirda employed five batik makers. With this success, she started producing synthetic clay batik. For her marketing, she received great assistance from Zuraida Hasan Basri Durin, the wife of then West Sumatra governor Hasan Basri Durin. Zuraida championed the use of traditional batik at West Sumatra’s Darma Wanita and Bundo Kanduang women’s organizations. Wirda was even asked to offer her products to official guests from other regions in the hotels where they stayed.

“The visitors appreciated and showed interest in my batik, helping my business thrive,” she said.

In 2000 Wirda attended a training course on natural coloring techniques in Yogyakarta for a month. From then on, she tried natural materials for her clay batik. Once she collected brackish soil near her home, boiled it and mixed it with alum. And to her amazement, Wirda managed to produce batik tanah liek like the original ones she had found in Sumani village.

Now Wirda uses not only clay for her batik but also other natural materials such as gambir (betel nuts) and the skin of rambutan, jengkol nuts and red onions. In her two-story house, which also serves as her batik workshop, 15 workers produce 20 pieces of clay batik per month.

Owing to its complicated processing, the cost of batik tanah liek for shawls, sarongs and shirts range from Rp 1.5 million to Rp 2 million per piece. Buyers generally come from Jakarta, Malaysia and Japan, who want the unique products as souvenirs. And for her contribution to the revival of batik tanah liek the Indonesian government bestowed Wirda with the Upakarti Award of Merit in 2006.

“I want my employees to master embroidery and batik making skills so that they can stand on their own. I also hope that some of them will carry on my business and further develop batik tanah liek,” Wirda said.

Syofiardi Bachyul Jb