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Gringsing
Certainly one of the rarest weaving techniques in the world is practiced in Tenganan, a traditional native Balinese village in eastern Bali. About five hours by bus from Denpasar. Here the amazingly difficult gringsing (flaming cloth) cloths are made by an elaborate process of dyeing. Both the warp and weft threads are carefully bound and then dyed in predetermined places, creating patterns which are made to fit harmoniously together into a finished design once the piece is completely woven on a back-strap loom. The geometric, repetitive patterns must interlock in exactly the same place in order for the fabric to have any aesthetic value or meaning. Stars, flowers, and crosses fill the body while rhombuses and chains of keys run lengthwise through the long, narrow cloth. The colors used are muted earth tones derived from vegetable dyes like indigo and turmeric bark. Gringsing are worn as sashes in everyday wear but on festival day, women dress from head to toe in gringsing. The cloth protects and preserves the wearer from harm. No rite of passage may be carried out without the obligatory wearing of a kain gringsing. Though other forms of ikat were probably imported from India, gringsing weaving is thought to have originated only in Tenganan. To support this theory, nowhere else in Indonesia is this intensely time-consuming and jealously guarded 'double-ikat' process practiced, and less than 15 women still know how to weave it. A woman may labor for three years on a single piece of gringsing. A large kain may easily cost a million rupiah. Strictly for collectors. |
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