There is a folk tradition in Tuban on the north coast of Java of growing cotton locally, then handspinning it into a rough textile to dye and batik. This piece is probably a putihan, a ritual cloth.

 

Triangles in Javanese cosmology have various interpretations, referencing constructs such as societal hierarchies and the human cycle of life: birth, maturity and death.

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The pattern of isolated geometric motifs here is suggestive of little sails buffeted on the ocean’s winds and waves, or of percussive triangles, struck one by one. A relatively quiet fabric, one can imagine silences between the notes.

 

Selendang – batik tulis (handwoven cotton), Tuban region, East Java

Kindly lent by Kadar and Anton Lucas