The blue and white batik garment from Java, covered in peacocks on trees, mimics a Chinese ceramic. Hanging on the wall as part of the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco’s exhibit, “Weaving Stories,” the textile gives us information: The wearer was probably extremely wealthy to be able to afford such fine batik —keeping the white background pristine made the dying process difficult. She was most likely Indonesian Chinese. And due to the colors, white and blue, we can tell she was probably in mourning — or maybe she had just gotten married — brides sometimes wore blue and white to show grief at leaving their parents’ home.
Since textiles are utilitarian and mostly made by women, sometimes they don’t get acclaimed as art, says Natasha Reichle, the curator of Southeastern Art on a tour of the museum. In the exhibit, she wants to show the artistry of textiles as well as how through them, wearers proclaim their identity — letting others know, for example, what village they were from by what they wore and how they wore it. The exhibit of more than 40 works with many from Indonesia, the fourth most populous country in the world, as well as from the Philippines and Malaysia, shows the skill and creativity of the weavers.
She walks the exhibit, pointing out a dark indigo batik, and encouraging viewers to get close to see the patterns in the fabric, including plants, buildings, and animals, Reichle says good weavers were prized, but the ability to dye was equally important.
“It’s a type of alchemy,” she said to Observer. “You go out into nature, you find the plants, you know the chemical processes that make a dye stick. It’s very important, and women who are able to make dyes are very valued in their societies.”
Along with batik, where patterns are created with dye after using a stylus to make wax designs, as in the blue and white garment, the show has examples of another style, ikat, where the weaver ties and unties specific threads to dye patterns into them before weaving, so that it could take month to make a garment.
In another technique, songket, gold or silver threads woven crosswise appear to be floating on top. The curator says there’s a term for this technique derived from Arabic that perfectly fits how the metallic threads look.
“The translation of the term is ‘rough as dew’” she said. “It indicates how it’s lifted from the surface like dew, and it sparkles to your eyes like dew. So, it’s a wonderful metaphor.”
The exhibition includes sample of fabrics that make up the garments on display, including cotton and silk as well as some of the earliest textiles which were made of bark. It was pounded, fermented, and washed, resulting in a fabric that could only be worn a week or two.
“We have reports of, in the early 1600s, Spanish friars coming to Sulawesi [an Indonesian island],” Reichle said. “The one thing they remarked on was the sound, the constant sound, of people pounding this cloth out because it was made of paper, so it didn’t last.”
Visitors can also touch piña, a fabric made from pineapple leaves. The fruit was brought by the Spanish when they colonized the Philippines. The fabric is diaphanous, and Reichle pointed out a blouse made from the fabric, decorated with sequins made from shells. The style of the blouse as well as the fabric show the colonial influence.
“Weaving Stories” also has samples of clothing from abaca, made from banana leaves. Reichle says it was believed that for master weavers, the goddess of abaca to them in dreams, suggesting patterns and colors.
The show also has an impressive example of a contemporary narrative textile. Indonesian artist Milla Sungkar made a silk shoulder cloth after seeing images on TV of the disastrous 2004 earthquake and tsunami in Aceh.
“She made this batik, and when you get up close, you can see it’s very much a vision of how horrific that event was,” Reichle said. “The one thing that remains standing in the background is the mosque, and if you look at the label, there’s a photo that shows one of the major mosques remains standing.”
The clothing in the exhibit can indicate age, gender, marital status, and wealth, such as with the blue and white batik, or an elongated diamond on the chest in a cloth from Java showing a woman is married.
Along with giving information about the identity of the wearer, textiles were used to invite deities and ancestors, and to confer blessings and protect against danger. One ceremonial textile used in religious ceremonies is a cloth called a cepuk, meaning face to face, which Reichle says implies coming face to face with the divine. A silk piece from Bali shows its protective function, with white triangles along the border, meant to represent the teeth of Barong, a guardian deity.
“This is a cloth that was used in a lot of sacred rituals,” Reichle said. “Where you have traditions like dances where someone goes into a trance, they often might be wearing a cepuk cloth.”
A red cloth from Java, ornamented with symbols of good fortune, was also used for religious reasons.
“This was from a family of Indonesian or Chinese heritage,” Reichle said. “It shows things associated with auspiciousness in Chinese culture — the red color, the lion, the deer, and other elements important in Chinese iconography both in China and in the Chinese diaspora. This would probably be hung in front of an individual’s altar to their ancestors.”
The exhibit also has two slide shows — one showing textiles being used from birth through death and one on the different ways of making textiles. There’s a display of archival photos, and Reichle says she gave lots of thought to them — she wanted to have photos to show how textiles were worn but didn’t want to use anything where the people were posed — for example, a photo of a woman working at a loom turned out to be from a Dutch exposition.
Along with the photos, textiles, and samples of cloth to touch, there’s a macro lens that allows visitors to look closely at individual strands of thread and the techniques of dying them.
“Weaving Stories” inspires wonder at the crucial role of textiles in Southeast Asia, the information they conveyed, and the skill, artistry, and commitment of these mostly unnamed artists.
Open at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco until May 2, 2022.