October 2010: Batik Tiles Competition

Business Hour: 3pm – 10pm

Enquiry call: 03-41075154

myBatik Bazaar Ramadhan, 11 August - 11 September 2010

JUNIOR CHAMBER INTERNATIONAL JCI President, Mr. Hong

PJ JCI Advisor in Taiwan, Miss ManHua

JCI group photo

Fame has its moments but it blinds the soul,
The tube wants to save a child but it wrecks the home,
A mistress enters and grabs all that is to a child,
Children of the world, are you there?
Two minutes and a message appears,
It’s the tube again with its famous friends,
Seduction is the game that rules the world,
Saving a child with nothing but lip service.
It leaves a child rootless and without much hope,
Children of the world, are you there?

The light of tomorrow is here to stay,
Mistresses who came, gone and forgotten,
A child who reads holds deep faith,
Faith blooms and the Maker enters.
Waking up to witness flowers and butterflies,
The child sits and composes a song,
The first verse contains suffering and love,
Children of the world, are you there?
No longer is the child sad and lost,
The second verse speaks of Heaven and Earth,
All that’s lost, found and treasured,
It’s a beautiful and sweet relief..

Image Courtesy: David Kibuuka

If you are a parent, you are probably wondering if art education is good for your child. The facts are that art education makes a tremendous impact on the developmental growth of every child and has proven to help level the “learning field” across socio-economic boundaries. Here are a few points why your child needs art education:

• Art has a measurable impact on youth at risk in deterring delinquent behaviour and truancy problems while also increasing overall academic performance among those youth engaged in after school and holiday programmes targeted toward delinquency prevention.
• It strengthens student problem-solving and critical thinking skills, adding to overall academic achievement and school success.
• Art helps students develop a sense of craftsmanship, quality task performance, and goal-setting—skills needed to succeed in the classroom and beyond.
• It can help troubled youth, providing an alternative to destructive behavior and another way for students to approach learning.
• It provides another opportunity for parental, community, and business involvement with schools, including arts and humanities organizations.
• Art helps all students develop more appreciation and understanding of the world around them.

Looking at the points above, what then can a parent do to become an art advocate? One suggestion for parents is to collaborate effectively with other parents, teachers, principals and the local community to build, support and sustain ongoing arts instruction for all children.

Tell us something about your work and we will feature it on this blog. You don’t have to be an artist or art practitioner to participate in this project. It’s more like a “work-in-progress” thing and you are free to submit a work anytime. No time limits, and the main purpose is to encourage creativity and channel that creativity into something fulfilling. Inspired moments. Uninspired moments. We welcome both. Do you have what it takes? Email us your work at editor@mybatik.org.my 

On the other side of the street. We are in the midst of producing the 9th issue of myBatik. Looking smooth (though not forgetting occasional hiccups) and we can’t wait for it to be published. It is scheduled to be out early February and if you happen to drop by Kinokuniya or MPH, don’t forget to get a copy of it.

The Gallery @ Starhill has been around for more than 15 years. Located in Starhill Gallery, and as you may have heard, Starhill Gallery is a luxury shopping mall, this gallery was founded by an interior designer, named Chin Chin. At first glance, it looks like it might be just another gallery that sells paintings and miniatures to tourists, the art gallery has apparently made a 360-degree turn from other shopping mall art galleries by actually holding art talks and exploring new ways of engaging the public through blogs and YouTube videos.

How successful modern art galleries in Malaysia, very much depends on how receptive the public is towards art and their willingness to view money invested in art as cultural capital – something that is capable of providing enjoyment for the human soul and soothe a troubled soul as per art as stocks or bonds.

The uncompromising demands of work, play and after-work dinner appearances mean your chances of getting to Starhill Gallery by 6.00pm after office hours are slim. Knowing this, The Gallery @ Starhill stays open until 9:30pm, Monday-Sunday with music to complement the Monets.

Review Your Existing Advertising
If you haven’t kept a formal list of your advertising efforts, now’s the time to start. Knowing what works, what doesn’t, and when you last tried it will help you avoid making the same mistake twice. It can also help you decide when it’s time to re-test something that didn’t go so well the first time.

Evaluate your history
Let’s start with an inventory of everything you’ve tried to date to market your batik business. Record any action you’ve taken in the past year, jotting down all the information you have regarding that activity (cost, time invested, dates, duration of advertisement, etc.). Now, think about each of these efforts and be honest about what’s not working. Is it because you haven’t been able to dedicate enough time to it? Is it too costly? Or is it just truly not working for your audience? Be ruthless and drop anything that’s not yielding a return – especially if it’s costing you money. You can always try it again later.

Now that you’ve shortened your list to just the things that are working, pick one or two to expand through 2010. Decide how much time you’re going to dedicate to this activity each week, and if there’s a cost associated with it, budget what that will be. Make your goals as aggressive as you like, but make them do-able. Here are a few examples:

Increase Awareness with Business Cards
Carry business cards with you at all times. Share them with anyone you meet who shows an interest in your business, whether you’re at a client meeting, or a party where the topic of what you do for a living comes up in conversation. Give each person multiple cards, one for them and another one or two to share with someone they know who might also be interested in your services.

Place Online Banner Ads
This project involves several phases. 1) First you’ll need to identify potential sites that might refer sales-worthy traffic, determine their pricing/trade policies, and decide how much you’re willing to pay and for how long. 2) Then you need to create your own banner or pay a graphic designer to create one for you. 3) Once you’ve posted your banner, watch the results – you want to know how much traffic the site gets, how many clicks your banner receives, and how many sales or new customers you got as a result. 4) Use these numbers to determine the return on your ad investment (Total cost of banner advertising ÷ number of new customers gained = Cost Per Acquisition).

Promote Your Business with Email
Create your own electronic newsletter that speaks to your target audience and shows them how your products can help them. Email once a week or once a month – whatever fits into your schedule and makes your audience happy.

Once you’re done with your advertising review, celebrate! You’ve completed a task that all successful business owners do routinely to keep their businesses on track.

Some ideas for batik practitioners to keep batik alive. It is our hope to see amateurs and professional artists from various backgrounds practise their social responsibility to develop their local communities, capitalizing on the learned values of tolerance, peaceful co-existence, and social cohesion through artistic expression and teamwork.

The strategies are as follows:

• Become an umbrella for artists through facilitating camps, forums, seminars, and meetings to help artists realize the value of their talents and encourage usage of their talents, and also to motivate the public to understand the real value of arts and media.
• Facilitate art workshops for talented people to learn how to create batik in a creative manner.
• Prepare and arrange two libraries (physical and electronic) to be available for the artists.
• Facilitate Art Reach trips to different countries, where arts play a role in community development and building different kinds of bridges.
• Support the use of artistic multimedia at workshops
• Establish arts centers in different cities which will provide academic artistic teaching for artists and help build bridges between the artists and their communities.

We invite you to submit your thoughts and ideas on how to keep batik alive.

The contributing writer will need to be capable of expressing complicated concepts in simple, practical language, and write for both academic & non-academic audiences. Writers should have previously done batik, possess a deep interest in batik or be experts in art, craft, fashion or cultural affairs. Intellectual thinking, critical thinking and a sense of humour are qualities we look for in writers. We value freedom of speech and writers are free to say what they want to say in written form – we accomodate differing thoughts and opinions. In short, many voices in one magazine.
 
For the 2010 Editorial Calendar, we are planning to feature write-ups on the following topics:
 
~ New Year & Batik in Love & Romance
~ Family business (batik or craft enteprise)
~ Batik in performing arts (music, dance, film or theatre)
~ Batik in interiors
~ Batik in commerce/business
~ Batik in schools/universities
~ Batik in politics
~ Design trends
~ Criticisms on current issues or trends
~ Cultural travels and observations of batik-making in Asia, Europe, America or the UK
~ Personal thoughts on issues related to batik
~ Creative/Artistic process (for batik art)
 
Since articles can be very visual, it would be good if writers include images whenever possible.
 
Requirements
 
1. Length of article:  A minimum of 2 pages in Microsoft Word format
2. Photo & image captions/courtesies are clearly indicated in the article
3. For images of paintings, writers are required to include the title and size of painting and the media used.
4. For photos of people featured, kindly include the full names of the people featured.
 
Things to Avoid
 
Please make sure not to duplicate content that’s already on any websites or published books. Avoid using language that is intimidating to novices. Plagiarism, copyright violations, racism, bigotry and anything that promotes violence are not tolerated.
 
Benefits of Being a Contributing Writer
 
The publication of your work will give you a “voice” in the batik community. You will also be contributing to the preservation of batik art and craft. For your participation:
 
~ Your biodata, email and website address will be included in myBatik and this will help you establish visibility as a writer, artist, and scholar. 
 
~ You will also receive 2 free copies of the issue that your work is published to pass on to relatives, friends, or put in a file to build your portfolio to assist you in securing other creative assignments.
 
~ You will become a part of a growing network of professional writers and creative artists.
 
Interested? Email the editor at editor@mybatik.org.my and let us know what’s on your mind. We are currently accepting submissions. The deadlines for submissions are as follows:
 
Coming Issue, 9th Issue: 20 December 2009
10th Issue: 28 February 2010
11th Issue: 31 May 2010
12th Issue: 31 August 2010
 
Many thanks and looking forward to hearing from you!

mybatik Presentation to Minister Defence Malaysia, Datuk Seri Dr. Ahamd Zahid Hamidi, in Dubai, togather with Mr, Lee Hwa Cheng, Ms. Emilia & Mr. Seak

myBatik Presentation in Dubai Mall

Ms. Emilia with Dubai Police General Capt. Masoud Ibrahim Al Hammad

mybatik on the Dubai Street

mybatik for Marrybrown Manager in Dubaieveryone loves to read myBatik magazine

Malaysia Embassador in Dubai

7th issue Icon: Tun Dr. Mahathir Bin Muhammad, Malaysian Former Prime Minister

Emilia Tan present the token appreciation to Tun, witnessed by Wairah Marzuki (right) & Raja Fuziah (left)

myBatik was privileged to meet with former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tun Mahathir Bin Mohamad in June 2009 where we had a delightful discussion on the subject The Unique Batik Malaysia.

We are proud therefore to share with our readers Tun Mahathir’s insight on the subject and his advocacy of the task ahead. This article reflects on the issues discussed with Tun Mahathir and we record herewith our impressions:

The Unique Batik Malaysia

Developing batik as handcrafted textile – hand-printed and hand-drawn, has made us all acutely aware of the importance of three essential elements in producing a new product. They are, namely, Design, Colour and Technique.

We need to pay attention to all of the three above elements giving emphasis to Design which requires the most and urgent attention.

Secondly, Malaysians love bright colours and batik in bright colours has become a manifestation of that expression. However, we need to think of the market and the consumers we are targeting. Therefore, we need to study how they perceive colours and their receptivity to our selection of colours.

And thirdly, the need to take an aggressive approach in R&D and to engage in experimenting new technologies that can expedite and enhance batik production process as well as to solve problems related to attaining quality production. Learning from the experiences of other countries such as Japan and Korea, and adapting their practices to meet our needs would indeed be a real asset. Another aspect of R&D, relates to acquiring knowledge about the characteristics of fabrics in order to appraise their appropriateness for making batik.

What makes Batik Malaysia unique is that we have been able to develop it through innovation by observing and learning from the tradition of batik–making of other countries, and successfully creating our own indigenous batik–style.

We must therefore continue to challenge ourselves to develop the product further and aim for excellence.

From Batik Sarong to Batik Yardage

In the last 50 years, batik has gone through an evolutionary process. Originally, the traditional batik cloth is the batik sarong, a functional cotton wrap to cover the body worn mainly by women and some men at home and at work.

Its transformation from a two meter patterned cloth to batik yardage (1960s) indeed had posed a serious challenge which demanded and involved extensive support in design and product development.

The task and challenge to innovate batik design has continued until the present day where the business of batik-making has reached the level of a highly competitive industry with producers ranging from that of a single-operator batik entrepreneur to that of an atelier/factory type of production vying for the discerning consumer.

Trends in Fashion

The world of fashion has created an immense consciousness with the designers and batik – makers who recognise the need to constantly innovate and produce new designs, introduce  new range of colours as well as to experiment with new production techniques to meet with the fast changing consumer taste and fashion trends. As a result, batik crafted from a variety of materials such as silk, cotton and linen of varying texture  have emerged in the market – place.

Batik as an Art form

Malaysian artists have made an inroad with their innovative adaptation of the batik technique on canvas. Henceforth, a new genre of batik as an art form was born. Batik paintings depicting images of Malaysian flora, fauna, forest, food and fiesta themes are providing a glimpse into the rich diversity of natural and cultural heritage of Malaysia through Batik Art.

The Design Challenge

A good design should create a pleasant virtual experience: the customer should perceive the product as aesthetically pleasing.

In this respect, batik designers should develop batik design to respond to the particular needs of the consumers thereby promoting the concept of special design for specific usage, such as batik for school wear, batik for uniform, batik for daily wear, batik for formal day and evening attire and batik for special occasions. Each particular design with special motif, pattern, colour and fabric created would therefore give batik that exclusive look and this would impact on batik not only as a versatile textile for clothing but also in popularizing it to a wider market.

Malaysia’s natural environment offers limitless source of inspiration from which new ideas, patterns, motifs and colours could be derived. At the same time, the uniqueness of each community in Malaysia, the people and their living traditions and cultural heritage are yet another source for design input.

Towards A Design Solution

Batik has to be taken seriously if it were to achieve the status of brand excellence.

Towards this end, designers, batik-makers and all concerned would have to work together in meeting the quality standard specified. Whether batik is for the domestic market or for export, criteria such as finishing, presentation and packaging are important in determining the quality of the product.

One positive way would be for the local institutions who are already working in the development and promotion of batik to jointly cooperate and collaborate in their R&D efforts. Hence, to consider the idea of establishing a Batik Design Laboratory aimed at making a strategic thrust forward in research and product development envisaged for batik. This could be either as a programme or project. The lab should steer the direction and harness the best of all human, professional and technical resources made available to it by the collaborating institutions.

This institutional framework should act as the tool responsible in realizing the agenda to develop further the unique identity of Batik Malaysia.

6th issue myBatik cover

Confusion to Strength

To anybody’s imagination, the very man who held Daimler Chrysler Malaysia at the helm for years contributed only to the automotive industry or knew only business, or a combination of both. That albeit being a reality, showed only a fragment of his life—one that burst with the colors of Malaysian art.

“I only know how to look at things from the business side.”

Dato’ Frank Steinleitner insisted that he was nobody in the fashion scene; his blue eyes revealed his broiling discomfort when he touched the fashion topic. It would not be at all comical had it not come from the lips of one of the first people who established the prestigious Malaysia International Fashion Awards (MIFA). He subsequently moved on to witness the growth of other influential fashion bodies Malaysia Official Designers Association (MODA) and Stylo.

By right, if a man confessed that he had little life apart from his work, it could only mean one thing: he did have little life apart from work. But, the very man who helped nurture the growth of Malaysian fashion arena was also the one of the leading sponsors of Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre. His passion for beautiful things did not stop at pre-dawn antique shopping on the dark streets of Beijing. He also visited rural villages in Terengganu to see for himself the tedious production of Malaysian traditional dye-print art.

“I’m not a fashion icon,” he stressed again, “I’m not even fashionable to begin with.” Yet his lips curved upwards whenever he spoke of the growth of local fashion as well as performing arts industries. “I just like to create things and make things happen. I believe [that] development isn’t about majestic architectural, but more on education.” To him, education meant two types of platforms: one, for young people to express their thoughts and ideas; another, exposure—in short, a stage basking with spotlights and flashlights.

Dato’ Steinleitner watched local star designers, namely Khoon Hooi and Melinda Looi, emerged from the platforms he helped erect. That was only two success cases. To him, there were thousands more aspiring art students who would one day shape the fashion world and these young people deserved to be seen. “Malaysia is a vibrant country. Unlike Europe, here, you can do Indian fashion, Islamic fashion, Chinese fashion and so much more!” The possibilities were endless. That was the major reason why he got himself involved in the leading fashion events.

Although happy for Khoon Hooi and others who had made a name for themselves via the MIFA platform, he was disheartened that not many batik designers seized the opportunities to showcase their works in the annual event. “Batik is not something every country has.” All the more, batik had to be treasured and promoted. Despite colossal efforts by the government, its mark in the international fashion scene was still minimal. Batik’s confused status explained its lack of success.

“Somebody must make a decision. Batik either has to be handicraft or fashion,” he said. The rationale, simple business strategy: “If [batik is] handicraft, it can afford to retain its current image. It can be hand drawn, individually produced, expensive… But if batik is to be more [towards] fashion, then it has to be mass produced, made younger and affordable. Fashion isn’t about couture only. It has to reach the mass.”

“To the younger generation, batik looks old… boring… something people wear to formal functions…,” he sighed. Batik had not permeated deep enough into the Malaysian society as a fashionable wear. To be fashionable, batik must rise to the frontline of everything trendy. To do that, it must first be competitive enough to survive the mass’ ephemeral tastes. “That means, it must be produced efficiently,” he declared, “and that will make it affordable.”

“I can only speak from the business point of view,” he said again. And it was the lack of business views that limped the progress of the batik industry. Many batik designers were not business savvy. Many were poor farmers or fishermen—people who relied heavily on government’s subsidies and financial assistance—trying to pocket some extra income dyeing cloths. These people just did not have the capital to mass produce.

The development of batik into something synonymous to the national identity had been discussed for too many years, and yet the results were disappointing. He believed that the core issue was not lousy marketing, nor was it horrid quality. “Really, someone… like the Ministry of Arts, Culture and Heritage… should decide how they want the world to see batik. A re-positioning would give batik another beginning on a new footing.”

Repositioning required smart business thinking. “It’s worth thinking (on how to improve the batik industry). I will think about it and we can share more next time,” he promised. But, before that, batik must know whether it was handicraft or fashion.