US COMPANY SEEKS TO PROTECT HANDICRAFT HERITAGE
Trisha Sertori, Contributor, Gianyar Copyright 2007 The Jakarta Post

The Jakarta Post
April 26, 2007 Thursday

from THE JAKARTA POST — THURSDAY, JANUARY 4, 2007 — PAGE 21 The
ever-growing demand for inexpensive, mass-produced handicrafts in
preference to traditionally crafted quality pieces is threatening the
future of classic Bali art forms, says traditional wood carver Made
Leno from Tengkulak, central Bali. Leno, 44, who began carving as a
10-year-old under his father, master carver Nyoman Warka, continued
his education at Udayana University art school. He stresses he was
fortunate enough to follow the generation-to- generation arts tradition
that was common in Balinese families 20 years ago: a tradition Leno
says was a family-based way of handing on arts practices that is now
being lost. "We’re losing the old skills — they are not being handed
down to our kids.

At the moment I am the only wood carver working traditionally in
Tengkulak. Other wood carvers here are mass-producing handicrafts.

It’s all about how much can be produced in a day and how much money
can be made," said Leno. He pointed to kids as young as 9 and 10
years old zooming along his village streets on motorcycles and
text-messaging on cell phones rather than home learning the arts
of their forefathers. "I’m really worried and saddened by what is
happening. Kids are more interested in hooning around on motorbikes
than learning our traditions. "When I was kid their age I would wake
up each day excited that I would be carving statues with my father,
but now our arts culture is being lost and I fear that within 20
years these skills will disappear forever," said Leno. Competing with
mass-produced handicrafts places financial pressure on artists such
as Leno, who says educating the wider population on the differences
between mass-produced products and one-off items is needed to ensure
both ends of the handicrafts/arts spectrums are maintained. "When
people know what they are looking at, they can see the vast difference
in wood types and quality, the designs, the style of carving and the
techniques applied. They are then happy to pay the higher prices
required for these hand crafted pieces that take a long time to
create. When people look at my work they know its mine by the marks
in the sculpture and by the designs. They can read in the work that
it has come from my hands," said Leno. One Los Angeles-based arts
collective company, Novica, in partnership with National Geographic,
is addressing the threat to Bali’s cultural arts traditions that so
concerns Made Leno, through its Internet-based international sales
of high-quality traditional handicrafts, jewelry, pottery, carvings
and furniture. Maintaining art and craft traditions at the community
level is of equal importance with profits for its shareholders says
Armenia Nercessian de Oliveira, who heads up Novica, which works
directly with artists and artisans in Bali, Java, Peru, Brazil and
many other developing nations, assisting them to sell their works to
an international market at real market value.

This, says Armenia, allows artisans to maintain the quality of their
work and pass on skills, rather than having to compromise by mass-
producing inferior-quality works for the tourist and export trades.

"People ask us why we choose a US$45 chess board over a $15 set. It’s
about quality. The more expensive piece is reflective of the artist’s
true ability. "The artists work in their own communities so these
skills are still passed on

Skills such as wood carving are otherwise at risk of disappearing due
to the demands of mass production," Armenia said. Brazilian born,
Armenia has long had her heart in the right place when it comes to
building successful communities. She worked for 16 years with the
United Nations in El Salvador and Bosnia Herzegovina in the human
rights and political affairs sector and with refugees under the UNHCR,
which won the 1981 Nobel Peace Prize for its peacekeeping efforts
in some of the world’s most incendiary regions. Established in 1999,
Novica has rapidly gown into one of the most respected Internet-based
shop fronts, receiving more than two million hits a month and
representing more than 2,000 artisans from developing nations around
the world. The organization effectively introduces artisans from remote
regions and developing nations to clients in wealthier nations via the
Internet. Novica searches out the best arts and crafts in region, ships
the produce to its Los Angeles base and from there ships to customers
around the world, with the artisans setting the pricing structure for
their works. In this way a global marketplace is created for artisans
working from the mountainous Andes region, from Java’s rainforest
villages or Bali’s culturally and artistically rich communities. It
is an Internet-based global marketplace that these artisans would be
hard-pressed to develop alone, due in the first instance to a lack of
access to infrastructure and education in computer technology and the
.com new-millennium world. Working with Novica has meant the rebuilding
of her business, for silversmith Ny Nyoman Sukartini from Bungkasa in
Bali. "I’ve been working with Novica since 2004. Before that I had
been dealing with a business in Kuta, but after the bombings sales
went right down. "Also, they were always haggling over the price so
they could be competitive in Kuta. For me it has been much better here
(with Novica). I can run my own business making good jewelry and be
sure to of selling into a worldwide market," said Nyoman. Novica is
not only impressing local communities throughout developing nations
with its community entrepreneurship goals, but also leaders in the
big end of town, such as The Schwab Foundation. Sherry Schwarz of
Transitionsabroad.com writes Novica picked up the prestigious America
Economia Excellence Award for Cultural Preservation, The Schwab
Foundation Award for Social Entrepreneurship and Fast Company’s Fast
50 winner for "thinking locally and acting globally."

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress