Practice: The art of weaving takes a lifetime to learn and this young girl is starting on the tie-dyed thread style called endak ikat.

Here in the cloud-swathed hills of Sidemen, an ancient weaving tradition continues. Chaotic tangles of silk are brought to order by the weft and warp of century-old back strap looms, creating the fine songket sarongs of Karangasem regency.

One family collective of weavers, Loka Madya, lives in a home and workshop built into the side of a hill in the village of Sidemen. Steps lead up and down and around the home.

At every turn there are women weaving intricate songket with stars and flowers, barongs and dragon motifs. Others use the marvelous zigzag Rangrang weaving style famous across Nusa Penida and Sidemen.

On porches, husbands and grandfathers whittle bamboo into lengths that will be used to tie off weaving motifs while others spool meter after meter of almost invisible silk from skeins to prepare for the weaving process.

This gathering of the silks is almost a dance, as Gusti Ngurah winds a long wand around the skeins, four times to the left then four to the right, counting off with each move the meters he spools.

Lady of the loom: Weaver Ayu Karang says it will take five months of daily work to weave this silk into a rich purple songket.
'I have to wind the silk in a particular way so it does not tangle,' says Gusti, who first started to help in the family's weaving business when still in primary school.

'When I was just learning I had a lot of tangles,' he says of this unseen art that is vital to the weavers.

'But the men can't weave,' adds 42-year-old Ayu Karang, laughing while seated on her verandah, legs out straight, a molded wooden shaft at her back and an intricate rich purple songket in process under her hands. 'They are allowed to weave, but they just never learned.'

Like all the weavers in the family, Karang learned the art of making songket from her mother, aunts and grandmothers. As a toddler, she would watch their shuttles fly then stall as colors were changed and motifs formed millimeter by millimeter. This is not an art you can learn in a month, or even a year. This is the learning of a lifetime. It demands infinite practice.

'I first started to weave when I was in primary school. I like this work because it was handed down by our ancestors to us. When I am weaving I feel happy inside, because every day I make these songket. Then I rest, drink our homegrown coffee and eat,' says Ayu, who works daily on the purple silk songket. 'This piece has so far taken a month. It will take at least five months to complete the 4 meters needed to make a sarong,' she explains.

Backstrap looms allow widths of just 55 centimeters, so on completion the songket is stitched together to form a meter-wide length of sarong fabric, which is worn only on the most important of life occasions, such as weddings, births, deaths and high religious ceremonies.

At work: The complexity of songket is seen in the tying off of motifs.
Another member of this family dominated by women textile artists is 60-year-old Ayu Rukmini, who exhibited the family's creations at the Bali Arts Festival in Denpasar.

Fine boned and regal in her kebaya and sarong, Rukmini displays songket of superb quality and diversity. A grey silk barong motif songket catches the light and glows with the deep patina of silver. Songket tie-dyed into tiny circles of merging colors highlights another technique used by the women.

'I started learning by watching my mother from when I was very small. I watched her make the motifs and it was so difficult. By the time I was 13, I had begun to weave my own songket. Over time I learned to make double ikat weaving. That is a form of overweaving onto ikat, but the songket is the most difficult to weave because of the motifs. I must be very patient to make these,' says Rukmini.

'Each family has their own special motifs, all these are mine,' says Rukmini with pride. She explains that there are common songket motifs that anyone with the skill is allowed to weave, but there are others that are proprietary, with innate ownership governed by an unwritten law that bars others copying these family-held motifs.

'These motifs are from my family,' says Karang of her purple songket in progress. 'I also create my own motifs. Anyone can copy these. However, there are unique motifs that can not be copied. Then there are the motif pasar [market motifs] that all can copy and make,' says Karang who won a songket competition in 2005.

 'That songket was bought by Bupati Sumantara of Karengasem. He advised me to never make another one like it, so that is the only one of its kind in the world,' says Karang, a shy and gentle woman who is clearly moved that her work is so highly regarded.

Regal: Ayu Rukmini exhibits her superb songket at the Bali Art Festival.
Down an alley within the family compound is a tiny space, mostly taken up by a bed, a television and 65-year-old Ayu Sidemen and her backstrap loom. Sidemen is weaving Rangrang in a geometric pitch of sharp orange, vermillion and lime green. Rangrang, while an ancient form, is dramatically modern with its severely perfect zigzags of clashing colors.

The name comes from the weaving style's myriad holes that give it transparency and pattern.

'The women in Nusa Penida also make Rangrang. I have been weaving this pattern since 1963. We all make Rangrang here in Sidemen and down in Klungkung. The style was lost to Klungkung for years, but it is coming back now,' says Ayu Sidemen who also makes the songket that her family is famous for.

'I can never stop making songket ' that's my gift from God,' she says of an ancient textile art that is being rediscovered by the Indonesian fashion industry.

Nusa Penida Rangrang weaver Wayan Luh says the influence of the fashion industry is breathing new life into an art form that was at risk of being forever lost.

'In the past all the women of Nusa Penida could weave Rangrang, but for many years they stopped because no one wanted to buy the work, people preferred fabric made in factories.'

'Now we are weaving again, because there is new interest from Jakarta and we are again getting lots of orders,' Wayan says.

' Photos By J.B. Djiwan