Technological advancements that have wiped out several professions as an impact of automation fail to discourage woodcarvers in Jepara. Manual skill and artistry create works of greater value, surviving the changing era
By
Aditya Putra Perdana
·5 minutes read
M. Fatikh Al Mubarok, 12, was holding a chisel firmly to a wooden board measuring 20 by 7 cm on a December (26/12/2019) afternoon, at Sanggar Persing studio, Langon village, Tahunan district, Jepara regency, Central Java. He carefully struck the tip of its handle with a mallet in his right hand to carve motifs.
Fatisk was practicing carving that afternoon with a fellow student of Tahunan State Junior High School 1, M. Khaidar Fahmi, 10. Both students were surrounded by seven senior woodcarvers aged over 45 on average, who were doing the same job. The difference was that their hands were so agile, dexterously shaping motifs of the Majapahit era.
“We have no [carving] lessons in school, so I’m keen on practicing here. With frequent training, hopefully I can later start my own business,” said Fatikh. He is one of the five teenagers training at Persing studio, a carving preservation workshop in Jepara.
Previously, the studio was a community of youths in Langon village. In 2019, they turned it into a carving preservation studio, out of their awareness of the decreasing number of youngsters learning woodcarving skills. It’s an irony amid Jepara’s current identity as a world carving center.
In his class, only Fatikh is interested in woodcarving. “They say carving is rustic skill, but I don’t care. I learn it because I like it. I want to be a cultured man,” said the woodcarver’s grandson.
According to Rendra “Wawan” Setiawan, 39, Persing studio’s manager, after the year 2000 young people’s interest in carving kept declining. They chose to work as employees of garment factories that were proliferating in Jepara in 2013. Efforts to preserve the carving tradition were absolutely needed. Persing studio was thus set up on a self-help basis.
We have no [carving] lessons in school, so I’m keen on practicing here.
Three kilometers away from Persing studio, Denni Faturahman, 19, is also focusing on woodcarving practice in the house of Sutrisno, 50, the owner of Jepara Carver. Having started his carving training seven years ago, Denni still feels the need to further improve his abilities.
He has just graduated from Tahunan State Senior High School 1. Denni is fully determined to become a carver despite it being a different choice than those of his peers. “Some of my former classmates go to college, others work at factories. Carvers in Jepara are getting rare. So I want to be a successor,” he said.
He is one of the six youths training at Jepara Carver. Sutrisno widely opens the opportunity for whoever wishes to learn carving, not only youngsters in Senenan village, but also those outside Jepara, even outside Java. They are welcome to train for free.
Sutrisno is concerned about the waning interest in carving. “In the early 1990s, out of 20 children aged 10 to 12, at least 15 joined carving training. Today, out of 100 children only 10 are willing to train, at most,” he said.
No fees are charged by Sutrisno to children learning the skill at his studio. He even gives Rp 50,000 per week to buy phone top-up vouchers. He also offers more money to those who can help his work. For him, the important thing is that they gain proper carving skills.
Irreplaceable
The fear of an erosion of carvers’ profession emerged after several furniture and carving industries in Jepara began using computer numerical control (CNC) machines. By means of the machines, furniture making needs no manual work. However, the CNC tends to serve mass production.
“Jepara carvers aren’t deterred by the CNC because carving is a matter of taste. We even have no fear of a thousand CNC machines. We don’t intend to produce carving laborers, but we want to restore the genuine nature of carvings to become works of art,” said Wawan.
For this purpose, innovation and creativity are absolutely required of carvers. It’s because the artistry emanating from carvers’ creations cannot be replaced by machines.
Jepara carvers aren’t deterred by the CNC because carving is a matter of taste.
Sutrisno claimed to have no aversion to technology and owns CNC machines at his workshop. But he remains convinced that human skills in carving will always be needed and irreplaceable.
A statue, for instance, can now be crafted by the 4-axis (cutting direction) and 5-axis CNC. “But its character is not apparent. Although the character shows up, it doesn’t genuinely come from the carver’s or sculptor’s imagination,” he pointed out.
For Sutrisno, the quality of carvings is not just determined by their designs but also by carvers’ creativity. In the market, handmade carvings are also far more expensive.
The chairman of the Indonesian Furniture and Handicraft Industries Association (HIMKI) of Greater Jepara, Masykur Zainuri, said out of 390 medium-scale furniture companies in Jepara, eight firms utilized CNC for mass production, such as for calligraphy. For carving or furniture products, buyers tend to prefer handmade ones.
HIMKI, said Masykur, had experimented with wooden walls measuring 5 meters. Manual work took three months while the CNC could finish one in eight or nine days. “But their end products are different. Their textures and artistic values are not the same. Everything depends on the market,” he said.
The main problem faced by Jepara’s carving industries is the lack of workers in small-scale industries. In fact, 85 percent of the 390 medium- and larger-scale furniture industries are supplied by the small-scale ones. In medium or large factories, the products are only sorted, sanded, given finishing touches and packaged.
The head of the Industrial Division of the Jepara Industry and Trade Office, Abas, said the regional government would continue to boost Jepara to become a world carving center. In order to stimulate interest among youths, such communities as Persing Studio would be further facilitated, along with a plan to reinstate carving arts as a subject in local schools.
Amid the carving interest downtrend and the entry of machines, creativity and innovation will remain the principal weapon to safeguard the heritage of the carving land.