Multimedia artist
Break time (so far)
Toko2
Portland
Resist/Exist
Info
With Others
CONTACT
IG
NEWS
Multimedia artist
Break time (so far)
Toko2
Portland
Resist/Exist
Info
With Others
CONTACT
IG
NEWS
Resist / Exist
(What happens when you stop overthinking and dip cloth in mud)
02.2026
(What happens when you stop overthinking and dip cloth in mud)
02.2026
During a family trip to Indonesia, I spent a couple of days solo at Threads of Life in Ubud learning traditional batik with natural dyes from Indigenous makers. I'd been curious about batik for a while. It holds a Chinese Indonesian connection I'm trying to understand better. It’s in the core memories of my childhood since I was carried in a batik sling. And I knew I would eventually need a break from my family.
The grounds were tucked away through a narrow alley where, after the car couldn’t squeeze through, I walked behind people doing their morning routines . The foliage, friendly people speaking my first language, and friends of friends of my mom quickly made me feel at home. The vibes cleared my head and I eased into my body.
I’ve been missing making with my hands. From plucking indigo leaves to holding the canting tool just right for the hot wax to flow, and the way the hot air made the back of my knees sweat were all timely reminders that I’m more than an extension of a screen. I'm human with cells and bones. I felt even more at home, there, in my body.
Batik is all about resistance. Hot wax resists dye. What you cover stays protected. What you leave exposed transforms. You make these decisions over and over: what to preserve, what to let change, what layers on top of what.
It's embarrassingly on the nose for my immigrant experience. What parts do you protect? What do you let adapt? What shows through no matter how many layers you add?
The process: scour fabric, draw with wax, mordant (makes colors stick), dye, dry, repeat. Each layer is a decision. Each color is permanent and you can only add to it. Growing up between cultures works the same way.
The wax cracks sometimes, letting the dye seep in. It creates spiderweb patterns called crackle that is technically a mistake. Practically, mistakes are often the most interesting part for me. It’s where control breaks down and the unplanned happens.
Indigenous Plants, Indigenous Knowledge
The indigo came from three different genus harvested right there: Indigofera tinctoria (12-month cycle), Strobilanthes cusia from Nepal (4 months), Marsedinia tinctoria (also 4 months). We played with yellow dye from jackfruit heartwood, holy and sustainable. Red-brown from mangrove bark, FSC protected from West Papua. And mud from flowing river water.
My hands learned physical techniques but my brain tried holding onto embodied knowledge about what's local, what's abundant, what were transplanted. It's the kind of knowledge that takes generations to build, shared with me in days by people who didn't ask what gave me the right to learn it.
Watching the artisans talk about these plants: when to harvest (morning, before photosynthesis, when pigment peaks), how to process, what to do with composted leaves, was like overhearing a conversation I desperately wanted to soak up. They weren't precious about it, just matter-of-fact. “This is what the land gives us, this is how we work with it.”
Batik is and isn't exclusively Indonesian. While the word is Javanese, wax-resist dyeing has been practiced across and beyond Asia for centuries. What’s most relevant to me is what happened along Java's northern coast in the 19th century, when Chinese settlers created something new. They brought Chinese motifs, like dragons, phoenixes, clouds from porcelain to then fuse them with Javanese techniques and Dutch-influenced designs.
My family is Chinese Indonesian, but I'm also three generations removed, mostly raised in America. The question isn't about appropriation. It's about distance and return in cultural exchange. What transforms when techniques cross oceans and generations? What resists? What persists?
Traditionally, batik patterns carry meaning, marking occasions, status, regions, families. But batik also told narratives. During the colonial period, Indo-European and Peranakan ("locally born") Chinese batik makers created scenes like entire fairy tales and romanticized Dutch windmills next to Javanese rice fields. They were stories you could wear.
I'm using it differently now but maybe not too differently. Instead of traditional symbols, I'm working with fragments: the visual vocabulary of living between worlds. With its layers, resistance, and controlled chaos: what gets protected (waxed) and what gets exposed (dyed) becomes the creative structure. The places where things don't translate cleanly, where the process breaks down are where my inexperience shows. It's about learning a practice that's both mine and not mine.
Most of what I made is fine. Some pieces surprised me. Others I want to bury. My favorite is the one with insects with the gritty, expressive lines. The dye pooled weird in one corner, which now it's my favorite part. The uneven dye tells a story about learning and learning to let go of control. This is just the beginning.
What Comes Next
Several months after the trip, I got a grant to continue batik work. I have a year to dig in and see what happens when I bring it home to Portland. Now I'm figuring out what it means to make these techniques my own. Maybe working with local forage, maybe finding my version of "what's abundant here."
Mostly I'm trying to let the work be in conversation with these traditions without pretending I know all the words yet. Some days you can hear exactly where I'm from in how I say things. I'm learning as I go. That's the work.
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Process documentation from Threads of Life, Ubud, January 2025. Grant work continues through 2026, so come back to see what happens when Indonesian techniques meet Portland scavenged objects.