"IT'S normal to think about our mortality," the woman seated across me says quietly. It's easy to be introspective at this quiet space here. The sound of the water feature is strangely calming. We lapse into a long amicable silence as we nurse our steaming hot mugs of coffee.
It's odd to talk about death, ageing and sickness in the middle of this little swathe of paradise in Janda Baik, Bentong, Pahang. But it's not the gloomy spectre of the inevitable that gets us sharing on that sunny afternoon.
Instead, it's the hope that there's meaning to grief and loss; that the people we lose to death remain an integral part of us; that as we get older, we find ourselves measuring our days and choosing how to spend the remainder of our lives.
Deep subjects indeed and as I sit here on the patio of Intan Suria Zainal Abidin's family home, amidst clouds of blooming bougainvillea and swaying trees, it's easy to have hope.
I'm glad to be here.
"Would you like to follow me to my workshop in Janda Baik?" her WhatsApp pinged a few days ago. "I'll drive!" the enthusiastic message continued. It was time to get far from the madding crowd and I gladly took up the batik artisan's offer to head away from the bustling city to watch her work at her hand-painted batik pieces.
It didn't take long for us to set up a time and place to meet. The slight-built woman greets me with a warm smile and in an instant, we bond over plates of nasi lemak and roti canai at the local mamak shop at in Sri Hartamas, our meeting point.
"Tell me about yourself!" The first question doesn't come from me. I blink in surprise, my spoon of nasi lemak pauses mid-air. She has more questions than I do. She leans forward and tells me half-apologetically: "It looks like I'm interviewing you instead. But I really love getting to know people. You have such an interesting job!"
I could say the same about her, of course. I fell in love with Intan's whimsical, ethereal batik designs and the story of how the 50-year-old mother of two got into the craft not too long ago. "Basically, I inherited my late mother's batik tools," she tells me softly, before adding: "My mother was a Kelantanese, and by default they're naturally artistic people."
DEATH BECOMES HER
Caught in the throes of grief after her mother succumbed to her long, complicated disease of diabetes and renal failure, Intan started clearing out her mother's things one by one.
"It wasn't easy," she says, her voice low and heavy. There were paintings, clothes and many items that had her mother's artistic imprint all over. "I felt like I was getting to know my mother all over again," she adds quietly.
The large dust-covered box belonging to her mother soon caught her eye. Inside was a treasure trove of crafts that she'd never seen before. A portrait of an artisan unfurled as she uncovered breathtaking batik fabrics, raw fabrics, dyes and batik tools. "All I could say was wow!" she recalls, eyes shining, adding: "Just... wow!"
Just as she says that, she grows quiet. Outside our car windows, buildings and wide roads give way to a greener landscape and smaller roads flanked by tall whispering trees and dense overgrowth. "We're almost here," she tells me, breaking the silence.
The road grows steep and narrower. Trees bend and bow towards us, blocking the brilliant sun and casting their bejewelled green shadows unto the muddy path. And then just as suddenly, the forested path leads into a wide green hillock where a house sits partially obscured by trees and flowering bougainvillea bushes.
"We're here at my father's home," she says, smiling. Waving her hand to the side where a little garage of sorts sits, she continues: "That's where I do my work usually. But let's have some coffee first!"
A strange amalgamation of hominess and genteel decay, the sprawling bungalow is filled with beautiful intricate furniture, sepia-toned photographs, and a green-tinged abandoned pool outside that overlooks the breathtaking vista of green canopied hills and valleys. "It's getting harder to upkeep this place. Dad lives here on his own," she reveals as she busies herself in the kitchen.
Everywhere, there are clusters of photographs on table tops. "That's my mum," she says, pointing to a framed photograph of a beautiful woman in black-and-white propped on a marble-topped table. Handing me a mug of coffee, she beckons me to the patio where we sit down for a chat.
Outside in the sun-drenched lawn, sleepy dogs lie peacefully. "They're strays that we brought in to guard the property. They make such wonderful guard dogs," she explains, smiling.
As if on cue, a chorus of barks and growls break the lull as the dogs catch sight of me. "Oh, don't worry. They'll settle down once they're used to you," she reassures me with a laugh. Eventually the cacophony of barks dies down. The dogs once again retreat into the shadows and continue snoozing.
Memories of her mother remain strong in this quiet green enclave. "Her things are everywhere. I must clear them at some point," she says absentmindedly as she sips her coffee, adding: "There's still so much to discover about her. I only wished I knew about her passions and learnt from her while she was still alive."
Batik, she tells me half-regretfully, is a craft that's usually passed from mothers to daughters. "I've learnt so much about batik since I opened that box back in 2015. It's really such an intricate and beautiful craft," she shares, adding: "Looking at all her tools and fabrics made me want to do something about the craft. Something just clicked that day. It was like opening a treasure box."
The grieving daughter decided to learn more about batik. Shares Intan: "I did my research and started to design my own canting blocks. I tested fabrics and just went headlong into it. It was like rabbit hole that I stumbled into and never quite came out!"
A sip of the coffee, and she continues: "I really don't know much about my mother's experience in batik. I don't know where she learnt her craft from. I only know that she used to have a workshop at the back of my grandmother's house at one time and she occasionally sent me beautiful fabrics and pareos for me to sell when I was overseas."
The former web designer put in all her free hours into learning the craft. "It wasn't easy. I worked late into the nights and during my weekends," she admits, adding: "I'm a mother of two and I had a full-time job. But I also wanted to pursue something I was passionate about."
Suria Artisan Batik was birthed not long after.
DYING ART
Yet Intan is an anomaly, for very few people know the tools of the ancient craft these days. Batik, the pride of Malaysian art for centuries, is dying out slowly. The reason for the decline could be simple economics: the labour-intensive craft of hand-printing textiles and coating with wax all parts that are not to be dyed cannot compete with cheap, mass-produced textile prints.
She feels strongly about it. Her brows furrow as she tells me: "Batik is such a beautiful timeless craft. It's hard when real batik has to compete with printed fabrics that are like, well, for the lack of a better term, cetak rompak (pirated)!"
To be genuine, batik must be made with wax and must be made by hand. The wax on batik may be applied with a canting (pronounced CHAN-ting), a sort of fountain pen for liquefied wax, or with a metal stamp known as a chop. Either way, it's a laborious process.
Imitation batik refers to machine-made printed textiles that use traditional batik motifs but are produced by a printing process in which a pattern is impressed directly onto the cloth.
Yet, the practice of producing batik (derived from the Javanese word ambatik, which means "a cloth with dots") is nowadays clearly associated with the Malay Archipelago. The wax is used as a means of colour blocking where every part of the fabric that's not to be touched by colour has to be covered with wax, and fabric has to undergo the delicate and repeated process of waxing, dyeing and boiling.
"The original batik prints are exquisite and there's a marked difference between real batik fabrics and those that are printed," she insists. Continuing, she says: "It's a different feeling to wear the fabrics that has been crafted by hand. It's like wearing the soul and spirit of the one who painstakingly designed the fabric."
The concept of decorating fabrics with this method dates back as far as the Egyptians, and the technique was developed independently throughout the world over the past 1,500 years.
The batik tradition is firmly rooted in the design and manufacturing of fashion textiles, and batik as an art form emerged only in the second half of the 20th century under the leadership of the Malaysian artist Chuah Thean Teng in the 1950s and the Javanese artist Amri Yahya in the 1970s.
Initially, batik paintings concentrated on rural scenes and figures, but now they run the gamut of styles, from Pop Art to Abstract Expressionism. Intan draws her own inspiration from the rainforests of Malaysia — from foliage and fronds to intangible nomad weaving traditions. More than anything else, she looks to her late mother for direction.
"Doing this makes me feel close to her," she suddenly blurts out. Her voice shakes a little and her eyes well up as she continues: "I think that's part of Suria Artisan's DNA. That my mother lives on in every fabric and design. Even to this day, I look to her for inspiration and guidance. The people we love… they never really leave us, do they?"
GROWING OLDER
It's a rhetorical question, of course, but I agree with her. As we watch the leaves of the trees ripple in the breeze, we continue to chat about death and the process of ageing. "It's really normal to have an existential crisis," she says, adding: "I mean, I think it's all part of growing older."
Batik was her mother's first love but it became Intan's when the older woman passed on. "I think I was just ready to do something worthwhile," she confesses, shaking her head.
Born in Washington DC to a diplomat father and an artisan mother, Intan spent most of her childhood overseas. "I was privileged, of course," she insists. "But the sense of belonging was difficult. You know, you get the feeling that home is everywhere and nowhere all at once."
Her creative side inherited from her mother was dormant, she readily admits. The JPA scholar studied finance and eventually got a job at a securities company. "Back in the day, arts students rarely got a chance at procuring a scholarship," she explains dryly, adding: "So well, I took up finance instead!"
Intan eventually married her university sweetheart and moved to Greece for a good number of years. "I moved into website designing because I enjoyed the creative aspects of it. It also gave me something to do on a freelance basis since it was difficult to get a full-time job there," she explains smiling.
Her mother would occasionally send her batik fabrics and batik pareos for her to sell. Reveals Intan: "I knew my mum had her own little workshop and her small clientele who loved her work. I mean, she was close friends with the late Datin Paduka Seri Endon Mahmood who was a batik champion in this country. Their shared love for batik drew them close."
When the financial crisis in the early noughties exacerbated a crippling financial crisis in Greece, Intan and her family decided to return to Malaysia. "By that time, mum's health was already deteriorating. I soon took on the role of her primary caregiver along with my siblings and dad," says the youngest of three siblings, softly.
Continuing, she shares: "It was hard for our family. I'm not ashamed to say it because I know many families go through this phase. But we came out stronger and closer than ever."
The sun dips behind the clouds. It's getting cooler and time to do what she came to do. Putting her coffee mug down on the glass-topped table, she turns to me and tells me briskly: "It's a little cooler now. I think I'll start on some work." By "work", she means doing some freestyle batik designs on a piece of beautiful white silk chiffon fabric.
She disappears into the house and returns with her hands full. Balancing a little portable stove, a bag of her brushes and wax blocks, as well as the plain white fabric that she'll be working on.
It takes some deft work to stretch the fabric out between two blocks of wood (with nails on them). Tying them from one pillar to another, the swath of cloth is eventually stretched out and ready to be worked on.
The block of wax is melted into a pan, and using a brush, Intan deftly swishes a pattern onto the chiffon piece. "Do you know what design this is?" she asks me with a smile, before sharing: "They're supposed to be feathers!"
The feathers dance and undulate on the white fabric. The self-taught artist admits it took her a while to master the technique, which requires a lot of patience. "You must have a steady hand and a steady mind," she says, her brows furrowed in concentration.
While the pot of molten wax steams away on a hot stove by her side, she busily dips her brush into the liquified hot wax and paints away at the fabric. After a while, she stops to let the wax dry, then unpins the cloth.
She'll be sending it to another workshop to dye the fabric. "I would do it here, but it's a lot of work and very time consuming," she explains regretfully, yet adding with pride: "…but this is batik."
Dancing feathers, dew drops, ferns and more, every fabric speaks of a legacy that has been left behind by her late mother. It doesn't take long for the wax to dry and she carefully folds the cloth and keeps it in a bag.
Most of the garage space is taken up by her mother's things, she tells me. "I'll have to clear them really soon. Who knows what else I'll learn about her through her things?" she muses, shrugging her slim shoulders.
Who knows indeed?
We make our way back into the quiet house and enter Intan's bedroom where a beautiful wooden four-poster bed takes up space. But here too, the mouldering memories of a time long past is felt deeply.
Unopened boxes pile up at the corner. Some of them belong to her mother, she tells me. Intricate furnishings, including the bed, belong to her late mother. There are oil paintings propped against the wall at the corner of the room. "My mother's paintings," she says simply, with a slight smile.
Opening one of the boxes, she lets out a slight gasp. "Oh" she breathes. "I've forgotten about these." Dipping her hand in, she brings out a pile of folded batik fabric. Brushing off dust, she places them on the bed and tells me in a low voice: "These are my mother's. She kept them so well while she was alive."
Smoothing over the soft silken fabric tenderly, Intan continues: "These are Indonesian batik. You don't get these designs anymore. Look at the intricate patterns here." Her finger traces the patterns and silence falls as we gaze at the fabric reverently.
"What do I do with them?" she murmurs, her hands stroking the brilliantly coloured fabric spread out on the bed. "You should wear them," I suggest. "They're meant to be worn and celebrated and seen. Not to be forgotten." She nods wordlessly.
I have a strange feeling that the journey ahead for this artisan is only beginning. It took a long road to lead Intan Suria back to her roots and the doyenne of Suria Artisan Batik is determined to pursue this ancient art in her own inimitable way.
She is her mother's daughter, after all.
To know more about Intan's craft, go to www.suria-artisanbatik.com or www.instagram.com/suriaartisanbatik.