keliki village

I just realized that we don’t have a Balinese Culture segment on this forum, so I’m parking this post here, and maybe Bert will consider a new section for future posts?

Not too far north and east of where we live in Bunutan is a beautiful little village called Keliki Kawan It’s not to be found in any tourist guides, nor does it even appear in most tourist maps. As such, they rarely see western tourists. Keliki Kawan remains one of those classic Balinese villages with virtually no western influence. It is beautiful and with meticulously maintained compounds and gardens.

Keliki Kawan is home to a small group of exceptional artists who for many years specialized in painting incredible miniature paintings in the classic traditional Ubud style. These magnificent little gems, often no larger than 16 X 12 cm, (about 6 by 5 inches), present details and fine coloring that defy understanding how they are possible.

Most of the artists who paint these miniatures only do so for a few years and while they are young. The demand on their eyesight coupled with the tremendous amount of time needed to paint on such a small scale results in their abandoning this technique and moving on to larger wall hanging size paintings. Worse yet, is that during the last five years, fewer and fewer of the Keliki Kawan artists even bother to learn the specialized miniature techniques. This tradition is dying, having fallen prey to the desires of a younger generation of Balinese who prefer things to be easier and less time demanding to earn a living. Understandable as that is, who cannot be saddened by what we call progress?

As with any school of Balinese painting that is highly prized and sought after, copyists attempt to emulate the Keliki Kawan miniatures, and they can often be found in art markets. They are easy to spot once one has been exposed to the real masterpieces as painted by the Keliki Kawan masters.

I started seriously collecting these miniatures on my first visit to Bali some ten years ago. Having amassed a collection of over 50 pieces, I recently agreed to sell all but ten of these to a collector in Philadelphia who has already bequeathed them to a major museum in Pennsylvania. Last Saturday, Eri and I met with many of the artists whose works are in this collection to inform them of the details of this event and to inform them that their work will forever be housed in this museum as a testament of Balinese culture, and in particular, the fine miniature tradition of Keliki Kawan. We wanted them to know that unlike the vast majority of Balinese art which ends up being sold as souvenirs and scattered across the globe in private houses, that a significant collection of their unique art will remain accessible and seen by museum visitors for generations to come and that future scholars will always have a body of this work to study and write about.

Neither Eri or I were prepared for the emotional response from these artists. For them, their work had finally acquired a validation and an appreciation that while never being sought, none the less, has happened. While I was expecting a more stoic “that’s nice” response, what we got was genuine and sincerely heart felt appreciation.