The Javanese of Indonesia are world renowned for their wayang kulit shadow puppets.  To their west are the Sundanese who prefer wayang golek wooden puppets—no screen, no shadow, just let us see the puppets.

In our last blog we showed you a Javanese wayang kulit shadow puppet craftsman’s studio in the heart of Jogjakarta's sultan’s palace.  When looking for shadow puppet craftsmen, everyone hears about a couple puppet studios within the palace walls, but we also started hearing about a renowned village shadow puppet studio out in the country.

The island of Java, in Indonesia has been documented to have the most fertile soil in the world. The volcanic soil here grows rice like crazy. Where there’s abundant food people have time to do more than just look for dinner & culture thrives.  

Many Javanese have long been freed up to delve deeply into the arts.  Batik, filigree silver making, ornate wood carving—some of the world’s best of these can be found in Java.  And then, there’s wayang kulit shadow puppet theatre!

 Ubud in central Bali is the art Mecca of the Hindu Balinese of Indonesia.  Painters, wood carvers, stone cutters all congregate around Ubud.  In the past you could find them making their masterpieces in cottages along the streets of Ubud.  But with the huge influx of tourists in recent decades, few of those places still exist with nearly all of them supplanted by shops selling mostly generic handcraft wares, but without the artists on site.