Lombok handicrafts are already well-known in trade circles and to those who export these crafts around the world. Lombok pottery in particular, with its distinctive terracotta tones and hand-carved designs, has been a popular export for the island for over 15 years. Equally appealing are handcrafted wooden items, especially those created from local Indonesian woods, and woven products made from rattan and fibres.
It’s sometimes difficult searching for unique handicrafts when visiting a new place and it often means days spent travelling around to all the little towns and villages where the individual crafts are created. This is especially true in Lombok, where different regions traditionally produce different types of crafts, but there is one village well worth visiting where you can find a whole range of wonderful products gathered together from all around the island.
No one seems to know quite how to translate the name of the village “Sayang-Sayang” into sensible English. The Indonesian word sayang means “love”, “dear”, “darling” and other sweet things, depending on context, so perhaps the name of this village will remain untranslatable – except to say that I always find something I love when I visit!
Located just to the north of Mataram and east of the airport, the whole region named Sayang-Sayang is a melting pot of creativity and traditional crafts. Wander the streets in the village and discover a multitude of small shops selling a huge variety of wooden crafts and other interesting items. Many of the wooden masks, ornaments and furniture items found for sale in Senggigi (and in Bali and other parts of Indonesia) originate in this small corner of Lombok.
Sayang-Sayang is perhaps best known for its wooden products, usually decorated with mother of pearl inlay, called cukli. Everything from tables and loveseats to bowls and platters are first carved in patterns and then small pieces of mother of pearl are painstakingly inserted into the carved sections, creating a beautiful piece that is distinctively “Lombok” in style.
Local people in Sayang-Sayang and the surrounding areas have been creating their crafts for many years and teaching their skills to each successive generation; whether their specialty is woodcarving, painting, cukli, or rattan and bamboo weaving. Beautiful carved wooden filigree panels are another specialty of the area, usually intricately decorated with hand painted highlights – a craft practiced by a few respected local artists, who have the gift of bringing this type of art to life.
A few years ago the Sayang-Sayang Pasar Seni (Art Market) was established on Jalan Jendral Sudirman (the main road in Sayang-Sayang) to provide a place for locals and artisans throughout Lombok to showcase and sell their crafts in a centralised market. Today, the Pasar Seni houses a number of small shops selling wares from all over Lombok, including numerous wooden products, rattan, cane and bamboo goods, a small range of antiques, and traditional woven fabrics (ikat); making all these wonderful products easily accessible for tourists and visitors who may not have time to travel all over the island to the many small handicraft villages.
Through the Pasar Seni, craftsmen in different villages work together in a cooperative to market their products and to ensure that local people are able to make a living from their traditional crafts. A beautiful carved mahogany chaise longue, for example, may be made from wood harvested in East Lombok, then manufactured and carved in central Lombok, before being inlaid with cukli and finished in Sayang-Sayang. Or a polished wooden mask may be created in Sayang-Sayang and then sent to central Lombok, where woven rattan is hand-stitched around the edges to finish the piece in a new, distinctive style. Working together, the people are not only retaining their traditional livelihoods, but are creating new art styles by melding their crafts with one another.
The Sayang-Sayang Pasar Seni is open every day and makes a great day trip, being within a half hour’s drive from Senggigi. There’s a wide variety on offer and the shops are well organised, with lots of interesting products on display. There is also a lovely open-air restaurant selling very reasonably priced meals, from 10 am to 10 pm daily. Behind the restaurant are bales set over three fishponds, providing a nice place to rest in the cool while having a drink or a meal. Export and trade business is welcomed by the cooperative, and professional packing and shipping can be arranged. Be sure to bargain hard and smile a lot!
