According to Sri Retnanik, the “9996 Leaves Crafts Garage” took off from the creative routine of her late husband, Heri, whom everyday dealt with hundreds of kinds of leaves and document them as part of his assignments as an employee at the Agriculture Office. It was from there that Heri began to recognize various kinds and shapes of leaves to then creatively tried to arrange them into something more meaningful. For instance, when Heri patiently glued various kinds of leaves one at a time in a book to then give them their Latin names.
“The idea did come from my husband’s routines in gathering leaves to be documented; and from there, creative ideas began to emerge,” said Siti Retnanik as she was met by Arti at the 2010 Inacraft exhibition in Jakarta, in the middle of March. Her late husband, said Siti Retnanik, studied intently various characteristics and shapes of leaves. His diligence in conducting all sorts of experiments and processing leaves resulted in giving retail value for the item.
The perseverance of Heri and his family proved worthy. Heri then found the formula to strengthen and prolong the leaves without eliminating their stem structures. The outcome was rather unique, as the leaves that went through a series of cleansing phases and were soaked in an environment-friendly chemical substance came out looking transparent white.
“First the leaves were cleansed and then soaked in perox; after that rinsed and dried to then be ironed one by one. When it comes to chemicals, we use only environment-friendly substances, making it harmless to health,” explained Siti Retnanik.
Succeeded in creating uniquely characterized leaves, Siti Retnanik and her late husband, along with their three children then decided to start further processing various leave based craftworks. Their early products were tissue boxes, which then evolved to other products. The process is simple and just requires patience, because all there is to do is just gluing leaves those have gone through various process to any available media. “The seriousness of business commerce begin on 9 September 1996; that is why we name it the 9996 Leaves Crafts Garage, referring to the time when we first started the business,” Siti said.
Craftworks produced by the 9996 Leaves Crafts Garage amongst others are lampshades, tissue boxes, hand-fans, framed arranged leaves decorations, jewelry cases, etc. The retail prices range, from tens of thousands to millions rupiah. “Those that are rather costly are the framed arranged leaves decorations; which are up to around 7 million,” Siti Retnanik revealed. She also claimed, by producing unique craftworks, 9996 Crafts Garage now has its own market. Their products even penetrated international markets such as Germany, France, England, and several other countries.
Located in Ngagel Mulyo Village XV/23 A of Surabaya, East Java; now Siti Retnanik along with the workers at her 9996 Crafts Leaves Garage continues to innovate in order to improve their business. This of course, is done by praying that the trading climate of this country will be back on its feet, thus growing more of their creative works also.
No comments:
Post a Comment