Gianyar, Regency

Ida Ayu Madri, The Mask Lady

Balinese women not only dance and or take care of the household. Many of them are also talented mask artisans. One of them is Ida Ayu Madri of Mas, Ubud, Gianyar.

Ida Ayu Madri or Dayu Madri has already occupied this handicraft world and mask and statue business since she was a little girl. She was born in 1934. In the beginning, Dayu Madri helped her family in Adil Gallery, the first gallery that sold masks in Mas. While helping her family in Adil Gallery, Dayu Madri had an unforgettable experience. At that time, in the middle of the 1950’s, Madri saw President Soekarno. “Three times Soekarno came to our gallery,” said Madri. It was as if Madri was predestined to be involved in the handicraft and mask souvenir business world. In the 1960’s, Madri married Ida Bagus Sutarja, a sculptor and mask artisan from Mas. Then, they opened their own gallery, named Mask Carver. The location was not far from Adil gallery. Ida Bagus Sutarja made a lot of Rangda mask and Barong, some for sale and also some for religious needs like pretime (statues). “Once, my husband got an order from New York to made Barong,” said Dayu Madri. Her husband, at first, made masks for Wayang Parwa (Parwa puppet) and masks from the tales of Ramayana like Subali-Sugriwa.
As a woman, Dayu Madri not only controls her gallery business, but also participates in mask making. She can’t exactly remember when she was first interested in mask making, but after years Madri has already made hundreds of masks, even now at 68 years of age, she keeps working.
Just like her husband, Dayu Madri has also made a lot of Rangda masks. Besides that, she also makes funny masks with various decorations. In mask making, she does not work alone from the beginning, but the idea and final touch is in her hands. According to Dayu Madri, in making the mask, the idea often appears from a dream. When she got an idea, she draws the sketch and asks someone to make it, while Dayu Madri refines it, adding the colour and hair. “To finish one mask occasionally takes a month. This is not quick work,” she said. When Bali Travel News visited her gallery, Dayu Madri was in the finishing process of making a Bawang Putih mask, taken from the folktale figure of Bawang Merah-Bawang Putih. Bawang Putih mask was made from various stories, by putting two golden birds perched on the forehead, giving happiness to Bawang Putih as the result of her kindness. Dayu Madri’s mask not only shows the face but also reflects the story. (dp)

Dayu Madri: “All of My Son and Daughter are Mask Makers”

Ida Ayu Madri and Ida Bagus Sutarja have 12 children, 4 of them are women. Apparently, all of their children followed in their parents’ steps as mask artisans. “All of them are mask makers,” said Dayu Madri. Sutarja passed away at the beginning of 2002, and now her Mask Carver in Mas, Ubud is continued by Dayu Madri and her children.
The work results of the mother and her children are sold in the gallery, so that Mask Carver is a special gallery that sells one families mask work. Each part of the wall becomes a place to store the mask work of each family member. All of their children learned about masks by autodidact, except Ida Bagus Ari Ratna Bawa, the second son, who studied arts in a Los Angeles college for 5 years in 1983-1988.
On his return from Los Angeles, Ida Bagus Ari developed the mask with decorations of flora and fauna, a style that was later not only imitated by Madri’s family but also by other mask artisans of Mas and its surroundings. In the new style work, the face of the mask is decorated with paintings or illustrations like natural views, so that we are faced with two different things that are unrelated to each other; face and scenery. The illustration patterns not only the nature or realist style, but also some of them are absurd or abstract.
”I’m glad for my children to be artisans. None of them have become a civil servant. It is much freer as an artisan,” said Dayu Madri. (dp)