BALI - part one... PUPPETS & MASKS...

 We ended our Asian adventures by joining Joel & Nana... in their home in Bali, Indonesia, for a final week.

Their home, Villa Vajra, is in the village of Sebali, north of Ubud.  We've visited this retreat several times over the years since Joel left the West coast, where we all met at various times in our decades of shared history. This time, a respite of slow quiet after the intensity of driving 'round Sri Lanka.

 

After a day or two Nana's enthusiasm took us to the 

Setia Darma House of Mask and Puppets... which we'd never known, new to us.

 

The website explains that the collection currently consists of approximately 7,000 items, of which 1,300 are masks from Indonesia, Africa, and Japan; whilst the other 5,700 are puppets from Indonesia, China, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, and Cambodia.  All are housed in four different traditional Javanese antique houses, commonly known as Joglo... originally from East and Middle Java, made out of good quality teak wood, and have been put up to help keep their preservation.

All together... mind-boggling. 

The collections fill the buildings with a bewildering variety of objects becoming history lessons about processions, music, storytelling & theater -- of festival & performance.

Almost stifling inside so much celebration... almost. at every turn, new wonders present a new form, style or mood. Serious, playful, stern. Color was a strong language. Reflective surface as well!

We were captivated for several hours...

I found a number of the displays simply effective holding quite handsome masks playing deep character...

Curated very well...

These Javanese houses were handsome & spacious, with lofty central volume.

 We explored individually & in pairs... occasionally joining to share story...

Nana, being raised in Java, came to life here in ways unique to that experience. He told story around the many complexions contained under these temple-like buildings. We continue appreciating who he is. That continues... Huzzah!

 

We take another break... 

The even more intense collection was the fine art of puppetry, mostly Shadow Puppets... finely crafted so as to create illusions on screens backlit by lanterns... presaging the motion picture film industry of the last century. These shows were finely wrought sculptures in a plethora of characters performing in temporary theaters in towns & village squares, these being traveling affairs. Yet, in their complications of needing vigorous handling & manipulation, they become art objects of their own, displayed in full frontal light... only parts needing players following a script. Miniature operas, front & back.

 Driving home I wondered as we passed a shop displaying a piece of grass woven into a dragon... how would that work as a shadow puppet?!?

Even later, in their pavilion, I found another sense of living in theatrical lighting

We live in many museums!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GUEST HOUSE TWO -- SINHAGIRI -- Part One...

 

We arrived in late wet afternoon at what seemed perhaps to have been an English country house. It had a sheltering port-cochere, with several personable guys wearing knit caps with umbrellas to help us gather ourselves unloadeding our bags, while we made introductions... meeting the staff at Sinhagiri. 

I'd had a peek peek at the garden as we drove in which was lush, if a bit formal in it's groomed plantings.

By now we were thoroughly damp & cold, but also were quickly warmed when we entered, by a exuberant abundance of deep tones of lipstick red... walls to ceiling, with rugs to suite! 

A long tall passage with rather pointed gothic beams at the ceiling & several sections with large frames around facing mirrors added to the heated mystery. A country house for a gay cousin of Dracula?!? It was, all in all... at least spellbinding... 

That color scheme continued to dominate the salon toward the back. There a pair very heavy cast bronze chairs or, more truly, thrones, seemed to settle the whole effect while quite sharply eluding any comfort in that end of the room. This was proving a severe version of very high kitsch! 

Otherwise, the room Otherwise we found this room comfy, especially when a fire was lit. A cozy gathering hub for dinner. We peeked to explore it's counter-part for tea & coffee as we just as the light filled morning room just beyond, also cozy...  with views of the garden lapping the rain.

Another telescope... just as in Boutique 79. I'm sensing themes of the owner/designer of These three properties Joel has chosen for us. Both scopes are fine specimens, thus their placement for being looked at, not through! I do love all notions of enhancing vision...

 

Over the mantle a gong hung in a stand of two horns... bringing along that motif of our collector/designer of Boutique 78, the first guest house, in Bentota,

 

Over the mantle a gong hung in a stand of two horns... bringing along that motif of our collector/designer of Boutique 78, the first guest house, in Bentota,

We are learning about our host, whom Joel met on his previous return visit to Sri Lanka... now bringing us along on a repeat of that adventure... profiting for his experiences. We are in the presence of a playful mind... down to his andirons!

One of the large rooms off the hallway held a collection of beautiful hand painted kimonos, displayed, with sleeves lifted to allow viewing from both front & back...

 

Each unique in beauty...

Of course my eyes caught more mundane practical beauty as well...

Our bedrooms were themed around their bold floral wallpapers. Ours was peony

Oh my!

We found a rack with a variety of clothes: jackets & coats, even a fur... hung in invitation al drag. I put on an demurely lively sport coat... dressy & warm, if a couple sizes too large.

 

One ultimate destination for this group of foodies was the dining room, which did not in any manner  disappoint, of course!

Even something for a boy from Kansas...

Dining was to step into a fulsome bouquet of boldly painted floral walls surrounded its huge round table. With a bit of period figurative painting in dramatic contrast to the blossoms out of which it wrenched  a gesture of ecstatic astonishment... what fun! Joel enticed Nana to mimic.

 

 Thus we came to be at home in what was some zenith in decorating.  Basically, it was a collection of the finds of an imaginative eye in a wildly creative mind... picking furniture, oddments & tchotchke from second-hand establishments & auctions. It becomes a fair masterpiece! 

 

Having a known proclivity for waxing into cataloging with my camera everything I see, I must practice some brevity in this blog. So I'll trim this post at this point & add another soon... because I have so much more to share!