Hello ,
Greetings from Yogyakarta in central Java.
I'm here in this amazingly artistic city sourcing products and dealing with a couple of supply issues.
Last week I was telling you about another arty place but in central China, you can read about it here.
Since then I have spent a couple of hectic days in Yiwu tying up all the last minute jobs, before getting a flight to KL, two days there with Raul our IT guy and then a flight to Yogyakarta.. or as they call it here on the streets Yogya - pronounced Jog yah.. as in jog ya memory..
And if you are a regular reader you will remember that I have been here a number of times. Ringo, our man in Indonesia flew down from Bali to meet me.
It's hot and muggy here, in evenings raining. It's draining my energy, but even so we found some interesting things and uncovered a new giant statue supplier.
The big buddhas come from here, you might have noticed we are out of stock of quite a few.. which have been on order for six months. That problem hopefully is resolved, the boss is blaming communications problems, I'm blaming sneaky Australians who come here and keep buying all our stock for cash before it can stock up enough for a full container load.
Anyway the only solution I have learned to get your supplier on side is to give them a little competition.. so we went looking for another supplier.
The thing is Yogya is like a flower opening up it's blossom very slowly. Very few artisan workshops and factories have websites, mostly they supply the slick showrooms in the town centre area. These traders control the market, screw down costs from the artizans often by cutting corners and of course keep their sources secret.
But slowly slowly we have found the artizans, and often one leads to another.
Mukijo who I call Mucky Joe who makes the wonderful stone letters and glass and stone oil burners.
His extended family compound has a river running through it and his outdoor workshops are either side and even on a small bridge, across the river is an open rice terrace. It's typically rural and a family run. Mucky Joe is a cool guy, arty and tough at the same time. I gave him some ideas for new products and he manfully gets lumps of rock and sitting at a lathe creates just what I'm after.
So this guy told us about a GLC company not far away, well he knew where the village was, so we went to see. GLC is a mixture of cement, resin and plaster that creates a stone statue that is light enough to man handle. So you can ship it relatively easily and it looks great in a garden. There are all sorts of designs but the Big Buddhas generally sell best.
We found it this afternoon.. in the middle of this village a big house with a large compound.. all slightly creepy, all these big statues looming out at you. Some workers were painting and packing various pieces but didn't pay us any attention as we wandered around. Anyway this manager guy turns up, the boss is not here today, but back tomorrow.
I put a few pictures in my Instagram feed.
We were due to fly to Bali, but this looks really interesting and some great designs - I just cancelled the flights - lets see what tomorrow brings.
Anyway..
I'm so excited.. finally arrived is a product we (as in Tomas and I) have been working on for ages a real labour of love. Designed by Tomas and made in the AW factory in China using British fragrances..
Hope you love the new Soy Pots of Fragrance.. upgrade your candle life below :)
Take care more news next week from Bali (I think).
Have a great week!
David
