This was the second workshop we did on day 7, and immediately after Traditional Gastronomy Immersion – and the experience was, well, complicated. The Balinese cooking workshop ended a little later than planned at 2PM, and the address noted for the Silver Jewelry Artesan workshop could not be easily found on Google Maps. The locals themselves did readily recognize the location either, and making things that bit worse – we were stuck in slow-moving traffic through central Ubud on our way to this next place. The root of the problem lied in that the address provided in Airbnb was not actually correct: the noted address was “W.S. Art Studio” when it should had been “WS Art Studio” – those two periods make for a world of difference on Google Maps!
Still, credit especially to our Balinese Cooking host, as she and her husband went out of their way to find the workshop location, bring us there and made sure that it was the right location before departing to their next session.
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The workshop location is nested a little deep in rural Ubud. To get to the location, you need to continue past Teba Sari Kopi Lewak (the locals there don’t know of this workshop either) for about 2 more minutes on the narrow dirt road, and eventually you’ll arrive at a little compound with the studio signage. The studio is fairly far from the main road, and surrounded by padi fields – making for a very serene and lovely setting.
There are two workshops offered in the same hut, and apparently by twin brothers: one, a master silver and metal worker, and the other a carpenter. Both sessions were running concurrently the same afternoon, which led to inevitable comparisons. Specifically, the woodwork workshop was extremely intense, and the four French young adults at that workshop worked on their sculptures non-stop for four hours. I reckon their hands must had been spectacularly bruised after that!
Our Silver Jewelery Artesan worskhop on the other hand was, for want of a better descriptor, not engaging. The involvement the three of us had – P was too young for it – involved choosing from a spread of photos an item to make, cutting the shape out from a metal piece, and bending thin metallic wires for the decorative carvings. That took maybe about 20 minutes. The rest of the 3.5 hrs we spent there waiting for the artisan to actually solder the wires into the base metal, fitting, cleaning, and finally buffing – each of which was a painstaking step of the overall process.
We could of course observe each step, but the kids became bored real quick. Fortunately, there were things to occupy them with – including a set of traditional instruments that P and H got to and provided everyone in the area their version of Balinese music.
So, in all, a not very involving workshop (in comparison to the woodwork workshop next to us which seemed really tough!), a lot of waiting, in a very lovely setting, with very kind and hospitable hosts nonetheless.
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