Iteration

Tenganan is a remote Indonesian village, located in the hills behind where we were living in Candi Dasa. Foreigners are rarely admitted to the village, no cars can enter through the village gates, the elderly women follow the old tradition of going bare breasted and most of them have mouths stained red from chewing betel leaves. As always, our children are a focal point and open doors for us.

The villagers nod and laugh and we are told once again, “You have perfect family, two boys, one girl!” My two-year son with red curly hair is passed around from villager to villager so that they can rub his hair for good luck.

We are going to find out about ikat, the traditional textile making process that Tenganan is famous for. The patriarch of one of the families explains how each family in the village has a traditional pattern that they produce. The people of Tenganan bind their threads very tightly in a pattern that has been passed down through the generations. Then the threads are dyed, bound again, dyed the next colour, bound again . . .  and so the process goes. I am reminded of Ukranian pysanka. However, ikat is far more complex. Each colour is associated with a different Hindu god and each god is associated with a different hour or time of day. The dyeing must accompany offerings to the gods and be done at the right time of day. The colours mature at different rates and some colours, such as a particularly rich red take as long as seven years to mature.

After years of careful tending, the threads are complete, the looms are strung and the pattern begins to appear. Then the shuttle is loaded and as the woof is added to the warp the pattern crystallizes before one’s eyes. Both sides of the textile are identical. The pattern is embedded throughout the entire fabric. As the textile is used, worn, moved, the threads wear and a richer and richer colour appears. Ikat from Tenganan is alive with pattern which, rather than fading, becomes more and more vibrant with age.

Ikat is an iterative process. A process that requires patience and perseverance. Over and over the thread is bound and dyed. Over and over the gods are appeased. Over generations the patterns are learned and passed on. Over and over, approaching a desired goal, over and over a complex pattern appears. A vibrant, high quality, ‘alive’ product that matures with age emerges. There is no rushing ikat.

Iteration – Iteration is the act of repeating a process with the aim of approaching a desired goal, target or result. Each repetition of the process is also called an "iteration", and the results of one iteration are used as the starting point for the next iteration. – (Wikipedia accessed October 3, 2013)

Over and over, with qualitative inquiry one sits with the words, the actions, the body language. Ideally, there is no rushing. Time needs to be taken to allow the complex pattern to crystallize. If done well, the results will age well. Qualitative analysis has its own cycles, cycles of intense concentration followed by pauses that provide a space for the unconscious mind to do its work. Qualitative analysis is a way of unraveling life’s complexities in an attempt to discover and ultimately understand a particular phenomenon.