ARTS OF BALI

The island's very well-organized cultivation system and its astounding fertility has given the Balinese leisure to develop their arts for centuries. It's incredible that so many people on such a small area of the earth's surface (3200 sq km) pour so much energy into creating beautiful things. Their worship of life and the gods encompasses a wide range of art forms, making an art out of even very simple necessities of everyday life. Fruit salad is served with flowers strewn on top and coils of pigs' intestines are used for temple decoration. Influenced by incoming European artists, modern Balinese art only began about 1927 when for the first time artists gave the date and signed their paintings. Before this, all art wa3 for god. If the painting or sculpture was too innovative, it might not have qualified in the service of god and the artist was considered a failure. Still there is no word in their language for 'art' or 'artist'. A sculptor is a 'carver', a painter is known as a 'picture maker', a dancer goes by the name of the dance she performs. The Balinese have never allowed artistic knowledge to become centralized in a special intellectual class. Everyone is an artist on Bali. The simplest peasant and the most slow-witted create something or else are aesthetically conscious as critical spectators. A field laborer will chide a clumsy instrument maker for a job poorly done. Even dagang, young girls who run small foodstalls, are skillful practitioners of Bali's classical dances. The Balinese are very susceptible to fads: fashions, harries theatre, new painting styles and dance forms often sweep the island.. They are unabashed and uncanny copyists and some of their stone temple carvings such as a holdup or a plane crash are copied right out of magazines. Stone carvings and paintings show pregnant women, boys playing, beer drinking, seductions, even atomic bombs going off in heaven. The purest and oldest example of Balinese art is the ancient mosaic-like lamak which last only for a day. These are woven for Balinese feasts by women from strips of a palm leaf, bamboo, and yellow blades of sugar or coconut palm pinned or folded together to form fancy borders, rosettes, and little tree designs.

Nusa Lembongan is situated 12 miles south east of Bali. It is one hour traveling time by boat from Benoa Harbour. This pear shaped island is around 4km long and 2km wide. It is surrounded by a beautiful fringing reef, which hosts a myriad of marine life, The waters are renowned for their abundance of life and great surf breaks. The reef has been declared a marine park by the Indonesian authorities. Not only does the reef support its own Eco-system, but it supports most of the villagers on the island as well. The local people farm seaweed. This seaweed is cultivated, harvested then exported all over the world for use in cosmetics, food stabilizers and medicines. Other sources of income include traditional wooden boat building, farming peanuts, sweet potato, and fishing.Village life is very slow and enchanting. Very few cars and motorbikes are seen on the roads. The people are steeped in tradition, and one could imagine Bali being like this island, thirty years ago.Although the island is small there are many things to do. Fishing, diving, surfing, mangrove exploring, discovering natural fresh water springs, underground cave house exploring, cycling around the island. A visit to the bat caves on a nearby island, or a picnic at dream beach. Try catching mud cabs in the mangrove area at the back of the island. There is something for every one at Nusa Lembongan.