Nias Ethnic Ornaments as an Idea Source for Handmade Batik Creation

The traditional Nias ethnic ornament has a unique and very varied form. It is opened widely to engineer, to develop and to visualize traditional Nias ethnic ornaments into a Batik technique. The artwork products are practical and non-functional artwork. Practical functional artwork is related closely to the needs of everyday human life, while non-functional artwork is only for displaying the values of beauty. The research was conducted by involving the students of Fine Art Department, FBS UNIMED. Research and development method included engineering ideas, exploring forms and developing designs that refer to the Nias ethnic ornaments. The results of the batik process were carried out by designing a pattern to determine the types of practical functional products. The forms of work creation research were a cardigan (auteur), clothes, chair cushions, and long cloth that had non-functional artistic value. The handmade batik work of research result was analyzed in depth by involving experts from fashion and batik design experts. The result of the study was expected to be able to open up new jobs as creative industries. In addition, the creation research result that took ideas from the traditional Nias ethnic ornament could increase toward the repertoire of handmade batik art in Indonesia. The output of this study was scientific article that was sent to reputable journal internationally, while the additional output was Batik Textbook related to Batik Craft course.