Susi Johnston Bali Blog

Exhibition on now at SFO of fine old Italian rides, called Moto Bellissima: Italian Motorcycles from the 1950s and 1960s. If you’re changing planes in San Fran, skip Starbuck’s and feast your eyes on these bikes instead. That’s a ’55 Moto Rumi “Raid” above, and a ’52 Motor Devil “Gobetto” below. (Gobetto means “hunchback” in Italian.) SFO really does contain a museum, btw. A real, good one.

A bike can be a thing of beauty, and nobody figured that out faster than the Italians did (surprise surprise). After WWII their motor industry was in ruins, people were short of money and raw materials, but mobility was a MUST! Enter, a generation of bike-making entrepreneurs and designers who sped in to fill the gap. Just five years after the war there were 220 (!!) Italian motorcycle makers showing their steeds of steel at the 1950-51 Milano Motorcycle Exhibition. Tons of taste, and innnovation were unleashed and the thrill lasted all the way through the 60s, and what a thrill. Still. These rides are art.

Synaptic Strap™ No. 1: HMT Bali. I hadn’t considered the virtues of vintage motors ’til I moved to Bali in 1995. While writing an article on the Bali Classic Motorcycle Club (Himpunan Motor Tua or HMT), I went on a two-day club ride encircling Bali, and fell hard for the sight and sound and indescribable magic of their classic bikes (from a 1926 Harley to “Frankenbikes” cobbled together with bits of Indians BSAs Nortons and plumbing equipment). Read more…

The Asian Civilisations Museum (ACM) just acquired the greatest single collection of Indian trade textiles in the world: The Roger Hollander Collection. The museum has 70 important pieces from the collection on show now until 3 June, in a blockbuster exhibition entitled “Patterns of Trade: Indian Textiles for Export 1400 – 1900″. If you’re changing planes in Singpore soon, seize the opportunity and see this show.

Synaptic Strap No. 1: Indonesia. A tremendous number of truly ancient Indian trade textiles have been discovered in Indonesia during the past 30 years. With improvements in carbon-14 dating techniques, a number of examples (notably, from Torajaland and Timor) have turned out to be at least 600 years old. You can see some of them at the ACM now. Think about that a second. These cloths (with still-beautiful patterns and colours) were made during the Majapahit era, when Java’s ancient monuments were new, kings were rolling in gold, and legends were being lived and written.

Synaptic Strap No. 2: Roger Hollander. Roger, who personally gathered together the textiles now in ACM’s collection was a dear friend. See my previous blog post about the sale of his ranch in Wyoming to Bill Gates (who lives just a paddle down the beach from my parents). Some of the textiles in the ACM collection were formerly in mine and have made their way (via Roger) back to the region where they were valued and displayed as prestige pieces for centuries.

Synaptic Strap No. 3: Macan Tidur Textiles. I still have quite a number of ancient Indian trade textiles in my collection, and this exhibition has spurred me to review them now, and to photograph them.

Synaptic Strap No. 4: Typography. If you are hypersensitive to typography and its influence, as I am, and can “hear” the type in a book as a voice when you read, you’ll appreciate this. Through my exploration of the Patterns of Trade exhibition and its catalog, I stumbled upon a stronghold of typographic talent, in Relay Room, the Singapore studio that designed the identity, typography, print and other media for the exhibition. They did a truly fine job. Respect.

As a suitable tribute to a marvelous material, here’s a chair by Colombian bamboo builder and designer Marcelo Villegas. While too much of newly-designed bamboo furniture looks like you have to give up something to use it (like comfort, stability and style, for example), Villegas’ works are artistic masterpieces and fulfill their comfort-functions admirably. We’ve heard that he’s involved in building and furniture design for the Nihiwatu villas expansion project on Sumba Island. Excellent news. Let this be an inspiration to us all, reach for the stars, and build a beautiful bamboo ladder to get there.

Brand spanking new, and smack up against Biku Tea Room, here’s CARGA. It’s a retail emporium taking traditional Indonesian ideas and materials and throwing them sideways. In delightful ways. Tradition with a twist. Read more…

In case you were wondering what that big wall of old shutters is doing near the beach in Seminyak, it’s a multi-faceted development called Potato Head Beach Club brought to you by the makers of Potato Head Jakarta (above), a description-defying place that opened back in January 2009. The brainchild of Indonesian international art collectors, Ronald Akili and Jason Gunawan, Potato Head (Jakarta) is an arty party place (bar, resto, music venue, hang central) frequented by socialites, creatives and neo-yuppies. Akili and Gunawan founded Ark Galerie in Jakarta first, then exploded their ideas outwards into the world of food-bev-tainment with Potato Head, calling in cordon-bleu trained foodie Sandra Budiman as exec chef and co-conspirator. Rumour has it the same faces are behind the soon-to-launch Potato Head Beach project in Bali. And that’s what makes it so interesting. Read more…

This year there are only five places to go Christmas shopping in Bali. Number Two: Word of Mouth, on Jalan Kunti near Bali Deli. The place is a showroom-playroom with a cafe and bar. Talk about one stop shopping. If you have to find gifts for everyone on a long list, the last thing you want to do in Bali is go hauling around in traffic, parking and unparking, and fuming with frustration. With that in mind, I’m focusing on places where you can get fed, watered, and find gobs of great gifts without wasting your playtime. Word of Mouth meets all of the above requirements, and then some. Read more…

I was contacted a few months ago by a niche events organiser asking if I would provide a cultural morning in Ubud for a celebrity wedding in August. I always welcome the opportunity to infect influential people with my incurable passion for all things Balinese, and this particular party was heavier with heavy influencers than most. It was the wedding of Jonathan Rutherfurd Best, London’s longstanding maestro of fine fêtes, fine food, and all manner of general capriciousness (above). The ceremony itself was held at Linda Garland’s estate (below), and several hundred guests were accommodated there and in various villas and hotels round about for a week or so to celebrate the occasion.

After a knock-down-drag-out welcome luncheon for legions of global glitterati lasting until well after midnight, (as knock-down-drag-out luncheons will do), we slept like the dead the whole way home in the car, and the next morning rose early to infect a phalanx of guests with a bit of Bali mojo. I’d roped my friend Tjok Raka Kerthyasa into providing a palace welcome and private tour of the sancta sanctorum of his family, the inner courtyards of the the Ubud royal palace. We planned it for ten or twelve guests, but seventy turned up bright and early and bleary eyed, in spite of inclement weather. Tjok Raka then proceeded to charm the designer pants off of all present. He’s good at that. As a co-ruling prince, and Bendesa Adat of Ubud (grand poobah of all things traditional and religious), and as a member of the Bali parliament, he is uniquely qualified to transmit the stories and spirit of Bali as it is manifested in Ubud. And so he did. Read more…

This year there are only five places to go Christmas shopping in Bali. Number One: Deus Ex Machina in Canggu, otherwise known as the Temple of Enthusiasm. I’m enthusiastic about shopping here, not only because there’s something for everyone (it’s a one stop shop), but also because you can eat. And listen to great music. And there’s no traffic jam to get there. And there’s no problem parking. And you can shop until 9:30 at night. Bring the whole gang, feed yourselves, get your shopping done, and don’t squander any precious playtime stuck in traffic or having aggro over where to get what for who. Read more…

You may remember Emerald Starr and Ken Ballard’s Sacred Mountain Sanctuary in the Sidemen Valley. It was a pioneering eco-resort with an earnest emphasis on eco. Now it is being “reloaded” at last, by the Karma Resorts’ developer, Selected Estates of Asia. Read more…

We’ve been applauding the Fowler Museum at UCLA for years. They’ve shown a keen understanding of Indonesian culture, and nobody beats the Fowler at curating and hanging a great show. Their shows always balance the aesthetic and the didactic in the best possible way. Now they’ve done it again, with Nini Towok’s Spinning Wheel, an exhibition of the traditional batik of Kerek, Java (above). Hats off, once again, to the museum’s curator of Asian and Pacific collections, Roy Hamilton. Read more…