Hi everyone! Regards to all 1Malaysia!

How are you feeling today? Everyone OK? If you are feeling a little bit off, don’t forget to take your medicine. Previously, I have touched on my experience going on a trip to the National Art Gallery; this time around I am going to share with you the great experience I had visiting the Kuala Lumpur Crafts Complex! Yes, I have been planning to tell you the tale a long time ago but I have not had the opportunity to do so until now.

Last year, in 2008, I and a few of my friends had the chance to visit the KL Crafts Complex. I felt so lucky to be there during that time as the complex was holding a Crafts Day Celebration. The Crafts Day Celebration is actually a huge annual event and was held for a few days time.

For your information, I am a Visual Art Education student, and this type of event is the one I look forward to attend. Just imagine how excited I was when I reached the Crafts Complex. There was lots of interesting stuff to see with my very own eyes. Oh, there were too many things to tell. Keep on reading because I am very thrilled to share what I have witnessed with you!

During the time when I first got to the Crafts Complex, I chose to see the pottery exhibition. I have to say that I picked pottery at random as there were many cool exhibitions were held at the same time. If you do not know what pottery is, it is actually goods that are produced with processed clay that were then mould to many shapes and baked in an oven-liked compartment to maintain its pottery feature. The pottery could be made to be a vase, bowl, jar, cup, and the traditional Malaysian’s labu sayong, a pot to store water. You can see the pottery goods from the pictures that I took myself!

This is the biggest pottery product I have ever seen at the Crafts Complex. It is HUGE!

Besides getting to see all the pottery in the exhibition, I also had the opportunity to see the process of making the pots from clay using both the traditional and modern methods. It certainly was my lucky day! See for yourself how they are made by the professionals. Don’t get jealous, ok

This man is showing us how to shape the pots using the traditional method. I dare not miss this once in lifetime opportunity to see the pot-making process from start to finish!

This is the pinching style of making pots. It was very amusing when you can see for yourself how this technique was used. Not only this technique, were all other methods to make pots also shown to the visitors at the exhibition.

There are loads of other pottery goods on exhibit at the Crafts Complex and I just could not resist snapping pictures as it is allowed by the organizer.

After snapping the pottery pictures non-stop and satisfied with the demonstration given, I continued the outing by visiting the old weaponry exhibition at a nearby section. I was like, “WOW!” It was similarly interesting to the pottery exhibition as well; my eyes were dancing with joy at the sight of the displayed items. I saw many types of keris, swords, lance, spear, and lots more! Again, I would like to invite you to see the images of those weapons and get the feel of what was going on at the complex.

This is one of the many type of bush knife and since the shape and feature are rare, I think it’s best to share it with all of you.

This is a sickle or kerambit, as it is known by the Malay community. It is one of the most widely used weapons once upon a time.

If you still do not know, this is a keris :p

This is some of the keris’ handles that were shown at the exhibition.

There were many more antique weapons on show then, like swords, lances and others. I will share with you the rest of them at another time because I have plenty interesting things to tell other than weaponry. After visiting the weaponry section, I was eager to see the exhibition of copper-made accessories. These accessories were quite similar to the ones shown at the pottery section.  It constituted a few beautifully crafted brooches, tepak sirih, ring container and many more! Come and see the things made by copper at the Crafts Complex!

Accessories worn by the bride at a Malay wedding.

I did not miss the opportunity to pose in front of the copper items that are extremely rare and hard to find nowadays.

The same goes for my friends Izzati and Amalina

At the complex, there were also an exhibition on textile goods such as batik, weaved songket, and lots more. It was very irresistible to pass the chance to see how the batik and songket was made. The closest I have ever watched how the process was done was in a documentary in front of the television. So, I would be feeling very unlucky if I did not grab the opportunity with both hands. And you can consider yourself lucky too as I have provided you with a few pictures for you to enjoy.

These weird looking things are called canting. They are used to scrawl on the batik cloths.

There were live shows on batik scrawling presented at the exhibition. It feels good to finally see the action with my very own eyes.

Besides batik, there was also an exhibition on songket at the Kuala Lumpur Crafts Complex. Notonly that, they also showcase the art of making the songket to the very watchful visitors. Do I have pictures of that? Of course I have! They are all taken especially for you

Don’t be jealous because I get to see everything here ‘live’!

Alright, I think I have shared so much of my wonderful experience now. I will definitely tell more in some other time. If you feel like experiencing what I have experienced, you can head over to the Kuala Lumpur Crafts Complex at Jalan Conlay, Kuala Lumpur. It opens from 8:45 a.m. until 6 p.m. You can also get more information at www.kraftangan.gov.my, and if you like the story that I have just shared, vote for it by clicking the button below:

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