Meaningful Designs

Antillean Décor and Home Goods Company draws inspiration from the Caribbean

on January 5, 2016 by Jacqueline in Antillean, Caribbean chic, Caribbean living, Design, handmade mats, Home Goods, House Decorating, Interior Design, Jamaican proverbs, Sign Paintings ⋅ Leave a comment

So, you may have been wondering where I have been for the last few posts? I have been off, dear readers, indulging a personal desire of mine in founding Antillean, a décor and home goods company that draws its primary inspiration from the colors, craft traditions and vibrancy of my native Caribbean. I have finally indulged a long held wish of mine to produce products that will see homes enveloped in the warmth and magic of the Caribbean, products that will create a sense of Caribbean chic and Caribbean living, wherever in the world someone’s home may be. We at Antillean do this by working with practitioners in the region to encourage, develop, revitalize, and sustain the craft traditions of the Caribbean.

The Craft traditions of the Caribbean

In fact, Antillean has been a long time coming, and, quiet as its kept, I realize that all along, in profiling craft traditions and craft practitioners from around the world, I was asking myself one simple question: Could I, as well, follow, indeed indulge in my passion for hand crafted home goods and start my very own company? The more I thought about it, the more the idea took hold and, little by little, this is exactly what has happened. I started working with creators in the region to make my home goods dreams come alive. I realized that in so doing that I might, as well, be able to revitalize and sustain some of the craft traditions that I grew up with on my island home of Jamaica, and elsewhere in the Caribbean.

Of course I have gargantuan dreams for my little company. I mean, which mother does not look down at her child and not see her, or him, going out into the world and making a place for themselves? Which mother does not see her little one moving from a seed to a sapling and then a gigantic many-leaved tree? But in the meantime I am starting with manageable goals for my little one. A baby after-all learns to creep before she walks. And it is the same with Antillean.

Sign Paintings

A few years ago a friend of mine came to see me in Kingston (Jamaica) when I was home for a visit. He took along with him a gift for me, this friend of mine who is also a well-known visual artist. He was driving by a sign painter on the side of the road whose signs were so arresting that they caught my artist friend’s eyes. One of those signs was the gift he brought me, a Jamaican proverb in vibrant red, blue, yellow and black colors, “Rain Ah Fall But Dutty Still Tuff.” Meaning, the earth is still hard despite the falling rain. Meaning there are difficulties even in abundance. Of course I immediately fell in love with the hand painted sign on recovered metals and ordered more. Before long I found myself working with the sign-painter, via my artist friend, to broaden the range of his paintings and he would subsequently deliver to me, in addition to proverbs and tall handsome Jamaican police officers, paintings of local fruits and flowers that I simply adore. I hope that you will browse and subsequently purchase some of these wonderful paintings.

Kitchen Goods

Speaking of signs, one of the signs of good ‘broughtupcy’ for particularly girls in the Caribbean is our facility both in the kitchen and with a needle. We share this “broughtupcy” in fact with many other women from around the world. But I remain fascinated with the way that this ‘broughtupcy’ is expressed in the Caribbean. There is, of course, our love of the many-colored madras cloth, which harkens back to the multiracial identity of the various islands of the Caribbean. The madras cloth probably originated in India, but has now become idiomatic of Caribbean cultural expression and is often used for head dress and in national costumes. I started imaging this cloth on kitchen goods and before long, the madras cloth had found its way on potholders, hand towels, table napkins, aprons, and on placemats. Then there were the handmade rugs from my childhood in the rural district of Nonsuch, hidden in the high blue Portland mountains, where women would be “turning their hands to make fashion” out of small seemingly useless bits and pieces of cloth.

Ultimately though the story of these home goods products is one of mainly women reaching out their hands to other women. When I approached a cousin of mine about making the beautiful multi-colored mats, someone else saw her making the mats and remembered that she too could make the very mats, and before long the two women were off making the mats. Similarly, my aunt, who made the kitchen goods, ended up working with another woman to make the potholders, hand towels, table napkins, aprons, and placemats that Antillean sells. I was quietly amazed at this, one woman giving a helping hand out to another woman, but as I started entering more fully into the word of handmade things, I started to realize how, as Jamaicans say, “every mickle make a muckle” and that this is an inclusive world that pulls people closer together, particularly women.

Yes, we are starting small at Antillean, but we hope to become big and strong. We hope to become a gigantic tree, and with your help in purchasing our products, we can get there.

Visit the Antillean site at: https://antilleandesigns.wordpress.com

Until next time,

jacqueline

Katrina Coombs Discusses her Fetish for Creating Fine-Art Fiber Works, Thread by Thread

on August 31, 2015 by Jacqueline in Fiber Art, Jamaican Art, Katrina Coombs, Textile Design, Uncategorized ⋅ Leave a comment

It was the first thing you saw as you came through an arch at the National Gallery of Jamaica for the 2014 Jamaica Biennial: Katrina Coombs’s blood red work entitled “Absence”. I remember looking at the work for quite a while, its startling color. The longer I looked at the work the more I found myself wondering what other pieces by this artist might look like and, finally walking away, I made a mental note to look for more fiber-based works from Jamaican artists in general, and Katrina Coombs in particular.

Katrina Coombs was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and was formally introduced to the arts in third form at Meadowbrook High School. “What happened is that there was an art teacher at the school, David Ho-Sang, who introduced us to macramé. That was when my interest in fibers started and soon that interest would grow into a profound love,” she shared. From macramé she would branch out to batiks and other arts techniques, but the love of fibers remained constant. “I guess you could say I have a fetish for fibers,” she confessed. “I love being able to create from threads. I love the idea of taking something from a small strand into something large and elegant. I love the involved process of working with pins and needles.”

From high school Coombs would go on to attend the Edna Manley College of Visual and Performing Arts in Kingston, which she describes as an eye-opening and very challenging experience. “When I was a student at the Edna Manley College, textile as fine arts was still a relatively new concept. The textiles department had to bring in lecturers from other departments to look at and critique my work. I was getting more and more interested in weaving, which isn’t a traditional Jamaican art form, unless you look at basketry, so I guess there was some confusion in trying to locate and situate my work as a fine artist working with cloth.”

Maybe, she mused, the lack of understanding for fiber and textile as a fine-art art form that she was sensing all around her on the island had to do in part with the demise of a booming textile industry in Jamaica — lost through free trade agreements. “There was just a whole industry of people who made cloth and designed and decorated cloth that went through the window because of free trade agreements,” she said. “A similar thing happened to much of our traditional so-called “craft” industry where much of the local crafts forms today are actually being made in China.”

But the loss of the textile industry, she was quick to point out to me, only partly explains the resistance she faced as a fine-art fiber artist. “While my immediate family members were always supportive of me as a fiber artist, there were a lot of people around me who were confused by what I was doing. They saw me sewing things and would ask aloud about not only what was I going to do with the things I was making, but if indeed I planned on becoming a dressmaker, as if being a dressmaker was the worst thing in the world that someone could be! But that confusion, to an extent, mirrors a larger societal confusion as to what art is. For too many people art is still and will only be drawing, sculpture and painting. There is oftentimes no immediate understanding of textile art as a viable art form.”

Yet her thesis exhibition at the Edna Manley College, “Dancer’s Dream” — a work in which she examined the various elements of fabric movement and how this could be in conversation with the movements of a dancer — was well received. “I guess the reason why my thesis received the warm reception that it did is that so many people were taken with the ‘new’ ways in which I was working with cloth. There was a healthy discussion, for example, as to whether my work was a sculpture or a painting — and there was a new awareness of fiber as fine art,” she said.

Coombs would go on to do her master’s degree at Transart Institute in Berlin and New York, which, she admits, radically altered how she saw her work. She credits Transart with engendering in her a more expansive definition of being an artist. “In a sense, going to Transart freed me. What I mean by this is that, here in Jamaica you are often defined by the medium that you work in. For a long time I considered myself, for example, a textile artist. It was at Transart that I came to understand that I was an artist first and foremost and fiber was the medium that I created in,” she told me.

At Transart her work became increasingly autobiographical, culminating in a thesis exhibition that explored various notions of the “other”. This work — a compilation of thirteen characters — sought to answer several questions, namely: Who is the other, and why do they impact us as much? What form does the other take? How can an artist use fibers to signify the other that she is in pursuit of?

It is a complex and engaging body of work.

Given that Katrina Coombs works almost exclusively in fibers, I engaged her in a discussion on the gender dimensions of artists on the island who work specifically with textiles and fibers. Specifically, I wanted to know why there seemingly were no male textile and fiber artists on the island.

“It is not that there are no male textile artists on the island or that men are not interested in textiles and fibers,” Coombs pointed out to me. “It is the mode by which men approach the work that they do in textiles and fibers. You will find, for example, that you have a large group of tailors. There are also very sharp and pointed distinctions made between fine and applied arts on the island. Once you are working with textiles, you are often relegated to crafts. Maybe why there aren’t more male fine artists who work in textiles on the island is that they are trying to obviate being relegated to the crafts.”

She paused for a moment before continuing.

“In addition to which, in general fiber art is a very complex medium to deal in. The medium requires a lot of focus, a lot of technical skills, the tying of knots, and working with all those threads. There is a lot of monotony in working in fibers, which, for me, is a commentary on female labor and the fact that women are constantly repeating things. The home space, which to a large extent is still the female space, is one of endless repetition with specifically female tasks. Furthermore, at this time on the island, I am not sure if there is an infrastructure in place to safeguard and protect fibers and textiles as art forms. Handling and restoration are a particular challenge. My thinking is that more male artists might be making the calculus to choose art forms that are more financially lucrative and less repetitive and less problematic than is required for working in textiles and fibers.”

But the very reasons why fiber art forms might be off-putting for some is in large part why Katrina Coombs enjoys so much working within this medium. Textiles, Coombs noted, are a constant throughout the many moments and journeys of our lives. Shortly after we are born we are enveloped in cloth, and for most of our lives we have the most intimate relationship to clothes. When we die, once again, we are wrapped in cloth. In some ways it is the most obvious and accessible of all the art forms.

Katrina Coombs’s work will be on view at the Young Talent 2015 exhibition at the National Gallery of Jamaica in Kingston, which opens on August 30th. “I am very excited to be part of this exhibition,” Coombs shared. “For many years, as a curatorial assistant, I promoted the work of other artists. Right now I am taking some time to pay more attention to my own work. My goal now is to keep pushing myself as an artist, and to get more of an audience for my work.”

Until next time.

Photographs in the article provided by and copyrighted to Katrina Coombs.

Using Objects as Evidence to Tell a Woman’s Story: An Interview with Amelia Peck, Curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

on May 28, 2015 by Jacqueline in decorative arts, material culture, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Quilts, Textile ⋅ Leave a comment

A few semesters ago, a group on my job organized a guided tour of an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was then generating a lot of interest, “Interwoven Globe: The Worldwide Textile Trade, 1500-1800.” That exhibition was coordinated and curated by the Marica F. Vilcek curator of American Decorative Arts at the Met, Amelia Peck. As I walked around in those dazzling rooms at the Metropolitan Museum, I remember wondering about the woman who could pull together an exhibition that was truly global in scope. An exhibition that traced routes and roots from the Near and Far East, Europe, Africa and the Americas. Without knowing it, I was subconsciously trying to make connections between Amelia Peck and the work that she had done.

Photograph of Amelia Peck for Connections. April 2011, © MMA, photographed by Jackie Neale Chadwick – Media_2011_184_0012_BW_03.psd

Amelia Peck is a rare breed: she is a New Yorker through and through. Born in New York City, Peck spent her first two years in Forest Hills, Queens, before ending up in Hastings-on-Hudson, just twenty miles outside of the city, where she lives today. In high school she sculpted and sewed — activities that she still does — before she focused on theater design. “Because of my love of sewing, I thought I would end up a theater designer,” she told me. “When I went off to Brown University I was an English major, since the theater department was part of the English department at that time. I enjoyed being an English major, though, because I’ve always been a great reader of novels. I guess, looking on some might think it unusual for an English/theater arts major to grow up to be a curator, but there are great similarities between the two fields. As a curator I find that I am always writing to, and communicating with, the public. And what is an exhibition if it is not gathering together objects to tell a fascinating story, exactly as is done in the theater?”

While at Brown, Peck discovered the fields of architectural history and material culture — which Peck defines as the study of everyday objects that people use — and after a couple years of designing costumes for theater productions, Peck switched her focus and went to Columbia University to get a degree in historic preservation. In 1981 she came to the Metropolitan Museum as a summer intern, and except for a year away, she has pretty much found her place and her calling there. “What is so fascinating about looking at objects through the lens of material culture,“ Peck told me, “is that you can interpret how people lived through the objects that they either had or created. As a curator of decorative arts, I strive to use objects as evidence to highlight the stories of the objects and the people who had or made them. This is particularly important if you begin considering the implications for telling women’s stories. These objects can be the voice and give voice to the subsumed and voiceless in a way that is unparalleled. The only way oftentimes to tell a woman’s story is through the objects that she made. These objects help us to understand this person’s life and the period they lived through.

“I recently acquired for the museum a lovely embroidered seat cover that has been passed down in one family through seven generations for the last three hundred years. I have been able to trace this seat down through every generation of women in that family. Thankfully, someone had the good sense to record the name of the woman who initially made the seat cover. Think about it: Someone had to say to themselves, my mother made this and it is important. This is what is left of the things that my mother made. This is worth holding onto, as a record of my mother’s life.”

At The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Peck has three areas that she is in charge of: She is the American textile curator and oversees all textiles from the earliest period of American history to the first half of the twentieth century. She makes sure that the textiles are cared for, acquires relevant pieces for the Met, and she designs exhibitions around the textiles in the collection. She is also in charge of the Period Rooms at the Museum and is very pleased with introducing interpretative computer screens to the Period Rooms. As well, she is the Manager of the Henry R. Luce Center for the Study of American Art. “I feel very privileged to have a job where I get to work with and think about really fascinating objects. Essentially in my job, I get to learn about objects and use them to tell stories about peoples’ lives. I am always learning something new and always telling a different story.” She continues, “Another great pleasure of my job is that at the Metropolitan Museum there is this wonderful community of colleagues, who are real experts on their subject matter. The depth of their knowledge is nothing short of breathtaking.”

Still, I wanted to know more about the field of material culture and its inclusion in museums. Peck readily admits that there is more acceptance of the traditional field of art history, especially since material culture is a hybrid field that incorporates several disciplines. Furthermore, she concedes that objects like textiles, pottery or furniture are oftentimes thought of as commonplace and not collectable. There is an informality to decorative art objects, she admits, and it is harder for some people to look at everyday objects as “great art.” “In the exhibition ‘Interwoven Globe,’ for example, people would go up and touch the textiles hanging on the walls in ways that they would not dare touch an oil painting. They felt that they could do this with textiles, because textiles are more familiar and are conceived of as everyday and commonplace.”

Still, Peck believes that there is growing appreciation for textiles. Particularly so in the United States. “Patchwork quilts, for example, formed from multiple pieces of fabric, are part of how Americans understand and seek to portray themselves as the scrappy pioneers who built this country bit by bit.” In the over thirty years that Peck has been in the field, she has noticed that there has been a rise in the appreciation for non-traditional quilts, in large part because modern quilts, such as the quilts of Gee’s Bend, raised appreciation of idiosyncratic kinds of quilts. All the more reason, Peck insists, that young women in particular who are artists should not be afraid to utilize textiles in their works.

“I would say to a young woman who wants to work with or design textiles that there are huge possibilities in this medium for you to put your own spin on things and for you to influence the visual culture. Everybody has an association with textiles, for example, and will always have an association with textiles, through clothing and home furnishings, so this is a medium that will always remain relevant.”

Similarly, she encourages more young women to enter the field of curating, particularly becoming curators of decorative arts. “As a curator of decorative arts you really get in touch with people from the past and their loves through objects. You get to understand how things are made, and, if you are a history buff like myself, you get the chance, time and time again, to engage with history. Being a curator is truly a wonderful thing. You get to tell stories. And in some cases you get to give a voice to the voiceless. You get to ‘un-silence’ those who might have been completely forgotten if not for the objects they made with their hands.”

Until next time.

A Chinese Glass-Making Master Strives for Innovation in his Work

on April 20, 2015 by Jacqueline in Chinese colored glass, Chinese liuli master, Crafts, Dyes, Fan Li, Figurine, Home Goods, House accessories, House Decorating, Liuli, man-made crystal, Master Xu Yuezhu, Shandong Light Industry Association, treasures of Buddhism, Xi Shi, Xu Yuezhu ⋅ Leave a comment

By Kaisi Chen

“Art involves many personal emotions. You can only make a great artwork if you are truly passionate about it,” says Xu Yuezhu, a Chinese liuli master who strives for innovation instead of imitation in his artistic practice.

Liuli is Chinese colored glass or man-made crystal. Thousands of years ago, liuli was known only to court and liuli products were extremely rare and precious; “common people” had little access to it. Things have changed somewhat these days. Liuli still ranks high among other valuable materials (gold, silver, jade, ceramics, and bronze) in China, but today liuli is more accessible to a wide cross-section of people. Indeed, liuli is one of the seven treasures of Buddhism and many Chinese people believe the beautifully colored glass has healing powers and can, as well, protect one from evil. Some even believe that the glass attracts wealth.

But how did the glass get its name?

The term has a sad but also beautiful origin. The story is told that one Fan Li, a craftsman for swords, discovered the material after mixing crystal. When Fan Li fell in love with the beautiful Xi Shi, he worked hard to turn the colored glass into a beguiling piece of jewelry that was a fitting token of his love and affection — which he eventually presented to his beloved. Xi Shi, unfortunately, was forced to marry another king in the midst of warfare and returned this gift to Fan Li upon her departure. Liuli was named after Xi Shi’s departing tears that are still believed to be visible today in every piece of liuli created.

“Liu” in this case refers to fluidity and “Li” means glass.

For several decades now Master Xu Yuezhu, of the Shandong Light Industry Association, has been carrying on the family legacy of liuli production. “I have a passion for art since I was little,” Master Xu recounts, “and I used to play around in the workshop that my father worked in.” His early exposure to the glass works and his father’s influence caused him to develop an enduring interest in liuli-making at an early age. In 1980, when Master Xu was only sixteen years old, he began his career by studying under such Chinese masters such as Kong Fanyi and Liu Chishan. From 1995 to 2005, he worked as a product developer and then an art director, mainly designing and producing small-scale liuli objects for display and decoration. He has since moved on, focusing on larger products. In 2011 he was recognized, in the form of a national title of “Master” in China, for his achievements and contribution to the liuli industry.

But how exactly is the glass made?

Liuli usually requires ten steps from designing to molding and heating to cooling, which includes smoothing the surface and refining the details on the final artwork. Master Xu explains, “There are several methods to create a liuli artwork, including lost-wax casting, blowing, and hand work. Lost-wax casting is similar to the process of creating bronze work, in which a wax mold is made ahead of the time in order to be used in the heating process to shape the raw material.” In that regard the glass we make in China is similar to glass made in other places around the world. What separates the work of Master Xu, however, is the sheer beauty and the splendor of his works. It is a breathtaking experience seeing his vases and other home goods products. In addition to which, Master Xu’s recent artworks now combine blowing and handmade techniques, which allows him to utilize the fluidity and flexibility of the material under high temperature in order to create even more enlivened pieces.

“To make a work such as a vase,” Master Xu explains, “one has to first draw his design on a piece of paper. The execution relies on a team of people, especially when the design includes multiple parts.” Master Xu demonstrates what he means by holding up a blue vase decorated with six fishes. He continues, “One person can only make one fish at a time, so together we need six or seven people to create the fish and the vase and attach them together. For the last number of years I have worked with a group of seven to eight craftsmen to bring my designs to life. The execution of a liuli design, many need to know, is actually quite physically demanding. One fish alone can take about three hours to make.”

Yet Master Xu wants to push liuli creation even further. “I want to create things that do not exist in glass artworks around the world … or use glass to revive what is no longer present.” His recent project — “Ink Wash Liuli” — does just that. His ink wash liuli is inspired by the works of Han Meilin, a renowned Chinese scholar and art master, who is known for the Olympic mascots used in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Explains Master Xu, “Ink wash liuli incorporates an entire ink wash painting into a liuli product, which is unprecedented around the world.” In so doing, Master Xu incorporates two traditional Chinese art forms, the colorful highly pigmented ink wash along with glass-making. In one of this mixed-genre work, Master Xu depicts a stylized horse with thick brushstrokes outlining the horse’s form. The fading of black ink at the end of each brushstroke creates a sense of motion. The artist uses vibrant ink colors to denote vitality.

Rejecting the transparent quality of traditional liuli artworks, Master Xu explores new possibilities in the visual experience with color and ink, creating an abstract landscape or a pattern inside the smooth surface of liuli. When I asked him if this was difficult to do, Master Xu only smiled. “Liuli-making is never a challenge for me,” he shared. “I think of the production as an innovation. The challenge is to make artworks that surpass the works of other masters. I work hard every day to create artworks that I hope will be the best in the world. In China, too many people who make crafts where they only imitate the works of others. That is not what I am after. I want to push myself. I believe that the best artworks come from personal innovation rather than imitation.”

I couldn’t agree more.

To see more of Master Xu’s work, visit his website at http://www.liulichina.com/ (All images in the article copyrighted to Master Xu and used with his permission)

Revitalizing, Sustaining and Propagating the Crafts in India

on March 13, 2015 by Jacqueline in Akshara project, artisan, Baskets, Calligraphy, Crafts, Dastkari Haat Samiti, Design, Dilli Haat, Embroidery, Female Empowerment, Gifts, Home Goods, House accessories, House Decorating, India, interior decorating, Interior Design, Kashmir, Organic Products, patachitra, Scripts, Scroll painting, Textile ⋅ Leave a comment

What I have done so far in Meaningful Designs is conduct an interview, then write a feature based on the interview. This time, however, as I sat reading and rereading the insightful interview with Mrs Jaya Jaitley, the founder of Dastkari Haat Samiti, an organization that works to revitalize, sustain and propagate the crafts in India, I realized that I very much enjoyed having the interviewee’s voice as part of the conversation. I also felt that Mrs. Jaya Jaitley could represent an organization she started more than twenty years ago perhaps better than I would be able to write about it. And so in this issue of Meaningful Designs I am the backdrop to this very passionate and dedicated advocate of Indian arts and crafts. So here forthwith is my interview with Mrs Jaya Jaitley!

Can you explain what the name of your organization means?

Dastkari Haat Samiti means Crafts Market Association.

How did you become interested in crafts?

I have loved art, craft and textiles and the beautiful aesthetics of traditional forms and design since I was a child. Combined with that is a strong commitment inculcated in me by my parents to improve the lot of those less privileged in society. The value of handwork expressed in philosophical, economic and political terms by Mahatma Gandhi also influenced me. I am not an artist, though I do passable sketches and have a parallel interest in literature and writing…hence all the books on crafts. Since I can recognize skill, good design, aesthetics and the potential in creative people it combined perfectly with my desire to engage in social and political work for the benefit of crafts people.

Why did you feel it was important for you to start this organization?

I felt the need to create a platform that united crafts persons from different areas, communities, castes and religions to promote their common need for marketing. Once there is a market other inputs take root. Craft skills and livelihoods can be sustained by creating opportunities that widen the market space for them. It also helps to accord them better respect and appreciation. Our crafts members fund the organization so there is a sense of empowerment and partnership in furthering common interests.

What are some of the groups that you work with?

The Samiti works with every kind of craft group or individual or household that becomes a member of the Samiti. Members work with clay, wood, metal, grasses, bamboo, glass, paper, cane, utilizing a vast variety of textile skills, and traditional art forms. We provide inputs for improving skills, design and product diversification. We organize three major marketing opportunities a year through temporary crafts bazaars in different cities. We create new openings like book illustrating, teaching workshops, participation in fairs organized by others and linking them with architects and interior designers. We conceptualized and partnered with different government agencies twenty-one years ago to establish a hugely popular permanent crafts marketing space called Dilli Haat in New Delhi where crafts people are offered space in rotation to sell directly to customers rather than through middlemen. Its success set off a spate of such spaces, both public and private.

Are the craft forms in India gendered?

In some cases men and women work together on pottery and weaving although their roles within are generally defined according to tradition. Women weave in the Northeast but mainly men are weavers in the rest of the country. Men do embroidery in Kashmir but women do so in the rest of the country. History and cultural traditions have defined these roles but, as with everything else, there are now crossovers that are good to see. Our common marketing platforms where the producers get together help erase gender divisions.

Are craft forms localized in different regions of India?

Specific forms, designs and production processes are localized. The beauty of India’s huge variety of craft skills is that each carries the identity of its region. Occasionally it is obliterated when producers begin imitating something from elsewhere, in which case it loses its authenticity.

I would like to know more about the calligraphic art forms. What history can you share with us about this art form?

India, along with Egypt and China were among the civilizations that were the earliest developers of script. In later years, Chinese and Persian scripts were developed into calligraphy and spread everywhere among those who used similar forms like Korean, Japanese, Arabic or Urdu. India had the Brahmi script that transformed into Pali and Sanskrit. Religious texts carried on being written in Sanskrit. Unfortunately, because of colonization and other reasons, despite having over 700 spoken languages/dialects, and currently 22 official languages and scripts, these never developed into calligraphy, partly because literacy levels also fell drastically and most things indigenous lost value under British rule. There are old stone inscriptions on temples, and fine illustrated writings on paper, parchment or silk, but calligraphy as a separate art is still minimal.

Is there a specific group of people who make this art form?

The artifacts created through our Akshara project were encouraged by me introducing the concept of calligraphy to a variety of crafts people. None of them knew calligraphy before. There are a few traditional calligraphers in India who create works in Urdu/Arabic or Tibetan/Bodhi. These are dying out. My purpose was to encourage literacy, an appreciation for our regional scripts, and using their existing crafts skills to give these scripts an artistic form. This opened up a whole new area of design experimentation in calligraphy for crafts people who otherwise felt unqualified because they were non-literate or did not know English.

Let’s turn our attention to some of the gorgeous paintings that you sell. What can you tell us about the history of these paintings?

All these paintings rest on traditional styles. They have been tweaked in colours or layouts to make them contemporary. Each style has its own history rooted in the local culture.

The long scroll called patachitra is used by artist balladeers in West Bengal to sing stories to an audience. The parrot series is a new version of Odisha’s patachitra. Most stories are religious but this one guided by me is contemporary. It is about a caged parrot being educated and helping an astrologer earn his livelihood. The lady painting the table is based on the tradition of painting murals on the walls of homes in Bihar during celebrations. Art shifted to paper and now to wood, metal and even cloth. These are not considered miniatures although there are male and female miniature artists who took part in the Akshara project.

Akshara, Crafting Indian Scripts is an art book we created out of this project. It tells the entire story from history to cataloguing our own works with the story of how each piece was created, to how Indian scripts look artistic as common wall writing, on film posters and advertisements. It is available on Flipkart.com, at some bookshops and with our organization.

What has been the reception to your organization both in and outside of India?

Our website (dastkarihaat.org) shows the wide extent of our work, including events in other countries, and with foreign artisans brought to India to work with our people. We were very well received in Addis Ababa (2^nd India-Africa Summit), Cairo (India on the Nile Festival Akshara Exhibition), UNESCO headquarters, Paris (Akshara exhibition) , UK (Dilli Haat at Trafalgar Square exhibition, Art in Action art fair near Oxford), Frankfurt Book Fair (Crafts Maps exhibition). The maps made over a period of 15 years are also on the website.

There are large appreciative crowds at all our temporary crafts bazaars in India, and we also run two little not-for-profit shops in a high-end market in Delhi.

In India we are well known because of all our projects, especially the crafts maps documenting all the arts, crafts and textiles in India, and also for setting up Dilli Haat (which is entirely run by the government). We also have recent events posted regularly on our Dastkari Haat Facebook page and a separate one on the Akshara Crafting Indian Scripts.

What are some of your most notable successes?

I cannot judge that, but I suppose the crafts maps (which also became a book called Crafts Atlas of India published by Niyogi Books), conceptualizing and establishing the Dilli Haat crafts marketplace and the Akshara project. More significantly and subtly, the loyalty of crafts people to the organization and seeing them improve in their social and economic status through the Samiti’s work.

What are some of your ongoing challenges?

All challenges are opportunities to create something better!

Having said that, however, I am at present trying to get our government to frame the agenda and format of a new national institution – the Hastkala Akademi – to assimilate the vast and varied cultural heritage that sustains crafts in all their aspects in India. It adds the ‘cultural history’ to each skill and object and gives it a unique identity and greater value. I had proposed the idea, which was formally accepted by the government last year. The building blocks have now to be put in place.

Finally, how would you say your organization has impacted how the crafts are doing in India today and where do you see your organization going in the future?

I have never seriously thought about the future of our organization, but only of how its work can benefit the future of India’s crafts persons. I am sure that 29 years as an organization, and my own almost 20 years of work before that, has played some part in reviving, sustaining and propagating many crafts. There are many other dedicated people doing this in different ways. On the whole, we try to inspire crafts people because their work inspires us to plan new vistas for them. I can’t say when I will stop getting new ideas or run out of steam!

Until next time!

Many thanks to Carmen Fernandes and Annie Paul for help with this interview.

The Island of St. John is home to Avelino Samuels, a Master Woodturner

on February 3, 2015 by Jacqueline in artisan, Design, Design tips, Dishes and plates, Dyes, Eco-Friendly, Environmental Conservation, Gifts, Home Goods, House Decorating, Industrial Arts, interior decorating, Interior Design, Organic Products, Plates, Recycled materials, St. John, wood turning, wooden bowls, Wooden furniture ⋅ Leave a comment

And then again, sometimes you fall absolutely in love with something at first sight. You take one look at a piece of work — one of Avelino Samuels’ masterful woodturned bowls, for example — the marks of the wood like a subtle expressionist painting, and you know immediately, that, if money was not an object, Samuels’ wooden works would be all over your tiny apartment in Manhattan.

It was my Facebook friend David Knight who first brought Avelino Samuels’ work to my attention. Knight’s enthusiasm for Samuels’ woodturning skills was so infectious that I found myself researching the artist’s work. Surely the work could not be as fantastic as Knight was saying, I huffed and puffed to myself, or this wouldn’t be the first time that I was hearing about it. But the work was everything he had said it was. In fact, the work was not only as great as Knight had proclaimed it to be, it was better. In a word, Avelino Samuels’ work is masterful. I knew, in that moment of looking, that I would have to talk to the man himself, and try to discover the sources of his inspiration.

Avelino Samuels was born on the island of St. John, which is a crossroads, as he explained it, between being American and Caribbean. He was born in a place where there were no cheap plastic toys; if children wanted something to play with, it was most likely handmade. And this was how Samuels got introduced to woodworking: he wanted to make toys to play with. “From I was a child,” Samuels told me, “I was always making things. I started out making bows and arrows, then slingshots, before I graduated to making craft items. I grew up in a time when you had nothing. My father told me that if I wanted something, and especially if I wanted toys to play with, I was going to have to make them myself. And so I began. Before long I was making afro picks, mini sailboats, masks, all for the local market.”

He continued: “For the most part I worked with wood because wood was always accessible and all around me. And, in time, I came to appreciate the particular beauty of wood. To me, wood almost always looks good and it is one of the easiest, most natural materials to work with. I love even the imperfections in wood, how the grade and grain of various cuts differ, because all of this, to me, is a good representation of nature and life.”

In keeping with doing the things that he saw others around him doing, Samuels went off to train as a teacher and has a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Arts Education. “Growing up in the St. John that I grew up in, there were very clear ideas of what a person like myself could become. I could become a teacher, an electrical engineer, or something like that. I chose teaching.” And he taught in the schools on the island for several decades, until his retirement a few years ago. Though he still continues teaching a few days a week, his main job now is woodturning. When I asked him how he feels about this, he admitted it feels good to have more time to devote to his art, but that he also enjoyed being a teacher, and he has turned out a few students who have gone on to do really fantastic work in woodturning.

What was surprising to me in our conversation is that Samuels shies away from claiming the mantle of “artist”, preferring, instead, the title of “artisan”. But, he admitted, “It is the person who engages with the work who defines what it is. I have a particular relationship with my work and that is more of an artisan, someone who builds things, than what I would consider an artist to do.”

I refused to let the subject go, pressing him to give a clearer definition of his relationship to his work. This, of course, was all done in good humor, but it was illuminating nonetheless. I wanted to know if he didn’t consider himself an artist and his work fine art because his work was, at times, functional and decorative.

“I guess, yes, that would be one reason,” he answered frankly.

“Well, what about the work that is neither functional nor expressly decorative?” I asked him, reviewing his latest body of work.

“Well, those,” he admitted, “those are more artistic.”

What I find really invigorating about Avelino Samuels’ practice is that it has steadily become more expressive and less functional. He has increasingly moved away from the more naturalized bowls and vases, as gorgeous as these are, and into an arena that I would classify as fine arts. His latest works have rips and tears and holes in them when they do not have elegant climbing branches shooting out of their tops. They have subtle stippling following the marks on the wood and they come in the most mesmerizing of colors: From rich dark blacks, to beguiling reds, to the palest of blond wooden colors. In turns out that Avelino Samuels is not only a master woodturner, but a wonderful colorist, as well.

Naturally I wanted to know where he got the wood from to make his creations and his views on the environment. As ever, he was pleasantly frank. “I know where you are going with this,” he said, laughing, when I started this line of questioning. “And, yes, you are correct that in making these things one can have a negative impact on the environment. That is just one of the realities that I, as a woodturner, have to live with and face. But I love the environment, and I feel especially blessed to call St. John my home.

“Truthfully, I could not live anywhere else but St. John. I have peace of mind here that I just don’t think I could ever have anywhere else. And that peace of mind comes about in large part because of the natural environment of the island. The wood with which I make my work is almost all reclaimed. I use a lot of salvaged materials in my work, overwhelmingly so. Wood from old houses, old materials, trimmings and so on. That is the wood that I love working with. I love taking something old and making it new again. And I am conscious of the impact that I am making on the environment.”

Avelino Samuels’ work has allowed him to travel extensively throughout the mainland United States and Canada. Two years ago he got the fantastic opportunity to go to Tanzania. He looks forward to going to Australia for the first time in March of this year.

Contact Avelino Samuels at binosam@pennswood.net

Until next time.

Photographs in the article were provided by Avelino Samuels and used with permission

Canadian Eileen Kwan Creates Exuberant Embroidered Landscapes One Patient Stitch at a Time

on January 10, 2015 by Jacqueline in Canada, Design, Design tips, Eco-Friendly, embroidered landscapes, Embroidery, Environmental Conservation, Garden Exuberance, Garden supplies, Gardening, Home Goods, House accessories, House Decorating, Quebec, Québécoise, Uncategorized, Winter Garden ⋅ Leave a comment

Several months ago I had the experience of being part of a reading that featured the works of several visual artists. It was at that reading that I first set eyes on Eileen Kwan’s embroidered landscapes. I spent an inordinate amount of time that evening going back and forth looking at the intricate beautiful work. I felt for sure, given how small and perfectly detailed the works were, that they were made by machine. Not so, Eileen Kwan corrected me, when I asked her about it that night. All her works are handmade. I knew in that moment that I had to hear Eileen Kwan’s story.

Eileen Kwan considers herself a métissage of Canadian Québécois with roots in China, where her parents are from. For Kwan, Quebec, her home city, is the cultural dynamo of Canada. “I just love Quebec,” Kwan enthused when I spoke to her. “I consider myself such a Québécoise!”

Eileen Kwan’s Long Relationship of Working With Her Hands

Kwan has long had a relationship with what she calls “working with her hands” — first as a long-distance bicyclist, then as a successful fashion designer, before transitioning to what she considers her ultimate passion and love affair: gardening. In gardening she found that she loved working with and in the soil, and she loved having to touch things in the environment. For Kwan, it is the “human touch that brings so much beauty into the world.”

But how did this all come about, her leaving a very successful career as a fashion designer, to get her hands all messy? It began, Kwan told me, when she came to the startling conclusion that her designs paled in comparison to nature. “Nature offers up the best designs,” Kwan said, “and I decided that the best I could do is to pay respect to nature in the work that I do. I honor nature by trying to recreate it.”

Nature is an Expanded Canvas

She started puttering around with garden design in her apartment, but after a while realized that this was no longer enough. “For many years I lived in an apartment and did indoor planting, which was fine for a while, but soon I wanted more. I wanted to plant outside, and be even more a part of nature,” she revealed.

By then Kwan had sold her successful clothing line and was being asked by friends to assist them with their gardens. Before long she noticed that not only was she doing more and more gardening for friends, but that gardening had started to give her more than she was in fact giving to gardening.“To see a tomato coming up out of the earth,” Kwan explained, “that is just a gift in and of itself. What a garden teaches us is that there is no time or space to have a bad hair day. The garden keeps giving against all odds. For me, gardening expanded the canvas that I can work with. A garden is a living laboratory. It is coloring with nature.”

Incorporating Winter into the Garden

When I asked her about the short window of time she has to create gardens in Quebec, given that winters there can be so long, she admitted that she liked the time frame she has to do her works. “You see,” Kwan explained, “that short time frame in the summer allows me to have the miraculous experience of seeing things happen up close and in a short time frame. I get to plant things and see them come to fruition all in one season.

“In addition to which, I always try to create a garden for four seasons. Winter doesn’t bother me much because I think of snow like a living sculpture and I incorporate it into the garden. In this way the garden becomes a moving painting. In addition to which, winter is the time I use for embroidery. In the winters I recreate the summer garden on textile. I am so fortunate to be able to do this in the winter. It is all a continuum for me: embroidery in the winter extends the work that I do in the summer.”

Gorgeous Embroidery

And what gorgeous work her embroidery is! They in fact look more like paintings than embroidery, with such carefully modulated and perfectly placed stitches. One has to get really close to examine Eileen Kwan’s work or have an eye for texture to realize that they are not looking at a painting.

“My work with embroidery came from my work with textiles,” Kwan further explained. “That is what I mean about my work all being a continuum.” Here, she paused, reflecting, before continuing. “Maybe, in a sense, my working with embroidery was my first work with textiles, because I remember learning to embroider when I was in grade four, when I was just a small child.

“There is an economy to embroidery that I like. I like the quality of being still and the internal dialogue that ensues. You can literally hear your own thoughts as you embroider, so profound is the silence that embroidering engenders for me. It is almost a sacred space that I enter into when I embroider. And that is why I leave in everything that happens when I embroider. I leave in all the mistakes, because they are all meant to be part of the particular work I am doing.”

Garden Exuberance

Though she is reluctant to see price associated with her embroidery, all the art pieces that she makes are, in fact, for sale. You can contact Eileen Kwan about doing family heirlooms in embroidery; purchasing cushions or framed wall art; or if you would like her to help you create your own personal oasis amid the increasingly fast-paced lives that we all seem to be leading these days.

“I have been in business officially for six years now. I create residential gardens for customers,” Kwan said. “My job is to create a garden that my customers want. For me, this means creating something precious. It is an honor to be able to create beauty in someone’s life, whether that is through using plants like crayons, or whether that is by stitch after patient stitch like I do with my embroidery work in the winter.”

You can contact Eileen Kwan at:

www.gardenexuberance.com

gardenexuberance@gmail.com

Until next time.

All images provided by Eileen Kwan and used with permission.

‘American Made’ Winner Rowland Ricketts Dreams of an Indigo-Making Revival

on December 1, 2014 by Jacqueline in American Made Award, Community Development, Design, Design tips, Dyes, Eco-Friendly, Environmental Conservation, Gifts, Home Goods, Indigo, Indigo-making, Japan, small farmers, Table runners, Textile ⋅ Leave a comment

And then again life unfolds by happenstance. When you wanted to spend the summer in Germany, as a junior in high school, but you did not get selected to go on that program. Right next door there was a beginning Japanese class, and you would get to go to Japan for a few weeks over summer break if you took that class. So you dropped the German class, enrolled in the Japanese class and there were three life-changing weeks in Japan. You would not get over that time in Japan, and by the time you went off to college, you ended up studying, well, Japanese … and then after college you went to live in Japan for what should have been a year or two teaching English … but what turned into ten years … and in those ten years in Japan you got introduced to indigo making and, well, there was no turning back now.

This is what happened with Rowland Ricketts.

Environmentally Friendly Art-Making

Ricketts was teaching a course in photography in Japan when he had a light-bulb moment. One day he started wondering where all the chemicals he was using in his photography class was ending up, and the answer — that it ended up in a river — bothered him so much that he started seeking out more sustainable ways of doing art. More ways that were in tune with the environment. Eventually he found a group collecting plants to make natural dyes, and, before long, he got hooked on making dyes as well, from plants — indigo, in particular. Eventually he would go on to master indigo making. Says Ricketts, “I love the great human tradition of making indigo. I really love the fact that indigo making evolves by each generation taking the skills and applying it to their day and age. There is something very ancient but, as well, strikingly contemporary in indigo making.”

When I challenged him about appropriating the indigenous knowledge of indigo making from Japan and taking it to the United States, Ricketts did not shy away from this discussion. “I don’t have a surface relationship with either Japan or indigo making,” Ricketts explained. ”I lived in Japan for more than a decade. I speak the language. The work I have done is recognized in Japan. The Japanese government, for example, has invited me to have a national exhibition in Japan, so I see what I do as being so much more than appropriating traditional Japanese knowledge. And I always make it very clear, almost painfully clear, to anyone who asks, that I am building upon the knowledge of the Japanese.”

Indigo-Making in Japan

Part of the reason that Ricketts chose to study indigo making in Japan was that the climate was similar to the one in the United States. “Indigo is made in different ways around the world. There is a really rich indigo-making tradition in various countries. The form of indigo making that occurs in Japan is one that is best suited to a temperate climate, similar to the climate in the Midwest where I live. I knew that eventually I would move back to live in the United States, and so I wanted to learn how to make indigo in a place where I could replicate it in the United States.”

Today, from his home in Bloomington, Indiana, Ricketts grows, harvests and composts the plant that he uses to make his indigo. There is something about engaging in the entire process of making indigo — the cumulative knowledge, and the ways that Ricketts himself adds to the process — that is very meaningful to the artist. In fact, this work of growing and harvesting plants and working with natural plants particularly appeals to someone who did not have this awareness while growing up in the United States. ”Growing up in the United States,” Ricketts told me, “there was no making of anything from the raw, from scratch. Anything we wanted, we got from the store. There was no using of plants in one’s immediate environment. For me, in growing up, plants were weeds and to be gotten rid of. When I lived in Japan I lived in the rural area in a very old house. In this house that I was slowly fixing up, I came to have a different relationship with the natural world around me.”

Ricketts’s work is gorgeous. The dye and textile works that he produces often make me think of a sea of unfolding blue when I look at them. What I find particularly exciting about the work that Rowland Ricketts does is how easily he moves between the categories of fine and functional art. He makes a line of table runners that is particularly gorgeous. In recognition of his work Ricketts was recently awarded the American Made Award given by none other than Ms. Martha Stewart herself. “This is so exciting!” Ricketts said to me, barely able to contain his joy the day I spoke to him. “It is exciting and unexpected and it is a tremendous recognition of the work that I do!”

An Indigo-Making Revival in the United States and Beyond

Building on the attention that he has gotten because of the American Made Award, Ricketts has allowed himself to dream big dreams. “Getting this award is so much bigger than just me. It is a recognition of the indigo process. Indigo making entails minimum income for maximum labor. Yet it is all worth it! What I want to do is make more people aware of indigo making and the rich history that goes with this. There is now in the United States a local movement aimed at bringing back small-scale manufacturing of textiles and natural dyes. I am very much a part of this movement and my hope is that growing indigo can become a means to economically support small-scale farmers in my community — and beyond.”

Listening to him speak I found myself dreaming right along with Rowland Ricketts.

But more than that, I felt I was in the presence of someone who could fully realize his blue-upon-blue indigo dreams.

Contact Rowland Ricketts through his website here: http://www.rickettsindigo.com

Until next time.

All images in this article are copyrighted to Rowland Ricketts and used with permission.

UK-based Company ‘Wild in Art’ Uses Figurines As Tools of Learning

on November 1, 2014 by Jacqueline in Art promoting community integration, Art trails, Books About Town, Design, Design tips, Figurine, Furniture, Gifts, Healthy Living, Home Goods, protecting species, United Kingdom, Wild in Art ⋅ 2 Comments

Wild in Art Uses Figurines As Tools of Learning

After several years of working in television, Sally-Ann Wilkinson was looking to do more work with art and using it to bring communities together. She always had a great love for the visual arts, but was getting tired of the way the visual arts was seen as out of touch with the reality of most people’s lives. She and her business partner Charlie Langhorne started looking for a way to bring art onto the street in an accessible, popular and relevant way. That was how Wild in Art was born.

Art That Brings Communities Together

Wild in Art produces mass-appeal events that “engage residents and tourists alike, through the creation of citywide trails of uniquely painted sculptures.” In so doing the company works at putting art and creativity into an everyday context in which various groups get the chance to equally enjoy access to the works created. “We started our company,” says Wilkinson, “because we found that there were huge swaths of the community that did not necessarily integrate with each other. Young professionals might not, for example, integrate with really older residents and so we were looking for a way to bring various parts of the community together. We figured that art was the best way to promote inclusiveness and community integration.”

Founded in 2007, Wild in Art has produced several very successful public art events in cities around the world. To date, company events have raised over five million pounds for charity partners along the way. There have been Gromit sculptures in Bristol, rhinos in São Paulo, elephants in Melbourne and, a personal favorite of mine, the Books About Town project, launched this past summer, which formed a unique trail of “Book Benches” celebrating London’s literary heritage. In so doing, the Books About Town trail successfully brought together two art forms: creative writing and the visual arts.

Using Figurines to Engender Student Learning

Wilkinson sees the work that Wild in Art does as a great opportunity not only for bringing people together (and thereby fostering a sense of belonging) but, as well, as a primary means of getting people, particularly students, to engage with contemporary issues, in a non-threatening way. Says Wilkinson, “We have created a full curriculum for students that we call a creative pack. In this curriculum we use art as a device not only of learning but also of creating. In this curriculum, for example, we encourage discussions about endangered species, and we have figurines and other activities that go along with learning about endangered animals. We have found that if you put a baby elephant in front of a student, even as a sculpture, then that baby elephant becomes real to the students and the need to safeguard and protect that elephant becomes very real to the students, as well.” In the creative pack, students, through the use of figurines and pictures, are taught biology, issues about mothering, among other subjects.

As I listened to Wilkinson talk about the work that Wild in Art does with students, I was charmed. I could practically see young students sprawled out around a teacher and, using the curriculum that Wild in Art developed, not only having an appreciation of the visual arts, but also of the need to safeguard and protect threatened and vulnerable species, and areas, of the world. I could see the students falling in love with the small, delicate figurines that were part of the curriculum and subsequently falling in love with the natural world around them, and the species — endangered and otherwise — with which we share this world.

Wild in Art Pieces as Home Goods

For Wilkinson creating the smaller-scaled figurines is important, since the large-scale sculptures that line the Wild in Art trails are often auctioned off at charity. As she spoke I began to foresee a long line of these small, intricate and very beautiful figurines on a long wooden shelf in my home. I also began to see, too, that some of the larger sculptures would work equally well as decorative pieces in a home setting. I began seeing Wild in Art’s Book Benches popping up in areas of the world that I particularly love — New York City, Jamaica, Morocco. I began seeing my own writing and visual arts coming together on one of those very benches. Yes, indeed, I was charmed.

Wild in Art’s most recent project is all about owls, and is aptly titled, “The Big Hoot!” In this project, roughly three hundred gigantic owls were placed all over Birmingham City, including at the Children’s Hospital in Birmingham. “In England,” Wilkinson explains, “the owl stands for wisdom and learning and discovery. We placed these owls in places not only where people would most likely see them, but also in places where people do not ordinarily go. In a sense, we want people to discover and rediscover their local community, and through the trails that we create, people have a chance of doing just that.”

Art Trails That Encourage Healthy Living

The idea of an art trail has blossomed and grown in interesting ways. Now, Wild in Art trails are seen by some in the medical community as a means of encouraging public health and preventative medicine. The trails have become part of a “Health by Stealth” campaign being advanced by health-care workers in the United Kingdom. “The nature of our trail is that people walk alongside them, work alongside them, or cycle by the trails we create,” Wilkinson adds. “In this way the trail encourages mobility, and especially social mobility, with people moving not only in and out of a city, but around a city as well. We are thrilled that our trails are now recognized for promoting a healthy lifestyle!”

So by now you, like me, must be wondering how to get a Wild in Art project into your beloved community. It turns out that this is not as challenging as it might first seem. The most important part of getting a Wild in Art trail in your community is getting a city on board with having a project. Then you can reach out to the Wild in Art team via their website to get the ball rolling.

http://www.wildinart.co.uk

Wild in Art produces tailor-made projects for individual communities all around the world. In so doing, it stages art events that are of particular interest to the local community. The company works equally with well-known and emerging artists, and has a refreshing way of engaging communities to be participants in creating the art that is placed around and among them. Maybe this is the reason for its enormous success?

Until next time.

The Books About Town photographs are credited to Chris O’Donovan. Merchandise images are credited to Stephen King. Go! Rhinos images are credited to Jason Brown. All other images are credited to Wild in Art.

Spectacular Wooden Furniture from Jamaica

on October 2, 2014 by Jacqueline in Eco-Friendly, Environmental Conservation, Furniture, Home Goods, House accessories, House Decorating, interior decorating, Interior Design, Jamaica, Living Art Form, Organic Products, Wooden furniture ⋅ 1 Comment

Spectacular Wooden Furniture from Jamaica

The work is spectacular: heavy pieces of wood giving rise to flowers and birds as easily as if they were nothing but pieces of cloth being gently folded and molded at the artist’s will. Heavy dark trunks twisting into elegant rounded tabletops with the history of the wood mapped into ever-widening concentric circles. High chairs with backs flaring into radiant golden-colored crowns. The legs of tables and chairs that seem to be growing directly into the ground. All I keep hearing as I look at the spectacular work of Gilbert Nicely is Bob Marley singing, in a very ancient voice, “Roots Natty roots, dread bingy dread, I and I a the roots.” Gilbert Nicely’s work is all about roots.

Nicely hails from St. Mary, Jamaica, where he is the patriarch of a dynamic family of woodworkers. It all began, Nicely said, because of a lifelong fascination with the visual arts. “I started painting at seven years old,” he told Meaningful Designs. “But because of the scarcity of paint where I lived and when I was growing up, I quickly moved on to another medium that was more around me at the time; I moved on to using wood.”

At what was then the Tacky Secondary School (Tacky being the name of an enslaved African who led a rebellion on the island of Jamaica), he continued pursuing his interest in art and crafts, all the time focusing more and more on wood.

Today, he has been making heartbreakingly beautiful pieces for more than forty years. He has had numerous exhibitions, is the recipient of his country’s prestigious Musgrave Medal from the Institute of Jamaica, and has had his work collected by several prominent individuals, both on and off the island.

Woodworking as a Living Art Form

In his earlier days Nicely made — and even today continues to make — decorative pieces such as fruit baskets from cedar wood, which take him roughly two days to make. His work then — and now — references the lush vegetation and animal life where he lives. But over the years, his work has grown steadily ambitious in size, scope and execution, and these days he makes such things as six- to eight-piece dining table sets, which can take him two to three weeks to put together.

“Why I do this work,” he told Meaningful Designs when we visited him, “is because I love seeing the piece I had visualized — the piece I had in my mind’s eye — finally come to life. That is the main reason why I continue making wooden furniture and decoration. In that moment before I start working on the wood, it is as if a kind of communication takes over with the wood and it all starts to come alive for me, even before I make my first mark! For me, the work that I do is a living art form, and I consider my work to be so much more than functional pieces of furniture.”

Looking at Gilbert Nicely’s work, it is easy to understand why he considers his work a “living art form” since the very organic nature of the wood is celebrated, and there is no attempt to camouflage parts of it that have been scratched or that have other “imperfections”. Rather, for Nicely, all those imperfections add to the authenticity of the piece.

And then there is the fact that the work, in its present form, seems to still be alive; indeed, seems to still be growing.

What is striking about Gilbert Nicely’s artistic process is the sense of at-oneness between himself and the material that he works in; there is a peacefulness in him that is carried over to his work. There never seems to be anything at all forced about the artist’s work. Indeed, the work looks more organic than not, as if there is an innate sense of communication and cooperation between the artist and the piece of wood that he is working on.

A Family Legacy of Woodworking

One of the things that Nicely takes great pride in is that, without plotting or prodding, two of his children have joined the family business. His son Omar and his daughter Cassie work with him. “My children saw the work that I was doing and they just gravitated towards it,” he said.

His children have benefited from the fact that Nicely has his workshop at his home. It was in his workshop that they saw him coaxing the wood as he worked with it, came to understand the character of different pieces of wood, and develop a respect for the wood — for the larger environment and ultimately, for art itself. From their father’s workshop they would watch the pieces go out in the world to have lives of their own.

“My works, they travel oftentimes more than I do,” Gilbert Nicely told us, laughing. “My works go out and they attend special functions, and sometimes they are put on display. Past ambassadors to Jamaica (such as the Nigerian ambassador to Jamaica, Mrs. Yukunga) have bought my work and taken it with them when they leave the island. So, too, did the wife of a past US ambassador to Jamaica. Other collectors of my work, as well, have taken it to many different countries. So while I am here, working exclusively in my workshop at home, the work is travelling all over the place!”

The Need for Environmental Protection and Stewardship

“I believe fully that the environment needs to be protected,” Nicely said emphatically when we put this question to him. “Because of this belief, my family and I, we plant a lot of trees, and most of the wood that we use in the workshop are from trees that have fallen down elsewhere. People know me so well by now that they know when a tree falls they can come and sell it to me. “So, yes, we are very careful in the wood that we use and from where we get that wood. We always take that into consideration.”

Gilbert Nicely can be contacted by e-mail at aj_artwood@yahoo.com. He can also be contacted by telephone at 1-876-374-4376 or 1-876-369-1153.

Until next time.

The cover image from this article is by Emma Lewis. Norman Gordon contributed reporting for this article. All the other images in this article are copyrighted to Norman Gordon.

Antillean Décor and Home Goods Company draws inspiration from the Caribbean

Katrina Coombs Discusses her Fetish for Creating Fine-Art Fiber Works, Thread by Thread

Using Objects as Evidence to Tell a Woman’s Story: An Interview with Amelia Peck, Curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

A Chinese Glass-Making Master Strives for Innovation in his Work

Revitalizing, Sustaining and Propagating the Crafts in India

The Island of St. John is home to Avelino Samuels, a Master Woodturner

Canadian Eileen Kwan Creates Exuberant Embroidered Landscapes One Patient Stitch at a Time

‘American Made’ Winner Rowland Ricketts Dreams of an Indigo-Making Revival

UK-based Company ‘Wild in Art’ Uses Figurines As Tools of Learning

Spectacular Wooden Furniture from Jamaica

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