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Category Archives: Environmental Conservation

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

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAnd 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.

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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.IMG_4101

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.”

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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.

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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.

IMG_4111“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.”

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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

Exuberance 6Several 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!”

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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

Exuberance 9 Exumberance 1She 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

Exuberance 8When 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.Exuberance 10

“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

Exuberance 2And 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.Exuberance 5

“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.Exuberance 4

“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.

Eileen Kwan's Long Relationship of Working With Her HandsGarden ExuberanceGorgeous EmbroideryIncorporating Winter into the GardenNature is an Expanded Canvas

‘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

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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

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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.”

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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.”

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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.”

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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

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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.

 

An Indigo-Making Revival in the United States and BeyondEnvironmentally Friendly Art-MakingIndigo-Making in Japan

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.

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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.

 IMG_20140618_202324      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.

IMG_20140618_162813“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.”

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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.

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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.

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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

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“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.

 

 

A Family Legacy of WoodworkingSpectacular Wooden Furniture from JamaicaThe Need for Environmental Protection and StewardshipWoodworking as a Living Art Form

Handsome Home Decorating Products from Vietnam

on August 5, 2014 by Jacqueline in Baskets, Design, Design tips, Dishes and plates, Eco-Friendly, Environmental Conservation, Fashion accessories, Furniture, Home Goods, House accessories, House Decorating, interior decorating, Organic Products, Plates, Recycled Paper, Recycled Tires, Vietnam ⋅ 1 Comment

Cover -1Home Decorating Products from Vietnam

It happened years ago, on a crisp summer day when my grandmother and I were walking from the tiny district of Nonsuch to the even tinier district of Cambridge, high in the Blue Mountains of Portland, Jamaica. We were walking by some tall wild green grass, grass which was much taller than a young girl walking beside her grandmother. I reached over to touch the grass but pulled back my hand quickly, and searched to see if the sharp green blades had sliced my palm. They hadn’t. My grandmother searched my palm, too, and when she was satisfied that nothing was wrong with her cherished granddaughter she told me how, as a young woman growing up in Nonsuch, she would use that very same grass to make baskets that were so good she ended up selling some of them.round-rattan-charger-plate1 I guess it was in that moment that I developed an almost irrational love of baskets, and so I am always on the lookout for a good basket, which is exactly what I found at the Vietnam Handicraft Company. The company makes furniture, bowls, trays, cutlery, platters, pots, and of course both large and small baskets, and other home goods and fashion accessories, from bamboo, rattan, sea grass, water hyacinth, fern, straw, palm leaves and, of all things, fashion magazine paper and recycled tires.water-hyacinth-wine-rackbamboo-basket 1

As I conducted the interview, I have to admit that I was surprised that something aesthetically pleasing could be made from recycled tires, or even fashion magazine paper for that matter. But I soon found myself looking at these coolly elegant baskets and vases. Fastidious home goods shopper that I am, I could immediately appreciate the craftsmanship, durability and beauty in the work. Recycled rubberRecycled-paper-vase Based in Hanoi, Vietnam, the Vietnam Handicraft Company is a manufacturing and trading company that specializes in making home goods and fashion accessories from natural resources. Says Mr. Vu Duc Hoan, founder of the company, “We use a lot of natural and recycled products in our company, which are local to Vietnam, to create eco-friendly products. We also use a lot of repurposed materials because we are trying to do our small part in protecting our environment and safeguarding our earth.”

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Mr. Hoan created his company as a way of providing meaningful income for people living in the rural areas of Vietnam. As he says, “Our country, Vietnam, is still a developing country, and there are many people who still plant rice, for example, by hand. After crop season, many of these people, unfortunately, do not have work, and life for them can become quite difficult. In creating the Vietnam Handicraft Company I was looking for a way for these individuals to continue earning money throughout the year, and I wanted to do this by utilizing the used, natural, or discarded materials in Vietnam.” Such a project, Mr. Hoan believes, “would bring real value to the people of Vietnam while helping us to reconnect with the materials of our country, and the materials discarded in our country.”

 

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I cannot think of a more worthwhile thing to do.

In addition to rightfully taking pride in the products that his company creates, and, indeed, how he creates these products, Mr. Hoan also takes immense pride in the many services—especially the customer service—provided by the Vietnam Handicraft Company. “We offer buyers worldwide complete service: from sampling, to packing, shipping, the opportunity to order smaller quantities in mixed lots, and all of this will be delivered at our customers’ door.Our expertise is manufacturing the right product, at the right price, with the best quality for our customers. We back customers’ orders with our commitment to providing peace of mind to our customers on anything they have purchased.”

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A great product, at a great price, with total commitment to customer service, while working to safeguard the environment? Sounds like a winning combination to me. Here is where you can place orders for goods from the Vietnam Handicraft Company: http://vietcraft.vn

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Until next time.

Ceramics is a Family Business in a Small City in Southern Spain

on July 3, 2014 by Jacqueline in Ceramic, Design, Dishes and plates, Eco-Friendly, Environmental Conservation, Garden supplies, Gifts, Home Goods, Pottery, Spain ⋅ 5 Comments

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Sometimes I realize that I was looking for something only after I have found what it was that I was looking for. And so it was, one Saturday morning I was browsing through a large department store when, from a distance, I spotted and immediately had to have some brightly colored and richly designed ceramic plates and bowls. My hands were crowded with the things I had been picking up along the way, but the moment I spotted the Cerámica Del Río Salado bowls and plates, I put all the things that now felt like heavy burdens in my hands by the wayside and walked purposefully over to examine the beautiful delicate ceramic plates. These plates, I decided then and there, were really why I was in the store that morning, and mentally I saw them replacing the dishes I had at home.

image 2As I stood looking at the observable differences on each of the pieces — the plates and bowls handmade with great care — I wondered who, in this day and age, made handmade pieces that could be bought in a large department store.

So I went to find out the story behind these beautiful ceramic pieces.

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Cerámica Del Río Salado is a family-owned business located in La Rambla, a small town in the Andalucían region of Spain. Today the company is owned and operated by four brothers, but, says co-owner Jesus Del Río Salado, “It was my father who started the company in 1969. My father at the time was working as a young man in a company that fabricates ceramic. He really liked what he was doing and he came home and was telling my mother about it. He and my mother decided back then to start their life together by creating and operating their own ceramic company. They named their company Jose Del Río Salado, which was my father’s name. This is how our company came into the world of ceramics.”

 Given the rich history associated with the company that his father started, I wondered what brought about the company’s change of name from Jose Del Río Salado to Cerámica Del Río Salado. “We are four brothers who now work in, own and manage the company,” Jesus told me. “When my brothers and I took ownership of the company, we changed the name to give a sense of our new role in a new company.”

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The company makes a wide variety of ceramic products for the kitchen, for decorations, to be given as gifts, and for the garden, as well as producing one-of-a-kind pieces upon request. “Our designs, which are exclusive and patented, are made by a team of four designers who work to develop pieces that show the human handprint in the making of the pieces.”

Of course when I told him how much I liked his handmade pottery, so much so that I wanted to feature it on Meaningful Designs, Jesus was delighted. “My brothers and I, we grew up working in ceramics and we love working in ceramics. We are always on the lookout for something new, and we are always experimenting with new designs and new colors. We are always on the lookout for new customers. Part of the work that we produce and sell is for our local and national market, here in Spain. But in the last decade or so we have been reaching out to an export market, and so we are delighted that you have such a positive reaction to our products. We try to personalize the work we do here at Cerámica Del Río Salado, so that we can reach as many people in as many countries as possible.”

This method of personalizing ceramics for individuals and different markets in different countries seems to be working. The small family-owned business has quadrupled its sales volume in recent years and has expanded the list of countries that it exports to. It now directly employs twenty individuals to work in the company’s facilities, while another twenty individuals work indirectly in trying to meet the increased demands for their products.

image 8

 Not bad, for a small family-owned company.

Cerámica Del Río Salado also offers a series of national prizes for ceramics. “The national prizes are held every year in Córdoba City,” Jesus told me, “and I guess we started them because for many years my father won many prizes in ceramics, and my brothers and I won some too. We started thinking that it would be a good way of ‘giving back’ to a community that has given so much to our family, by having a prize associated with the place where our company is located and where our family is from. So we have these ceramics prizes and competitions in various categories including one that is open to candidates on pieces of ceramics with no decoration, to valorize just the shape and the craftsmanship of the piece. Another prize concerns ceramic painting and drawing by hand. We have several categories, and very much enjoy putting on these competitions.”image 9

Following up on the theme of “giving back” and safeguarding of traditions, Cerámica Del Río Salado pays particular attention to environmental concerns. “The place where we work is known for its stunning clay which has given a certain look to ceramics from this region for years going back to the Bronze ages. Our company is based in an area in Spain known for its primary materials, and for having a rich history linked to the production of pottery. The clay from our area, however, is no longer used in ceramics and pottery, so we now make our products largely with imported clay. We urge the companies that we buy our clay from to pay attention to the environment, and to work to safeguard the environment, as we do in our work. After all, this earth is the only one we’ve got!”

 Contact Cerámica Del Río Salado at: http://www.delriosalado.com

Until next time.

Soumia Aamar Ikrame helped with the reporting on this article and Michelle Vassallo worked on translations.

 

Gorgeous Recycled-Paper Goods from Women in Morocco

on June 9, 2014 by Jacqueline in Design, Eco-Friendly, Environmental Conservation, Female Empowerment, Furniture, Home Goods, Interior Design, Morocco, Organic Products, Recycled Paper ⋅ 3 Comments

Five years ago when a friend gave Asmaa Benachir a small beautiful bag made of recycled paper, her friend had no idea how she would be changing the artist’s life. Ms. Benachir was instantly enchanted with the little bag and started experimenting with recycled paper. The result was Au Grain de Sésame, an arts and crafts initiative that trains disadvantaged women to design and create organic products based on an innovative technique of recycling paper. Table 2 Based in Rabat, Morocco, Au Grain de Sésame specializes in producing a great many home goods from recycled paper, including center tables, stools, baskets, vases, trays, bags, and a host of other products. Indeed Asmaa Benachir, though the work of the Au Grain de Sésame, is pioneering a new form of furniture made only from recycled paper. Ms. Benachir sees the work that the women of Au Grain de Sésame do as “preserving and promoting the local art and cultural heritage of Morocco. Au Grain de Sésame contributes to raising awareness of environmental conservation, while encouraging the choice of eco-friendly purchasing.” Vase 4

But can paper possibly be sturdy enough for such things as center tables, waste baskets and stools?

Yes, Asmaa Benachir answers emphatically. You can make home goods, she says, in paper that will hold up as much as any other household product does. The trick to all of this is in knowing what you are doing, and building something that is durable.

I first became aware of Asmaa Benachir when she came to an exhibition I had in Morocco. When we got to talking, so fascinated was I with the idea that recycled paper could make household goods that I went to visit her at her gorgeous little gallery in the medina in Rabat. I saw the many paper-goods she had in the gallery, including an astonishing series of furniture, but a part of me still wondered, despite how sturdy they were to the touch, if they could actually hold up. So in 2009 I decided to take Ms. Benachir up on her challenge.

Furniture 1

I commissioned from her a large suitcase-like bag that I would use to carry artwork back from Morocco to the United States. Let me be clear here, I told her, the bag would not actually fly with me in the plane, would not be part of my carry-on luggage, but instead would be checked onto the flight. And it would be carrying some of my precious artwork.

No problem, Ms. Benachir said. I can do that for you.

I am happy to report that so many years later, that bag is still going strong. bag 1

When I said this to Ms. Benachir in preparation for this article, she was delighted. “And it’s a natural product!” she said, leaning back in the workshop of the new and larger space in Rabat that she has just opened. “And think about it. Paper will not harm the environment, and that is one of the reasons I so enjoy working with recycled paper. It is sturdy and strong and it will not harm the environment! That is what I am trying to impart at Au Grain de Sésame. I am trying to sensitize women to the socio-economic importance of protecting the environment, and I want as many people as possible to know that you can do this by working with recycled paper, and that you can make beautiful yet durable things from recycled paper.” Frame 3Frame 2

The work of the Au Grain de Sésame is twofold. On the one hand, the space functions as an artistic gallery. However, as Ms. Benachir explained to me, the larger aim of the work of Au Grain de Sésame is “the empowerment of women.” Ms. Benachir is of the belief that art can be a means of development for countries like Morocco, and this is what she is showing and showcasing through the gorgeous handmade recycled paper works at Au Grain de Sésame.

And it is important, too, for Ms. Benachir that she works with women.

women 1

Says she, “One of the things that is known about Morocco is that we make beautiful products. Women in particular make absolutely beautiful products, artisanal products. Women in fact make these products quite easily.” What was missing from the work that women do, though, Ms. Benachir found, was a way for them to “professionally market and sell their products.”

 She was also quite troubled by the ways in which female artisans were “dependent on a maâlem—a person who has extensive knowledge about a certain craft but who is often reluctant to transmit this knowledge to others.” These are some of the obstacles for women that Ms. Benachir seeks to overcome in the work she does at Au Grain de Sésame.

women 2REV

Benachir achieves her goal through a series of workshops. “The workshops that we run,” she told me, “include book-binding, artistic packaging, furniture decorating, art framing, and a workshop on making strong durable furniture from cardboard. We also have a print workshop and run a gift shop and cafe, as well.” Vase 1

She admits that the work of development is hard, with one of the main challenges being securing funding to keep the enterprise going. “We were lucky to get a SEED grant recently,” she says. “And we have three enthusiastic American volunteers who are working with us. But every day it is a struggle.”

But for Ms. Benachir it is a struggle that is clearly worth it.

Because of her strong belief that there is a lot of unchanneled creativity particularly in women in developing countries, she hopes that in the work she is doing with Au Grain de Sésame she is launching a project that can be duplicated in other countries.

She points to the name of her collective, to explain why she remains optimistic despite the many challenges she faces in doing her job. “A grain is such a small thing,” she says from her new workshop, bright sunlight pouring through windows and doors as we talk. “A grain is a seed, something that, if you take care of it, can give you a lot. The first seed that you plant and take care of can give unintended results. Beautiful results. A seed can be magical. In fact, a seed is a magic formula—like in the myths of ‘open sésame.’ When you bring the two ideas together—Au Grain de Sésame—you bring together will and work to realize dreams.”

  AsmaaAnd a little bit of magic too, I would add, looking at the beautiful works that Ms. Benachir and the women of Au Grain de Sésame create.

Asmaa Benachir and Au Grain de Sésame can be contacted through their Facebook page. In a few weeks their new website www.augraindesesame.com should be up and running.

Until next time.

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