Wire artist Ruth Asawa

Wire knitting artist Ruth Asawa:

As I work with wire knit and crochet techniques I wanted to see some master pieces in this field and I came across the name Ruth Asawa.


This was around October last year.  I was fascinated seeing her art just in two dimensional pictures.  I became more interested reading about her in Wkikpedia, about her early life in the Japanese interment, how she bloomed despite all the struggles and how art played a significant role in her life, in her survival.


Ruth Asawa said - " Art is for everyone"  and she carried that message in her art activism.

Ruth Asawa,  a Bay Area living artist inspires me and one of my dream is to meet her in person someday.

Atleast, I wanted to see her work.  The first one I saw around Christmas time in the Ghiradelli Square- Andrea's Fountain.  I came to know that Ruth Asawa is also called as the Fountain lady!

Yesterday Nina ( my daughter) and I went to the De Young Museum in San Francisco to see her work.  It is mesmerizing.

Look at this picture

A wire knitted piece of about 3 or 4  feet diameter is joined with several spherical and hat like structures is hanging from the wall.  The whole piece is about 10 to 12 ft long. This huge piece is probably created with 15g or even thicker, may be 10 g wire, otherwise it would not have supported the structure.  But what  a delicate and lacy look  it has!

I compare it with my lame puny one that I had made . The same viking knitting method is used here too, it seems.  Correct me if you think differently,  please.   I did it with 26 g wire with the Lazee Daisee tool sitting on my lap.

                                                        alankarshilpa.etsy.com

How on earth did Ruth Asawa  manage to create this humongous piece with such ease?  What did she use to start with?  I am totally blown away.  I bow down to this artist for what she had given to us.

Do you make wire art?  Wire knit or crochet?  Then, I'd like to feature you.  Just let me know in your comment.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year my friends.

May the new year 2012 bring much happiness to us.  But hey, what is happiness really?  They say happiness is more important than any thing- fame, power  money, even  health...

Really! Yes.  Statistics show that an old person with much pain and ailment may show a bigger smile than a pretty young person who is always running to check off items from her TO DO list.

But I am a To Do check list person too and in order to achieve happiness I need that tool, my dear friend.  If I can't measure it I can't prove it.

Recently I came across an interesting book named the Happiness Project.

The writer Gretchen Rubin brought all kinds of great minds starting from Aristotle to Dalai Lama to define what this term HAPPINESS means.  She divided the whole year into 12 broad category and decided to tackle each item every month.

For example, January is for energy, February for love - relationship...etc etc.

Here I got a bit confused taking her footsteps and using her template for achieving happiness.

I thing yes, taking first thing first is an idea, but if I am all absorbed in LOVE for one month the other aspects of my life are going to feel like orphans.  Am I going to stop exercising for the month of Feb, or drop my resolutions about my infant business until August ?  How does it work?

Well, this best seller book must have gone deeper than that and I must have missed something.

For the time being I will go back to my old ways of being happy.  Just go back to my mirror to bring  a big smile that I may give a bit to each person I meet today, to  the whole world, no matter what.

Did you have a chance to go to this website of Happiness Project or read this book?  I'd like to hear your feed back. Please leave a comment.

P.S. Here is an interesting blog on this topic Take a look 

October Jewelry

What are you doing for Halloween?

This Halloween I miss going to the pumpkin farm trips that I used to do with my little preschooler friends in the Montessori school. What astonishes me most is the wonder in their eyes. Seeing such a vast mass of orange color, the weird sizes and shapes of the pumpkins and a trip where they could show off their family to their teacher and their  teacher to their  family was such a special treat for them.

It is that sense of wonder that I want to hold on to and take into my life and never lose it. This is what my little students taught me.

As I was thinking about these things I did manage to knit a necklace with carnelian chips and antique gold swarovski crystal beads with very thin  gold filled wire. The various shades of orange in the carnelian chips made me happy, a feeling of October that I could pass on to my jewelry creation!

A friend came over last weekend and he is so nice, he took some pictures of my just finished piece.  He is quite a photographer and many of his landscapes are published in magazines!  At the bottom of this picture you see his web address, not my store:)

Wasn’t that thoughtful of him to give me this precious gift, appreciating my creation and taking pictures?

October ornament

Walking further down the memory lane, I remember the smell, sound and images of my home in India, where I was born and brought up. This is the time of Diwali.

It is  that time of the year when we clean, paint, fix our homes and renew it with beautiful things. New clothes are bought for each member of the family, including the helpers. Sweet meats cook in the kitchen. Friends and relatives visit with greetings. Children light fire crackers.

Cities dress with garlands of light. Each house is lit with lamps and candles. We pray to banish all darkness from our mind and fill it up with goodwill.

This is the time to give.

In my store too you’ll find a coupon for Diwali Special.

Just put the coupon code DIWALI10

It is valid until Nov 10, 2011. Diwali will be on the new moon night, October 26th , this year.

Wish you Happy Diwali and Happy Halloween too.

EtsyBloggers Team: Productivity -- Blog Carnival

EtsyBloggers Team: Productivity -- Blog Carnival

http://alankarshilpa.blogspot.com/2011/10/time-management.html

Time Management

How do I manage time?

How do I  get more hours out of the twenty four hour day?

And am I a multitasker? or, do I rather prefer to finish one project before starting another?  These were the questions my Etsy  blogger friends asked.

It reminds me of a workshop I had taken a couple of years ago.  We were to fit a jar with some big stone pebbles and a bag of seed beads.  I found to my surprise that when I poured the seed beads first I could not fit the big stones any more.  When I started with the big stones and then the seed beads, they somehow all managed to fit in the same amount of space.

My 24 hour day is like the jar.  When I started with the big jobs first, I could manage to squeeze in the  small jobs (seed bead like ones ) too.  The analogy is great.  But the challenge is to understand which ones are the important pebbles and which ones are seed beads.

To me I prioritize in the following order: health, immediate family, career and job, home and hobby, extended family, neighbors and friends.  Some times I do get side tracked and waste the whole day browsing in the internet. 


I do use a to do list, a google calender, an organizer binder and a kitchen timer to keep me in track.  Believe me, with out these tools I would be lost.

But today, this Sunday afternoon, I stop to ponder how important is it to accomplish those to do list?  It is equally important to slow down, take a break to smell the rose, enjoy a cup of hot coco and just do nothing.  That makes me more aware about life and living and what I value in this journey.

That helps me to prioritize the to do  list for the following days.

Well you asked - am I a multi tasker?

Heck yeh!  Some times I am like a whirled wind maniac, tangled with many projects at the same time.  Especially,when I am beading other ideas come and I can't stop.  And all the beads and findings make a huge big mess like this -

I hate this but I am so caught up playing with the muse, I just can't help it.

But I really do not like that.  I like to take one job at a time and like to be nice and organized, having a place for each thing and every thing in its place.

Life is not quite like that with  me.  So while the washing machine tumbles I wind up coils to creat earring.  I use the 30 minute timer to see how much time each jewelry project takes.  This helps me to price them too.  Then I must get up to give my eyes and back a break and load the dish washer.

While the stew simmers I catch up writing my blog or upload in Etsy shop.

But the best thing I like is to sit down with a bowl of yummy munchies and  check on the comments my friends leave in my blog , which is  multi tasking.  Isn't it? :) 

A Jewelry Story

I'll remember this jewelry story for a long time and after I came back from the wedding party ( that I went to attend this weekend) I was itching to put it down in my blog. It deserves a post in my journal.  Sorry, it took two and a half days.

I met a wonderful lady last Saturday in a wedding party.  She was a School Principal and I was  in the school community for some time too,  so we  had many common concerns and topics to share.  We were worried the way the  school districts are cutting Art Programs.  It is always the" budget " to blame.

I told her I was going to participate in an  Art Fair on October 1 and 2 as a jewelry artist and this fair - the Art in the Park Fair, sponsored by the Alamo Danville Art Society ( ADAS) is contributing 10% to the school district.  Actually we, vendors are giving 10% of our sale to the  local San Ramon school community for restoring the Art program.

It is a great thing that ADAS is bringing the artists and the community together to solve this budget problem.  Art is essential to many people especially children, we both agree.

Coming to know that I make jewelry she told me  a beautiful story that I want to share today.

Why do we wear jewelry?  Well, to show power.  You know who is the king or the royal heirarchy from the crowns they  wear;  to show STATUS - that is why people go for  expensive jewelry; just  for the sake of BEAUTY, for EMOTION - that's why you wear your wedding ring and now  I learned that you also wear jewelry to remind you a special message.

Here is her story:

Long ago when gold was only $35 an ounce, Helen went traveling with her husband and bought a moonstone.  In  this far away land this precious stone was a great buy she thought  and perhaps her husband bought it to her lovingly as a souvenir.  But what will a round moonstone do unless it is set?

Much later, another day on their walk,  they came to see a small sign  saying JEWELRY REPAIRING  or something like that.

They open the small door of the shop. It  creaks.  A man with a heavy foreign accent appears.

"How may I help?"

They showed the moonstone and asked if he could set it to a ring. 

"Yes, of course, I'll put some  tiny Hyderabadi pearls that look like grains of rice around it ...How'bout that?" - he asked.

Helen could see it in her mind's eye.  Perfect.

"But you'll have to pay for the customs, mailing and a small charge for my labor" - said the man.

They agreed.

Many days passed.  Helen really did not expect it will ever come.  It is one of those things we get into  when we buy souvenirs in foreign countries, she thought. 

Then, one day  when she had  almost forgotten  about it, the door bell rang.

"You have a packet Ma'am from a foreign mail"-  said  the Mail man.

It was that moonstone ring surrounded by tiny rice pearls!

Helen showed me her ring.  It is beautiful, but more beautiful is when her eyes glistened.

-" It reminds me not to lose trust in people.  Never to lose hope! That's why I wear it."

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In the mean time I am working extremely hard for this show.  I'll show you what I had been doing until 2 in the morning yesterday night:

Here I tried to integrate the Viking Knit  of the West with the Bali beads  of the East

Here I tried to integrate the Herring Bone Wire work  that actually came from Old World Basket weaving with a  present day twist.

 

New beads - new attempts

I got some interesting beads .  But I was not looking for them.  I went to buy a Lazee Daizy Viking tool.  Lately I am into Viking knit.  I bought a spool, the French spool kind of thing, but it did not do what I wanted.  So I was dilly dallying.. should I buy this plastic tool for $29.99?  what if it does not work in my hands any way ?  But I did and just before going out these black and white beads rolled into my hand.  The designs are so pretty I could not leave them.

Here is what I did with them.

Then to match with the bracelet I created a whole set:)

I am getting quite carried away.  I am making some more.  They are soon going to go to my etsy store.  But I am keeping one for myself.