Create Art

Create Art is our topic for the Week 4 of our journey of 52 pictures with Focus on Life

Sally is so right - " There is no wrong way to be creative."  True.

When I see a young four year old child paint,  I see he is totally in to the process, some times even oblivious of the finished product.  He doesn't  care if his painting is coveted  in  art galleries.

 That happen as we grow old.

We become critical of our production.  We become our worst critique. Self criticism slowly creeps on  and  kills the artist child in us.

But to many people it is as vital as food.  Art is needed to nourish the soul.

I have this quote framed  and I  kept it  on my jewelry making table.

Yet, I think there needs to be a fine balance so that I can improve and  learn new things and sharpen my skill every day.  This week I plan to make some knitted valentine hearts with garnet and amethyst. Some thing like this but each one should be different.

 I am trying to become more organized.

I love to make jewelry but the harder part is selling them. And with out selling them how can I create more?  How'd I buy the raw materials?

Some times I feel like this too.

Then I pick up myself up and remind :

Please check all the other bloggers' posts and see what they are writing  about this topic -  CREATE ART

Old Coin Jewelry – One quarter anna – from the British Raj – India 1835

Yesterday I had a strange experience, an adventure you may say.  I was going through some old suitcases and in one of them I found old family pictures, letters and many memorabilia.

You know how you lose track of time on those situations,  on those walks down the memory lanes.   I came across a piece of cotton handkerchief, all bundled up and knotted, seemed like it contained some thing, like coins.

I open up the knot and inside I found many  old coins indeed, from all over the world.  I am fascinated with old  coins.  So much so that I took several tutorials to learn how to wrap coins.  I’ll even show you some of my samples.

Coin jewelry

But this one is  a copper coin, quite dirty and old.  It is from India and after rubbing a bit I see the year marks 1835.

I get goose bumps.  It is a rare quarter of an anna.  One side there is a design of leaves; the other side has the face of the Empress.

Holding this quarter of an anna, which was called, a pice,  in those days, I was feeling like I am holding an eternity in  the palm of my hand.

This well circulated piece has seen so much until it was stuck in that suitcase.  I have no idea how it ended up there.  It has seen so much of history.

India was under the British Raj then,  I suppose.  This coin was perhaps minted in Calcutta at the latest in  December 1835. Right after that there was  the coin strike due to lack of copper. 

This one  has pure copper.  This is the time period when the East India Company is slowly capturing India, more than just trading. It had started the process of breaking the back bone of her culture. The British has started poisoning the spirit of the country

Why I say that?  Why am I such bitter?  Here is the quote from Lord Mc Cauley’s speech of Feb 2, 1835 to the British Parliament:

Lord McCauley in his speech of Feb 2, 1835, British Parliament

"I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such calibre, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native self-culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation".

There were no beggars in the street said the Lord.

 I look at my coin again.  If it could talk it would have started sobbing by now. It would babble about   how many beggars and thieves it had seen since then, how many rich, generous, people it had also come across and how it landed to our family.

 Who was this last person?  When did the quarter of an anna become obsolete? 

I research what it is worth today.  I find its monetary value any where from $10 to $250,   perhaps even more.  I don’t know.

 What about its real value?  What could a pice buy then?  I have no proof to link but I remember a childhood poem in Bengali, my mother tongue.  Translating it, it would sound like:

How on earth did you spend all that oil-  a pice worth of oil?

Your beard, my foot, then on our baby boy

  weddings of the  daughter and son
seven nights there were lights and the band,
after that you ask what I did with that oil?  a pice worth of oil?

Well,  I decided not to let it go, whatever its value be   I decided to make it beautiful and then give it to some one close who will fully appreciate it.

 I do have many other coins that I am going to wrap soon and take to my etsy shop.

Right now I have only one from Thailand

It's about TIME

Time is in your hand, but is it really?

From the morning to night I feel like I am running against time and can never catch up.

I have all the tools, like my smart phone ( which makes me feel unsmart many times) and I feel instead of having this instrument in my hand,  it rather has me in its!

For example,  I am all the time at its mercy for answering phone calls and text messaging, taking pictures and sending, staying up to date with all my social networks and what not.  I was not like this.  If people did not get me when they called ( in the times when there was no answering machines), they'd wait.   I did not  have to be available all the time even when I am driving.

But these days I have become like this.  I am checking my e mails a million time and I feel some days nothing is done.

Well, this is when I console myself  with a cup of hot coco or just sit straight and take a deep breath.

  This is the key.  I remind myself of a  Time Management class I had taken a couple of years ago.

Our leader gave us a cup, some pebbles or large beads  and some sand or seed beads.  She asked us to fill the cup.  Everything has to fit.

 I found that when I poured the pebbles or  large beads first and then poured the seed beads every thing fitted but if I'd  try to start with the seed beads first and then the large beads, it did  not work.

The same thing happens in life, in  my daily life.

 Prioritize what is important .

 This new year I sat down and wrote down what is important to me in life, in my jewelry business and now I made a concrete  plan  how I want to achieve it.  When I am precise and to the point about the what, when how aspects of  the plan,  it made it easier for me to put the details on a daily and weekly basis.  These are like  my big beads .  Checking e mails and keeping in touch with   Face book and Twitter, I consider are the seed beads.  They have to go but after the big beads.

Planning in 90 minutes slots

I had read this is  in some time management blog ( I forgot the main source now, sorry I can't give the credit to the writer),  now  I had a chance to incorporate that recently and found that it is highly effective.  Twice a week I take care of my grand  baby who sleeps for about 90 minutes at a stretch
 ( plus - minus of course).  Her naps are my time to write.  I think this time frame and the specific topic  keep me focused.  This works much better than the other days when I have the whole day to myself.

The other days are for making jewelry, going to post office and bank, taking pictures and uploading in Etsy etc along with running the house.

My goal is to have my week more specific with these activities instead of keeping a whatever-whenever attitude.

Multi tasking:  Is it good or bad?

How about doing two or more things at a time?  Do I do it?  Yes.  For example I can knit easy designs while watching T.V. or fold my laundry while chatting with a friend ( in speaker phone  of course) but can I do an intricate wire work and also watch a movie?  No I can't.  Or, listen to an audio book and also follow a tutorial that I have recently down loaded?  No I can't.  I make mistakes in both.  I miss some part of the story and miss some important things in the tutorial.

I thought it was my short coming until I watched a program in the PBS  about - how our brain works and then came across this article.   So I decided to give my full attention to things I consider important, like the stories  my little friend says about her day at school and baking a special cake.


I like to give my 100%.

And that includes the jewelry I make and sell. 

This is out WEEK 3's topic inspired by Sally's blog project.  Please check out all the other bloggers posts too  about Time .

The Bleeding Heart - a knitted bracelet in red

Here is a bracelet knitted with memories and thanks.

This blog is about that... memories and thanks.

It is about  the memory of  a person who is important in my life.

Just one person?  Hmmm.

The idea came from our dear friend Lori Anderson who organizes  bead soup parties each year and we wait anxiously to be part of it.

We came to know from her blog about the sad story about Marianna, who was   just another interested  bead loving party hopper like us,  but could not make it at the end.  This blog is to  honor her and the friendship we all share.

The healing heart - a knitted bracelet with all shades of red

Marianna loved red.  As I was fiddling with my beads and the thoughts about memories and friendships, many faces were   coming to me.  Some of them have passed away, like my mom's, who also loved red, and some friends' whom I have never seen but met in the virtual web land, one of them is  Lori Anderson.

This blog is dedicated to them, who have given me so much in life.

As I knit the red  beads-  scarlet, sienna and crimson, all the shades of red in the grey C lon yarn I feel a strange feeling...how special art is,  and how it heals.  I remember the saying -
 "Art washes away the dirt from our  every day life"- Picasso.

About this piece- I got the central  idea from Earthfaire, even though I have used different shades of beads  They have the kit too, and it is quite lovely.  if you want to know more.

 I like to knit and have tried jewelry pieces with knitted wire style before .  This one is with yarn. This is my  first mixed media venture.

Please visit all the other blogs that are taking part honoring memories and friendship.

Love

Week 2 prompt from Sally Russik's blog project: - A WORD

My word is LOVE.

I was thinking what is the most important thing to me today and the word that floated up is LOVE.

There is not much to talk about it because it is a feeling.

 
Yet 

and

With these thoughts I'll show you what I created recently this week :

A Knitted silver  heart with garnet and hessonite 

 

Now let's go to Sally's site on Focusing on Life one photo a week and see what all the other participants have for us for this week2

Focusing

 Focusing  on myself was the first thing I started this year with.

 I mean  I learned  a  new thing this  New Years day.  It  is  taking self portrait in my smart phone.  This smart phone makes me feel pretty dumb at times and this New Year's day  its  smirk  made  me  feel like... I want to try  to shape up.  Really..

 You can say, out of a zillion resolutions I  make around this early January days,  becoming a  bit  more tech savvy is  one of them.

 Talking about using the smart phone for taking photos,  I mean taking my own picture  I had to take  at least  30 shots and out of them only a couple  came out okay  good. This one I like best.

As I was browsing through my favorite blogs I came to Sally's site.  She is having this cool project of Focusing on Life . Taking self portrait was the very first project.  .

It makes sense.  Everything starts from within, within thy self.

I was pretty happy to find that out.  How strangely thought waves link. 

Sandyhook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut and how to deal with that

26 innocent children and 8 adults are  killed in an Elementary School  in Connecticut - how do I deal with a news like that,  faraway in California, yet so close?

There is so much to do today, but as I open the television this morning I am horrified with this national tragic news.  I am stunned and stocked.

There  should be Christmas in the air and I am scheduled to deck the halls and decorate my house for the holidays according to my" to do list".  But I find myself  all alone sitting here with tears rolling down my cheeks,  listening to the  horrible unfolding  stories of the shooting that took place this morning.

I hear the President brushing off tears speaking more as a father today than as  an official commander in chief.

Sandyhook school is a small Elementary school with only 600 children ( 5 - 10 years of age) in a quiet, peaceful neighborhood in Connecticut.  People know each other here in this quaint little rural town.

The killer( 24 year old Ryan )  is a person whose mother worked   as a kindergarten class teacher and he entered his mom's class with two hand guns and started shooting.  His mom is dead with 26 innocent children.  Not only that, the shooter died too

Where is the fallacy in this equation?  What's wrong?  What do we learn from this?  How can we prevent this in future?  And most importantly WHY????

 Psychiatrist Dr. Joshua Weiner is bombarded  with these questions too. How do we answer  to the child when he asks " WHY"?    How do we respond to his fears?

His answers in a nutshell:

* Children will take cues from the adults and parents.  So first deal with your own  emotions  and be comfortable and strong.  Seek support groups to talk and do something constructively.
Realize that it does not happen everyday. Most days everyone comes back home safely.  It is tragic and unfair, yet, try to see the whole picture and be positive.

At the end of the day reassure your child that s/he is safe and you'll do everything to keep her/him safe with an extra tight hug.

*Children may not be able to  articulate their emotions.  Help them with words, writing and art opportunities to express that emotion.

* Some children may not show it all now, but it will come out in bits and  pieces over a period of time in the near future.  Be prepared for that.  This may come as extra clinging, moodiness, eating fusses, even bed wetting.  Be supportive and understanding.  It is possible that this may  manifest over the next two weeks.  After that if the problem remains,  he suggested to seek professional help.

* Most children will be resilient and take it as a bad dream  or bad scene from a movie and recover.

Statistically  speaking, 85% of the population will be able to cope with it, 15% will have hard time he concluded.

Where am I in this curve?  Am I in the 15% or in the 85% lot?  How do I respond to this tragedy?  How can I accept the fact that those 26 children will have no Christmas this year or birthdays, or graduation ceremonies, no weddings, no children of their own...  and I go on with my life?


I stare at my TO DO list  again.  It says:

* make the jewelry gift for....
* shopping for the goody...
* take out Christmas box and decorate the ...

But I feel numb.  This hour is not for any of those.

So,  I pick up my pen and let it weep.Weep  for those innocent victims and  their families and pray.