Wednesday, November 20, 2013

india/part two







































I have so many images from my trip to India which makes it very difficult to edit down to just a few for my posts!  We visited some really wonderful work spaces of the local crafts people and artists.  These  photos come from our time spent at the Indigo Village, Sanganer which is a block printing village, and to the Leheriya Dyer's workshop in Old Jaipur (the walled part of the city.)  We watched as carvers hand carved blocks of wood for block printing.  There were demonstrations of the various techniques used in hand block printing.  At the Leheriya Dyer's workshop we were shown how one piece of fabric is tied with multiple pieces of string to create a striping or plaid pattern....this can take up to three hours just to tie one piece of  fabric! These fabrics are used for saris and turbans.  It's one of the last remaining workshops in Jaipur still making this cloth by hand.  

Coming next in my series on India will be images from around Jaipur, along with photos of my trip to see the Taj Mahal. 






















Tuesday, November 5, 2013

india/part one

































I just returned from an amazing journey to India where I took part in a hand block printing workshop taught by Lotta Jansdotter and arranged thru Angela Ritchie's Ace Camps. I met up with a dozen amazing women in Jaipur who all signed up for this trip which included my dear friend, and fellow ceramicist, Paula Greif, and also included the photographer Jen Causey the creator of The Makers Project (you will want to see her images of India on her website.)  We spent four days at the gorgeous villa of Andree Pouliot, Ninder Mahal, learning about and making block prints....it was heaven!  Ninder Mahal sits high on hill overlooking a little village where we had a clear view of the activities of the resident monkeys, one of which visited us one afternoon for lunch.  They're not as cute when they want your lunch!  These images are of Ninder Mahal during our workshop including the beautiful lunch they prepared for us each day, the confections that Angela bought for us in the Old City to enjoy with our afternoon tea, some of the prints I made, the antique printing block of a cat that Jessica named Jerry (Jerry now lives in Brooklyn with Lotta!)  and Andree greeting our group on the steps of Ninder Mahal.

This will be the first in a series I will be posting about my journey in India.  I have so many photos to share.  The next post will include some of the places Angela and Andree (who has been designing hand block printed textiles for over 30 years and sold thru her Jaipur store Soma) took us to including an Indigo Village, a Leheriya Dyer's workshop in the Old City of Jaipur, the Anokhi Museum of Bock Printing and the block printing village of Sanganer.  

You can also see my India photos on my instagram page.