From Brahma to Buddha, Fall 2008

A few of Mirise's creations

I watched the pink clouds slowly fade as the sun set in the west on my ride home from Jewelry Design 'class'. I say 'class' because it is actually me sitting on a couch on a rooftop terrace overlooking the city of Jaipur and the mountains behind it, listening to music and sketching designs for 3 hours.

The wisps of pink hanging in the sky matched the patchwork quilt of pink, white, and purple flowers lining the streets. These flowers, which turned into fluorescent blurs as my rickshaw driver picked up speed, were further complimented by the walls of pink buildings I was immersed within. (The word pink here is a rough translation for their actual color, salmon.)

I sat on the rooftop terrace today, drinking chai, listening to music, and sketching. My Guru, Sujata, has been out for the past 3 days dealing with matters of her jewelry business, and so I have been on many adventures throughout the Pink City. She has sent me to a jewelry manufacturer, a place where the actual pieces of jewelry are made, where metal is molded, stones are fitted, etc etc. These men were creating some of the most elaborate, detailed jewelry I had ever seen, all with their hands. I also went to The Gemstone Guy, or the man who buys and sells the actual gems, cuts them carves them engraves them turns them into beads etc etc. I saw all of the different kinds of stones, how they were cut (by hand!!) to create that multi-dimensional shiny look a diamond has. Finally, I've been to Chawa Hali Market, the place where raw silver is bought and sold, where silver pieces are bought and sold, etc etc. It was totally fascinating to see how the small label guy sells his homemade jewelry to the big time labels, which are then sold for 10x their price just because they are under a "Designer Name" when really that "designer" did not even design that piece of jewelry... I met this one man who insisted upon telling me all about the corruption within the jewelry business, and how it is all interconnected with politics and what not.... I am not quite sure to make of what he told me, but whatever, it's not really important to me anyways.

After all of this, however, after seeing craftspeople creating incredibly detailed items by hand, I have an entirely new concept of the words "Made in India". This is written on soooo many things back home, and yet that thought, "Made in India" never really crossed my mind. The amount of people who go into the process of production, from designer to manufacturer(s), to business to consumer, it's crazy! I never thought about the level of care and skill that has gone into each individually hand crafted piece of jewelry. After seeing how it is all actually made, I have a deeper sense of appreciation and understanding for every hand made craft.

But this thought also hurts my heart. After seeing all of the wonderful individuals who skillfully and perfectly create treasure from materials that appear worthless (scraps of loose metal, raw uncut stones), and then knowing that the average consumer probably hasn't seen this process, and therefore may buy a piece of hand crafted jewelry, wear it once before a designer thinks of a new piece, and then throws out the previous to acquire the new, without even thinking twice about what has gone into it... I also can't help but think of all the environmental destruction that goes into the process of jewelry making; mining for stones, mountain top removal for metal, coral reef destruction for coral.... It hurts my heart to know all of these aspects of this craft and art form that I have come to understand and appreciate so much.

Sanjeev explains how he designs using recycled materials

However, I am completely inspired by what Sanjeev and Shivani do. Sanjeev, Shivani's husband, is a graphic designer, and yet everything he designs and manufactures is done in an eco-friendly way, with his mind on the environment. He uses recycled paper from various materials, eco-friendly inks, produces hardly any paper waste, and all that is produced is thrown back into the paper pulp maker to create more paper... It's crazy. It's awesome. And inspires me to design with the same mentality.