Medecine dolls - more inspiration

Here is more visual inspiration for dolls and automatas.

George Harrison by Felt Mistress

Creation by Felt Mistress

Felt Mistress makes fabulous characters. I like the zany look, and the fact that she doesn't care about being anatomically correct.

You can see her work on her website and blog. And there is a nice article about her on Creative Review. 

For automatas, another interesting website is The British Toymakers Guild which links to a few automatas artists. 

Watching the Girls by Robert Race

I love them all, but I must say I have a soft sport for the works of Robert  Race. I love the way he is using drift wood and neutral colours to make his automatas, which reminds me of the sculptures and fetishes I saw many years ago in the Musée d'Afrique et d'Océanie of Paris (now closed). He is mixing in his work inspiration from toys and tribal art, and it gives them a magic feel. I can just imagine how the character on the left wriggles his moustaches :o)

              

Moon Priest by Robert Race

Here a few other website if you enjoy automatas :

http://www.cabaret.co.uk/blog/

This is a great blog. They also publish a book about mechanism that is realy nice and esay to read.

http://www.robives.com/

Rob Ives designs many paper automatas and you can download them, some are free, and if you pay a subcsciption to the website you can download all the projects and a book about automatas.

http://paperpino.net/

Another paper automatas website. A nice peace dove to download.

http://manivelles.unblog.fr/

http://lezardmecanique.blogspot.fr/

Medecine Doll

I have recently joined Barb Kobe's Medecine Doll group.

As I can never stick to something simple and within my reach, I decided to make a doll with movement and light. My basic idea was to make a doll that would be a little bit like the roly poly clown I had as as child. I remember being fascinated by this toy which would always come back up however strong you pushed it, with a pleasing bell sound too. To me this is a symbol of life ; we all have ups and downs, but the aim is to come back gently into balance. Actually when I feel very sad or troubled I always think "wait a little bit before you act". With a little time, a little perspective, the most terrible pain and confusion seem to fade away, just like the roly poly toys come back up in a standig position with time.

Of course roly poly toys are still popular with children and are given to babies.

Modern versions include weebles and unazukin, as wel as bobble-heads.

Weeble

Unazukin

Unazukin

I then found out that moving dolls are very very old and can be found everywhere in the world. For instance in Japan they had a similar toy from the 17th century called Okiagari Koboshi, representing a little self-righting monk. They also make dolls called Darumas, representing Boddhidharma, the Indian monk who gave Kung-Fu to China. It is a good luck doll and the message it conveys is "never give up". See wikipedia article here.

Daruma

As you can see Darumas have a big moustache and this one wears a red robe, two of my obsessions.

In Japan they also have Kokeshi wooden dolls, with a nodding head.

Kokeshi nodding doll

In India too, there are moving dolls. The Thanjavur dancing doll are very famous and go back to the 19th Century. See here an article from the Deccan Herald. They are sold near the Mariamman temple and the ones that I like most are made in 3 or 4 separate pieces (skirt, blouse, head) that gently dance with the wind, making them seem like Bharata Natyam dancers. The bottom is heavier. They are exposed during the Navaratri festival.

Here is a video showing the assembly of the doll : there are in fact hidden metallic threads that enhance the rocking.


I started thinking about metallic thread and researching automatas. Right now I am maddly in love with the work of Keith Newstead, a British artist, and especially his delightful cat-copter :



See his website here : http://www.keithnewsteadautomata.com/

Well, enough research, I need to try to do one myself !

Quote of the day

"They who in trouble untroubled are

Will trouble trouble itself."

Thiruvalluvar, Tirukkural, Verse LXIII.3

Vaste progamme :o)

I'm back !

For the past last weekends I have been taking lessons in Indian textile with talented designer Shikha Chireux ; chikankari embroidery and block printing... I love it ! Chikankari is usually done white on white, but we used coloured threads to see the shadow work better. It is difficult because all the stitches are reversible, since they are done on very fine cloth. Block printing is simply addictive...

India continued

In Tamil Nadu, I saw many temples of course, and this time many temples dedicated to the Goddess. It is not allowed to take pictures of the shrines, and non-hindus are sometimes warmly welcome and sometimes barely tolerated. As a result, I don't have pictures of what moved me most. I wrote last year about what I felt in temples here.

I was surprised to feel a totally different kind of energy in Shiva temples and Shakti temples. I am sometimes very naive.

Here are a few pictures of expressions of faith...

Tiruvarur Temple - in each little house there is a statue.

Tiruvarur. Nandy looking after a Shiva lingam.

A statue in Arunchaleshvara Temple, Tiruvannamalai - temple dedicated to the element of fire.

Yoni (symbol of the Goddess) in Kamakshi Amman temple, Kancheepuram.

Offerings for fertility in Kamakshi Amman temple, Kancheepuram.

Ceiling in Palani, in the temple dedicated to Murugan, son of Shiva

Textile tribal snake - TRC museum

Mask against evil spirits.

Celebrations in honour of Goddess Kali, who defeated demons, but in her rage did not stop and tramped Shiva to death. Pondicherry. Don't ask what is in her mouth !!!

Village car festival in honour of Vishnou

Food stall, village, Nilgiris

Tribal Gods, TRC museum

Prehistorical rock art, Karikkiyur, Nilgiris.

Temple footprints.

Hello !

Pondicherry street office

For the last 2-3 weeks I managed to sneak out of my office and... went back to Tamil Nadu, India. I had a great time of course.

This time I managed to get a little closer to textile and jewellery craft people. This was possible thanks to the information found about Indian crafts on the CDs sold by the Craft Revival Trust. Thank you Lainie for the link !

I found my way to the wonderful Tribal Research Centre (TRC) in M Palada, near Ooty in the Nilgiri mountains. With a total tribal population of about 28,000, the Nilgiris is an important tribal district. You can read more about the tribes here. In the museum you can see many fascinating objects made of clay, wood and vegetals. Here are a few pictures relating to Toda embroidery, which is world famous.

Toda woman embroidering a Poothkuli shawl - Photo (c) TRC museum

Tribe scissors - Photo (c) TRC museum

Toda ancient shawl - Photo (c) TRC museum

Toda modern shawl with traditional flower motif bought in Ooty

If you are in the region, you can buy Toda embroidery in Ooty and there is also a recommended Woman's Cooperative in Kotagiri.

*

In Pondichery, I saw a patchwork exhibition at Aurodhan Art Gallery. The artist name is Vatika and he has a shop and guesthouse near the gallery, François Martin Street. I love the way he mixes printed textiles, embroidery and beads.

Vatika at work

Across the road there is a shop named Excellent Bengal Handicrafts specializing in fairtrade ecofriendly Kantha embroidery from Bengal. Ms Bharati Dhar, director, aims to save traditional arts of India, provide skills and jobs opportunities to under priviliged villagers and use natural, waste and recycled goods to manufacture simple and stunning products of a vast variety. She is trying to expand her work. If interested in helping her, she has a facebook page, her email address is bharatidhar@yahoo.com

Family celebration, 2006

Today the Dalai Lama arrived in France for a 12 days visit. There is a lot of political chit-chat around this visit, since the French President won't meet him and so on. But anyways, I am very happy and moved that he is in my country. All the more so since tonight he is staying with a buddhist community that lives a mile or so from my parents' home, and will give a blessing there tomorrow morning. I will be working in the finance quarter of Paris tomorrow, but I will be thinking of him just like now.

May Peace be with you ! Many blessings to all of you.

Rock engraving in Fontainebleau forest cave

May BJP : Serpent Wisdom

"Serpent Wisdom"

And so, this is my final page for the Bead Journal Project 2007. I'm a little late. it's because I didn't want the experience to stop. Ah well, I have enrolled in Bead journal Project 2008 so I'm not too sad...

In this page, I have made hints to the two powerful dreams I had in India. In the first one, I dreamt my favourite ring lost it's garnet stone and that I couldn't repair it. This actually happened a few weeks later during the month of May when I apparently lost the stone on the beach, helping my kids and nephews to build a hole in the beach - will I ever learn to take care of my things ? lol

Second dream involved a serpent who tried to kiss me. I was quite uncomfortable with this, as I kept thinking about Eve and Jungle Book Kaa. Then I listened to the wonderful audiotape by Clarissa Pinkola Estes In the House of the Riddle Mother. It reminded me that snakes and serpents are powerful archetypes that are found all around the World. Often (even in the Bible), they are associated with trees worship, wisdom, the Goddess Mother, spirituality, life (DNA)... Sometimes they come to teach us how to move gracefully through the ups and downs of life, says Pinkola Estes, as snakes are at home on earth, in water and even in air since they are able to jump. Wow. I recognised then that this dream was a gift.

Thinking back on one year of Bead Journal Project, I realized what a great year it has been for me. Since I enrolled in this project, I found the courage to do a shamanic retreat, and to fulfill a dream I'd had since I was a teenager ; going to India. This year I have grown as an artist (hey I said artist !) and as a person. Also I have met many wonderful people. It is a year to remember.

Last June, I was feeling sad and beaded a mourning Coyote. This May I was a little sad too, and decided that this page would be a pendant to the Coyote piece. Thus the mischievous snake wisdom. Also you can see in the page of motive from Robin Atkin's new book Hearts to Hand Bead Embroidery.

India : the People

I realize in my little account of my visit to India, I forgot to tell you about the most moving and interesting aspect ; the people. This is because I was often to shy to take pictures of people, and more interested in listening to them.

In his book "Un'idea dell'India", Italian writer Alberto Moravia has said something like : "India is not a beautiful country, as Italy can be for example, or a "typical" country like Japan ; India is a continent whose major interest is the human factor". Well, I agree.

And as I cannot show it to you, here is a link to a wonderful website by professional photographer Claude Renault : http://mesimagesdinde.blogspot.com/

(In case you wonder the picture above is me trapped into giving money to a school in Mamallapuram, a town hit by the Tsunami. The little boy on the right, was bilingual though only 8 or 9, and a natural charmer).

March BJP

"You go there"

Remembering my trip to India.

I edited this post after a few days, however I am putting back the links to the Theyyam ceremony to which the page is partly a reference :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theyyam
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ygo98X-fUM&feature=related