Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Quillkaari's first Bead Swap Party!

One of the best things about selling online is that I see and meet so many artists like me. As indie artists, we all know exactly what it takes to make these creations and then give them away - the rich joys that an artist's practice brings to their lives, and the little things that it takes away.

The most amazing part, however, is watching how the medium we work with combines with our personalities  and creates a style. So I love colour; I love flowers and butterflies; I love the crisp texture of paper; I love big earrings. All of that comes together and creates the Quillkaari style. There are some things I can do with paper that no other clay or bead artist can do; and then there are things I can just never do with paper. I can't create the softness of the inside of a flower for instance, which someone like Nidhi Srivastav at Earthen Concepts can do so perfectly in clay. And so we make different kinds of creations: amazingly, each of us finds people like you who think we're totally 'your type' of artists :)

So when I got a chance to be part of the 'Shuffle Pourri' Bead Swap Party event created by ItsHandMade, I totally jumped at it. It's an absolutely fabulous community-building event that only IHM cares to do, where all of us artists who sell on the site can come together, have a nice chat (without the fears and insecurities of who's selling more!), and try our hand at each other's job, in our own way! How it goes is: I am paired with a particular artist who works with a medium very different from mine. I send her my paper quilled beads along with all the findings you need to make an earring, and she sends me her version. We both make a pair of earrings with the 'foreign' beads, and find the pleasure in doing the same things differently :) I think it's a great event, because apart from all the unique, to-die-for, special edition jewellery that'll be created, this will also be a great exercise for all the artists to recognise the style that makes the brand for each one of us. Sometimes our style and the medium that we work with become so meshed into each other that we forget who we really are, as artists!

So I've been paired with Eesha Zaveri, who creates the most delicate, graceful, timeless classics with beads. Think delicious single colour themes, think perfect wire spirals, think elegance. And think perfect craftsmanship.

And then there's Quillkaari - technicolour, whimsical, always trying to be over-the-top outrageous :D

It's a bit like Sophia Loren meets Helena Bonham Carter. Hahaha.

So I thought up a little goodie box with lots of paper bead options for Eesha to choose from. The colours I put together were the classic white and black, combined with lime green and magenta, two of my favourites. I went with all shapes, textures and numbers: single circles, single teardrops, hearts, three-petal fleur de lis, squares and tight beads.

Here are my babies, quilled and ready for varnishing, against the mad mess of the Quillkaari studio worktable  :P



And here they are, getting varnished in my balcony, ready to get dried to a crisp in the hot, hot Dilli summer!


 
Post-varnishing, they're lolling about on my work desk, lookin' super funny.


And now the findings - lotsa pearls, jump rings, a birdie-themed charm set, and claspback hooks which I can tell from her designs, Eesha loves.

 

And now my favourite part: packing!!!


I slipped in a little gift for Eesha: Quillkaari jhumkis in the colours of my Shuffle Pourri beads. I'm thinking of it as a quilled memory of this happy creative exchange :)


And now, I sit around and twiddle my thumbs, waiting for my package from Eesha to arrive :D The updates will keep coming in! :)

To know more about Shuffle Pourri, go here.

3 comments:

  1. Welcome to Blogosphere Quillkaari! You gonna be a hit! :)

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  2. Hi, my best wishes to you and happy to be your first follower.
    Adhiraacreations

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  3. Hellopalz, you are the sweetest :D
    Shylaashree, thanks a tonne, and happy to have met you - I remember your gorgeous white jhumkas from the Itsy Bitsy blog! And what I'm superduper excited about is discovering your South Indian cookery blog :D

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