The Ceramic from Botoșani is known for their joyful figurative designs in tricolor with green, yellow and brown. Botoșani is the capital of Botoșani County, in the northern part of Moldavia, Romania, 60 kilometers away from the ukrainian border. The ceramic is in the same tradition as the pottery from nearby Kosiv, the Huzul capital, in Ukraine. The plot motif of the ceramic from Botoșani expresses the history, life, folklore, traditional customs and surrounding flora and fauna. The decor is carved into the dried, but not yet burnt, engobe glaze with the help of the “sgrafitto” technique. There are many farmers and lovers on the plates bowls and pots, but also pub owners, weavers and shepherds. The green color symbolizes the forest, yellow the sun, brown the mother earth and white stands for purity.
The art and tradition of weaving mats called Rara in the Philippines. One of the end-products of Rara is Banig, literally means mat in English. The handwoven mats made from dried seagrass leaves and used primarily as a sleeping mat or floor mat.The working process is very time consuming. After harvesting the Tikog Grass, the leaves are dried for a couple of days, then they get dyed and cut into strips. The mats are woven by hand and the patterns are embroidered, even by hand, on the finished woven mat.
Market bags are essential items in a woman’s wardrobe in Guatemala. The modern versions of this traditional bags are woven by hand with recycled plastic strips, most of them with fancy color combinations.
Kutch, Gujarat, India: Lac, a material taken from insect resin, has been used in Indian craft for centuries. Coloured lacquer is applied to wood by heat through turning with a hand lathe.
India/Gujarat: Patan Patola is a double ikat textile, that means both, the warp and the weft, are dyed before the weaving. As a result patterns and colours are extraordinary vibrant and elaborate. With such thin silk thread it takes a lot of time and it´s an extreme test of precision and planning. A sari starts around 10 000 $.
Kutch/Gujarat/India: The walls of this Meghwali roundhouse in Hodka village in Kutch are constructed with whitewashed mud and dung and a lot of mirrors. Normaly the toran is hanging above the door, here he´s protecting the inhabitants agains the devils coming out of the TV.