Image Courtesy Victoria and Alber Musuem London
I will start teaching my first course on ‘Collaborative Design with Artisans’ as an Adjunct Professor at FIT from the coming Saturday. This new opportunity encouraged me to read about handmade textiles from a global perspective. I read some exciting books from the V&A Museum’s Textile and Fashion collections. It is a very enriching experience to learn from other cultures. This reading and research have helped us enhance our design approach and library at Marasim. As I am hopeful, it will also help further the knowledge of my soon to be students.
Jim Thompson: Hours to kill at an airport when you’re waiting for a flight is usually a time filled with tedium. But not when you’re at Bangkok airport. Reason? Several Jim Thompson boutiques are scattered over the shopping concourse, leading to hours of pleasurable browsing and shopping.
Jim Thompson was not born a designer. He studied architecture at Princeton and eventually enlisted in the Delaware National Guard in 1940, leading to a posting in Thailand with the ending of World War 2. While he was in Thailand, he was very taken with the country’s lifestyle and culture and chose to settle there.
Byzantine mosaic
There is something about the miniature, but perfect and complete that gets me every time. And I know I’m not the only one. Is it an adult fascination with dollhouses? Or the desire to control a tiny universe? I don’t know. But Micromosaics have always fascinated me.
MUGHAL & DUTCH: A CULTURAL BRIDGING OF 2 GREAT ARTISTIC TRADITIONS
THE MUGHAL EMPERORS LOVE FOR BEAUTIFUL FLOWERS AND FLORAL DESIGNS
Mosaics have been around from the third century BC, particularly in Ancient Rome, composed of glass and terracotta. However, they came into their own in the Byzantine era, where they adorned the churches. This tradition was continued during the Renaissance, as in the ceiling of St Peter’s Basilica by Michaelangelo.
