In an electric fast paced bustling world, I seek solace in anything hand crafted with love. I find these objects spark imagination and don’t over stimulate my already overstimulated mind. I especially find delight in hand spun fabrics, woven together on handlooms. On textiles I love traditional patterns with natural dyes developed over centuries by cultural traditions. Preserving these traditions from becoming extinct due to globalization is as important to me as buying organically grown food. So that is why I have been supporting the work of Maiwa Handprints since I discovered their existence on Granville Island years ago.

a handloom in a small village, Kerala, India.

Charlotte Kwon, the heart and soul that founded Maiwa and the Maiwa Foundation has been a part of the resurrection, preservation, and development of handcrafts from artisans across the globe. Touching base with Charlotte ensured my trip to India two years ago was filled with magic, from checking out natural textiles being dyed by hand with indigo and eucalyptus, watching hand looms in action, to spending a day at a Toda Hilltribe settlement in the mountains of Tamil Nadu. These experiences fed my love for natural textiles in such a refreshing way, added a deeper dimension to our travels.

Toda Hilltribe Elder, Tamil Nadu, India

Traditional Toda Hilltribe Embroidery

The Maiwa Textiles Symposium is one of my favorite events in Vancouver. This year, as the VIFF was wrapping up, the symposium was just getting under way. I attended a few lectures that informed and inspired my love of the woven world. Autumn in Vancouver is a good place to be with such inspiring events, I only wish I could attend them all… Today I watched Tibetan Monks dismantle a vibrant sand mandala that they have spent days creating and submerged the grains of sand in the ocean, symbolizing impermanence and allowing the sand to continue its existence in another form. These grains of sand are blessing the waters of Spanish Banks as they have been a part of a highly charged sacred mandala. In a reflective state I observe the impermanence in my life, ebb and flow, every moment infused with perfection, only sometimes not visible. Inspired from my environment, inspired from within.