Wanderlust

During my trip to India I also found old Indian keys from a junk shop that were tossed in with other odds and ends. I loved one key that was clearly hand-crafted with too much solder near the top of the key and imprints that remind me that it had opened and closed many doors.

On one of Udaipur, India’s cow-laden streets I found a market that offered an assortment of wooden henna tattoo stamps.  Henna art form – also called Mendhi – has been practiced for centuries in India, Africa and the Middle East to decorate the body with sacred symbols of culture and mysticism. I have taken these images and made them into pendants.

For me, all of the pieces represent India’s constant motion and color with its fluctuation of emotions caused by a constant entanglement of extremes. I particularly remember my experience at the Monkey Temple in Jaipur one early evening. I walked up a hill to be greeted by grazing cows, hogs and homeless dogs, unaffected by the human traffic and oddly cohabitating. Muslim prayer calling, deep and rhythmic, could be heard emanating from the mosques. Just as the sound began to fade, Hindu chanting swooped in as if planned. I reached the top of the hill and stood shoeless in the temple watching a monkey family watching the city unfold in the distance.

The jewelry I made from this time reminds me of that day that rolled from city chaos into sublime chanting and fading light.