Guest Artist Erica Harris on Scavenging in India

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Scrap Potential- 

Scavenging in India

by Erica Harris

Many folks ask where I find my materials to make collages.
Here are some scraps, sources and experiences from my last trip to India.

While an Artist-In-residence at Chhaap Foundation for Printmaking Trust in Baroda, Gujarat, I used a batter of coffee grounds and tea leaves, Bindi powder, turmeric, and Celuclay (a dried paper pulp) to experiment with paper sculpture. The texture was made with a fork.

Some of this paper I've paired with old portraits:

These were found at the exquisite 'Friday Market' on the outskirts of Baroda.

This is a sprawling maze of live goats, tin charms, chai carts, torn saris, wooden game pieces, broken toys and, most lovely for me, old photographs.

Scavenging for mid-century photographic ephemera outside of the States is quite challenging, our Kodachrome generation being unparalleled, so this particular market was really a gem. (On a side note however, it seems India's snapshot culture of today is certainly catching up).

The upcycling at Friday Market also deserves some attention. Some wonderful hand-stitched oil-can cozies:

I experimented with using some of the found objects as stamps, such as these keys:

Moving south, in Fort Cochi, Kerala, I picked out some paper goods at Junk Junction (Kumbarramukku, if memory serves)..  Looking through newspapers, game cards, old books and ledgers, this passerby wanted to document a dusty picture of a famous 70's movie star:

The language there, Malayalam, has a beautiful alphabet, and I was quite inspired by it.

I was in India for a number of teaching projects, as well as dumpster diving, and the scraps came in handy for those, too. In this bookmaking workshop at Chhaap, students rummaged through a rag bag donated by a local fashion designer, Rupali. They used the pieces to customize their book covers. It was an honor to have Jyoti Bhatt, one of India's most renowned printmakers, among my students.

In a nearby school run by the organization Koshish Milap, I brought in scraps of handmade paper and fabric in all colors and shapes. It was a great ice-breaker for them to teach me the colors in Gujarati (new to me), and having a full-spectrum palette easily accessible helped them to jump right in and start collaging (new to them).

The kids were overjoyed and seemingly not intimidated at the process of building their own beautiful compositions out of scraps.

Thanks again, India, for all the inspiration and generosity. See you next time.

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Isn't this just wonderful?  I "met" Erica when she was fundraising for an India project she was working with last year  (Buddha's Smile School).  I invited her to come on as a guest on this blog (and have been begging her to join TAFA!) and we finally have this beautiful experience that she is sharing with us.


Make sure to visit her website (packed with great images!) and please, support her with some purchases in her Etsy shop!

Want a nice chuckle?  Watch Chinterviews!

Guest Artist Erica Harris on Scavenging in India

Denise Felton: Networking Needlework Queen on CraftGossip

Tatting by Jon Yusoff, Malaysia

Let’s say you love needlework so much that you’d like to be able to scan lots and lots of blogs and web sites every day for new trends, examples of inspirational work, and free patterns and tutorials. Do you have time for that? Yes, you do. At least, you have time to check the results of my research on your behalf.

I follow about 600 personal and commercial blogs that focus on a huge range of needlework topics—hand embroidery to tatting, quilting to goldwork, candlewicking to weaving. If a needle or fiber is involved, I want to know about it. Then I post my favorite finds throughout the day so you can find information about the new, the fresh, and the different quickly and easily.

I edit the Needlework News Blog of the CraftGossip Blog Network. What else can you find on my blog? Links! An absolute treasure trove of links. With each little news story, I post the name of the artist concerned, a link to the main site of that artist, and a link to the complete story I’m citing so you have several options for finding out more. And my blog is categorized. Suppose you’re primarily interested in quilting and you don’t really want to have to scroll through stories about bead embroidery, chicken scratch, and needlepoint to get to the juicy quilting tidbits. Just click the Quilting category in the sidebar, and the stories about your favorite topic pop up. You can also search my blog; so, for example, if you just want to see recent stories about crazy-quilter Allison Ann Aller, you can enter her name in the Search box, and all articles containing her name pop up.

Allison Ann Aller, Crazy Quilt, Full Photo and Detail

Some other features that are in the works: a new blogroll of sites that are featured regularly on Needlework News, and a list of sites that include information about crafting for a cause. And I’m expecting other excellent features to come from my favorite and most knowledgeable source: my readers.

It rocks my socks off when I log on and find comments from readers. I love their questions, their ideas, their suggestions, their tips, and even their corrections. It’s a good day, indeed, when I find a message submitted through the site’s Send Us Gossip feature or by e-mail, sharing a bit of news with me or just chatting about the art we love. I always follow up on reader-submitted suggestions. Let’s face it, even if I could scan 2,000 blogs a day, good stories would still slip past me. Readers also help me discover artists—including themselves! I get up and do the happy dance when readers invite me to look at their new tutorials, new products, or patterns.

But what if needlework isn’t your thing? Where do you get this kind of news about scrapbooking, or sewing, or knitting, or edible crafts? CraftGossip blog network is still your go-to source. Shellie Wilson and Vikram Goyal have assembled experts in a huge variety of crafts, each editing a blog in her own specialty, all tied together under the CraftGossip logo. There’s probably a blog for your favorite artform. And if not, why don’t you start one? The CraftGossip family is a rockin place to be!

I do a few other things when I’m not blogging for CraftGossip. I’m a writer, editor, and designer for a major IT company. I teach on line for a local community college. I’m a working artist—I market my collages and handcrafted greeting cards through a couple of local brick-and-mortar stores and through my Etsy shop. And once in a while, I manage to make a post on my personal blog. I can’t wait to retire so I can spend all my time crafting and blogging!

Denise Felton, Maumelle, Arkansas

Denise Felton: Networking Needlework Queen on CraftGossip