Our last day at the Barefoot College was hectic, exhilarating, filled with laughter and sad all at the same time. With the help of the talented crafts women and men of Tilonia, the amazing Rimisha and our host Nishit , we achieved the goals we set out for ourselves only 9 days ago.
Wow. We have been busy as we’ve moved into full prototype phase. We are learning so much. Just when we thought we have worked things through, we discover a new quirk as we watch the women cut and sew our surface designs. Working here is an adjustment. Power outages, extreme heat -not to mention things just have a way of working by which we must abide. And of course everything is complicated by the fact that all information must be translated. Who knows what gets lost along the way.
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Bunker Roy (the founder of Barefoot) kindly arranged for us all to make a puppet today so we could bring home a iconic keepsake of the college. Guided by the esteemed puppet master Ram Niwas, we attempted to make something approximating the human head.
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In addition to our major textile appliqué project, we are also working on wooden closure systems for the shoulder bags. Right now the women in the sewing shop are using Velcro and magnets as bag closures which tend to end up staying stuck together and tearing the fabric they are attached to.Read More
Today we presented our surface designs to the appliqué masters. One of the interesting cultural quirks is the side to side head bob. As Ramisha translated our concepts, we waited with baited breath. Did they like them -yes, no? Impossible to tell as heads sway to and fro. Happy to report we got the thumbs up, along with lots of laughter.
Day 3 and we’ve got a project organized!! There are so many things we could do but with the time we have left, and in collaboration with the Barefoot artisans, fellows and staff, we have decided to work with the talented crafts men and women in the textiles and wood shops.
