Silk scarves for a good cause
Some Saturdays ago, a few of my students attended an event at Shalini Ganendra Fine Art Gallery. As a good friend to Liaison Sharon Saw, Datin Shalini, an elegant and soft spoken lady, offered to contribute 5% of the gallery sales for that day to Kechara… How thoughtful!
On Saturday, Datin Shalini’s gallery displayed many of Carol Cassidy’s beautiful handwoven silk scarves. Carol is an internationally reknown designer for the fine scarves her art studio produces in Laos. Her beautiful silks are now very well sought after by large companies and are sold in prestigious museums like the Guggenheim museum. She was also recently involved in the interior design of Louis Vuitton’s flagship Paris store.
She recently came to Malaysia with a selection of her scarves to be displayed in Shalini’s art gallery. Back in 1989, Carol started her weaving industry. She was visiting Laos as an adviser for the UN weaving project and decided to start up her own textile business to preserve the traditional hand-weaving methods of silk in Laos. In neighbouring Cambodia, she also has a studio where she hires women who are land mine victims.
Do have a look at the pictures to get an idea of how beautifully designed these scarves are. Carol certainly is a very talented lady. As a token of appreciation, Sharon and CEO of Kechara Media & Publications, Phng Li Kim, presented Datin Shalini and Carol Cassidy a copy of my pictorial biography! I hope they will enjoy the books.
Thank you Datin Shalini and Ms Carol Cassidy for supporting Kechara!
Tsem Rinpoche
The entrance to Shalini Ganendra Fine Art Gallery.
Carol Cassidy (right; in white) having a chat with Thomas Mellor. Tom has moved from London to work at KMP for 2 months.
Liaison Li Kim and many of KMP staff came for the event… Li Kim particularly fell in love with many of these hand made silk scarves.
This motif tells the story of life as depicted by the people in Laos… the original piece is in the museum, the one displayed here is a replica.
Sharon’s friend also came to visit the scarf exhibition.
Carol Cassidy explaining about the texture and meaning of the scarf to Li Kim.
Thomas looking through the scarves… each and every scarf has a different texture. Although it is silk, only skillful weavers can achieve this perfection.
Many designs to choose from… Carol certainly is talented to design a variety of patterns to suit everyone’s taste.
Kecharians helping themselves to some light refreshments…
Li Kim (far right) and Sharon Saw (far left) presented Carol Cassidy a copy of my biography book. She was very happy to receive it. Datin Shalini is stading on the 2nd left. Four beautiful ladies…
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Thank you Datin and Carol for the contribution..
I am sure your beautiful scarves will find their way to help beautify many of the women here.
Hand-weaved scarves. Amazing! The weavers must be very skilled and talented to create so complicated pattern on a piece of scarf by hand. It certainly says something about that Carol when her works are put on displayed in the museums.
Here is another example of using business to sustain livelihood of others. Even though she is foreign to Laos and Cambodia she has gone to the trouble to save the traditional art by opening a business to employ the people who has the skills to make the scarves. It is a very nice of her to others creatively.
Such a wonderful cause! Thank you Datin Shalini and Carol Cassidy!
Buying and donating at the same time! Buy 1 scarf and get merits for ‘free’! Hehe… The silk scarves look beautiful! So many colors and designs to choose from.
The interesting part about Carol is her helping the land mine victims. I really admire and respect people like Carol. They do not discriminate and they help the victims to be independant.
I think it is wonderful that Kechara is associated with the art scene. I rejoice and it is indeed disheartening to hear about the process of making silk scarves involves the killing of thousands of silkworms in order to gather the precious silk strands. It would be great if there’s a more humane way of harvesting silk without boiling the silk worms. I like what Colin here have said about recycling old silk items. That’s one or we can just use synthetic materials or just plain cotton too. It is best to strive toward a more humane way of producing beautiful textiles. There are just so many other alternatives that we don’t have to use silkworms.
It’s a shame though because the silk fabric is really a very beautiful fabric to be wearing and the colors and designs in this exhibition is really top notch and beautiful. I also thought of another alternative to killing silkworms is to engineer synthetic silks that would resemble and feel like silk fabric. Wouldn’t that be great. Science is always advancing and they are already engineering bacon meat from pig stem cells. If that is successful, I am sure other forms of engineering like reproducing silk fabric would be really good too.
We were delighted to collaborate and look forward to more. Be well and happy!
SGFA was delighted to collaborate with Kechara on this wonderful day event. A lot of colour and laughter! Thank you and we look forward to more fun.
Thank you Sharon for sharing about Kechara to Datin Shalini and hence created the causes for her to offer to contribute 5% of the gallery sales for that day to Kechara.
It is not so much the sales but more important is that more and more people get to know about our cause for creating happiness and compassion and ultimately inner and outer world peace!
World peace is not just Kechara’s responsibility, it is everyone’s so if we have a center that nurtures and promotes this thinking, we should rejoice and give support in every way because when we die we can be proud we have left earth knowing we did something good that has substance that will last for the next generation and not degeneration.
The silkworms are boiled alive in order to get the silk.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_A96oIZsbY
Robbie
I was actually going to say the same thing. Once I found out about it, I realized how much suffering silk creates. I know that HH Karmapa, wants us recycling silk items for Dharma use, because then no sentient beings are being killed, and we reuse the material for good use, creating less waste.
So nice to see these Kecharians just enjoying the moment 🙂
I like silk scarves. It takes a lot of time and attention to make a good one. Furthermore, silk itself is expensive, so it is nice to have a silk scarf of high quality. If this is a gift, it demonstrates the kind thought that the giver has for the recipient.
Scarves made by Datin Shalini is special for the motives behind – that she wants to preserve the traditional hand-weaving methods of silk in Laos and her employment of land-mines victims.
It is nice to know from Rinpoche’s blog about scarves made by Datin Shalini, so that I have a better understanding about the motives behind this foundation and will support if possible.
How nice is it that we have people like Datin Shalini who has achieved certain rank in the society and yet is compassionate towards others.