About my way of doing.

By Nishedha, September 15th,2011

Most of the time my work is not previously planned, I start by playing with a group of beads, or a pendant (that will become the main feature) and then hunt for some complementary elements among the many plastic boxes. Rarely do I ask somebody else to help me, only sometimes a silver/goldsmith (I cannot solder and such more technical things). But I personally do all the stringing and finishing. As a result, my necklaces are fairly elementary: at the most, they are multistrand pieces, but without great sophistication, probably the reason many of them give a kind of masculine feeling, and some are simply rough.
I use mainly ancient and/or antique material, and try to string the beads in the company of other elements that are culturally, historically and geographically coherent -- I am not much for miscellanea, potpourri  and multi-confessional jewelry. I try to serve the material used, not the reverse ( that is, not showing off at the expense of the material*).Thus some of my designs are almost renderings, sometimes  they are just that -- i.e. Catalogue numbers n003 (from an ornament  datable to the 2nd-1st century BC, excavated by Russian archaeologist V.P. Chilov from  a kourgane  in Rostov in 1962), n054 (from a Gujarat or Sind bridal ornament) or n137 (traditional Peul necklace as seen in Africa Adorned, page 169).
(*I have a fleeting character -- my father rightly used to compare me to a butterfly(**) -- and my work shows it: if you could see  the wall in my workshop where my pieces are displayed, you would perhaps find difficulty in believing all these  necklaces have been made by the same person).
Some of my works have "meaning": are (would be) amulets . There is a full line of Tibetan mini-thangkas in Gau which I like very much, and which has been enthusiastically received. I love to handle such kind of objects of power. I think art is religion, and religion is art and little more, after you strip it of politics and other extras that have historically built up around it by accretion.
I live in my own apartment and do not go out often (**probably already inside the cocoon). I forgot when I last went to cinema;  I have no TV. That is to say, necklace making is my main and full time activity... well, I spend a lot of time "gardening"  in my patio as well. I have no employees, rent or extra expenses. Most of the time I wear n*IcE old clothes and rarely go shopping. I think my necklaces are not expensive:  a fatter price corresponds to the comparatively costlier materials used.  
"Beautiful, well done, affordable" -- I found this motto in a carpenter's page in the internet, and I admired it.