Plant Smiles, Grow Giggles, Harvest Love Mixed media on wood: Stones from Methle beach, Manitoba; sand from the southernmost tip of India in Kanyakumari; cloves; cardamom pods; beads from Papua New Guinea; seeds; flowers from Van Dusen botanical gardens; elk hide; hemp rope; wool from Dharamsala, India.
While adventuring around with my husband on our never ending honeymoon. We traveled through fourteen different states in India. India if you have never been is like a rush for your senses at all times. We traveled from the north in Dharmsala where the Dalai Lama has been living in exile since 1949. Dharmsala is filled with the most amazing handmade wools and felted goods by Tibetan refugees. Phenomenal colours and textures flood the shops and streets. The wool in this piece was all collected from Dharmsala. Also red sand from the southern most tip of India where the Indian Ocean the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea come together. You can actually see the difference in the colours of water as they meet. And the beaches! Oh the beaches shine with ruby red sand with flex of black onyx coloured pebbles, it’s just amazing! So I filled little hand carves wooden pods for my family with sand sent them back to northern Canada and asked them to stir the sand in the sunlight and watch it shine.
The beads in this piece were from an Israeli boy I met in Australia whom I cut his hair. And in exchange he gave me these beads from a tribe of men he was living with in Papua New Guinea. He told me the men of this tribe were knowing for having the darkest skin in the world. I don’t know if this is true or not. He also gave me his curly locks, unto which I created he most beautiful dreadlocks and attached them to my own hair with a crochet hook.
Laura Lee Harasym 