Handmade silver jewelry by Alejandra Escudero (Chile)

Alejandra has a small shop in downtown Santiago, Chile. Her designs combine silver with semiprecious stones. I particularly like the large rings with a rough finish (I have several of them). She has a one page website and she should improve it to better show her work.

http://www.alejandraescudero.com/

Barcelona Bar: an exotic chocolate made in the USA

In the USA I came across a chocolate bar called Barcelona Bar and it got my attention. It is made with hickory smoked almonds, sea salt and deep milk chocolate and it has a unique taste. It is one of the exotic chocolate bars produced by Vosges Haut-Chocolat, a company funded by a young American lady with the concept "Travel the world through chocolate". Her name is Katrina and she followed her food studies traveling the world. She started  with Spain, where she worked with the Adrià brothers. Vosges produces many other interesting types of chocolate that come in beautiful presentations.   

http://www.vosgeschocolate.com/product/barcelona_exotic_candy_bar/exotic_candy_bars

Check Katrina´s Blog for recipes, stories and beautiful pictures. She has just posted a recipe mixing hot chorizo and melted chocolate!!!. Kind of weird for Spanish people. If you try it, let us know.
http://www.peaceloveandchocolate.com/

The Vosges boutique in New York is located in the SoHo (check the website for other sale points)
132 Spring Street (between Greene & Wooster)

Harlequin Feltworks: unique pieces of wearable art (San Francisco, USA)

A post about scarves just before the winter is over. I discovered the work of Jenna Giles when I spotted her felt pieces in a street fair in San Francisco last summer. In a couple of minutes I got three of her unique and somewhat whimsical scarves, directly from the artist. Later I went through her website where she explains that she is based in San Francisco and began her own business, “Harlequin Feltworks”, in 2007. The way she describes what she does is very accurate: “unique pieces of wearable art”. Back home, here in Barcelona, everybody loves my scarves.     

See some pictures and check where to find Jenna´s work at http://www.harlequinfeltworks.com

Furoshiki: the art of gift wrapping in Japan

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Thinking of presents, it came to my mind the sort of foulards with colorful prints that I bought in Japan many years ago, which were intended for gift wrapping. I found a blog that explains this exquisite art. You may like to practice it …..

“When it comes to Japanese gifts, it's not the inside that really counts. Gift-wrapping, called tsutsumi, is the most important part of the gift-giving it seems. How you wrap and tie the package is considered especially symbolic and carries a lot of expression about how you feel towards the person and the gesture of giving them a gift.

The wrapping around the gift is seen as being part of the entire gift experience. Japanese gifts are aesthetic and beautiful on the outside, with the same full expression of the culture's love of balance, nature, novelty and simplicity."

One type of wrapping that is uniquely Japanese is the furoshiki.
Keep reading and watch videos at: http://hubpages.com/hub/art-of-japanese-gift-wrap

Woven horsehair jewelry and decorative objects by Cuenco (Chile)

I learned about Cuenco through a friend and I fell in love with their designs and the idea behind them. Cuenco is the brainchild of two young Chilean architects. They work with women artisans in Chile to bring a new look to a traditional horsehair craft known as rari. Together they produce unique and colorful brooches, necklaces, bracelets, earrings and other art pieces.

In 2008 they received the UNESCO Excellence Seal for Mercosur, and have been invited to participate in exhibitions in Spain, France, Japan and the United States. The designs of Cuenco are on sale in some museum shops in Chile, Argentina, Brazil and the USA.

I reproduce here the origin of Rari. “Rari is a small, pre-mountainous town near the city of Linares, 305 km. South of Santiago, in Chile, which is the birthplace of a specific form of horsehair weaving craft. This craft originated 200 years ago, when local women, doing laundry in the creeks near their homes, discovered that they could weave poplar roots into small figures. As they developed their weaving technique, they started experimenting with various fibers, thus replacing the roots with horsehair which were more ductile and required less pre-weaving preparation time. Later on, they added the plant fiber Ixtle, brought over from Mexico, which serves a structural function, creating a more voluminous and resistant weaving.

The technique has passed from mother to daughter and remains unchanged until today: the horsehair is washed, and dyed, and then woven by hand into numerous figures.In their traditional pieces, the artisans inspired by their inner female worlds, create delicate and colorful handcrafts to decorate themselves and their domestic world. These qualities and figurative inspiration have been passed on for many years, from grandmothers to daughters and granddaughters, which begin to imitate their elders’ technique in their early childhood.

Their typical motifs reflect elements from the rural world (flowers, butterflies) and others, the imagery of campesinos (local farm workers) such as huasos (traditional Chilean rural character) and witches. Non figurative motifs are rare and generally associated to objects used in everyday life through geometric compositions, such as cup holders and rosaries, and bookmarkers".

Find out more at www.cuenco.cl