A Rare Art

02:17:00 AM {"id":863,"user_id":1,"title":"A Rare Art","slug":"rare-art","excerpt":"Self-reflections is a way of finding our true self, understand our passions, interests, successes and failures. Sometimes I can\u2019t decide what I am most passionate about - is it writing, is it music, is it art, or is it cooking? I started my writing journey with a blog about Indian cooking, documenting recipes from my grandmother\u2019s kitchen. I believe, we can do all!","content":"<p><img src=\"\/storage\/app\/media\/MalabikaRoy_100.jpg\" \/><\/p>\r\n<p><strong>Malabika Ray Choudhuri, Canada.&nbsp;<br \/><\/strong><strong>A teacher by profession having keen interest in Art, Music, Poetry<\/strong><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Self-reflection is a way of finding our true self, understand our passions, interests, successes and failures. Sometimes I can&rsquo;t decide what I am most passionate about - is it writing, is it music, is it art, or is it cooking? I started my writing journey with a blog about Indian cooking, documenting recipes from my grandmother&rsquo;s kitchen. I believe, we can do all!&nbsp;<br \/><img src=\"\/storage\/app\/media\/RareArt5_500.jpg\" \/><br \/>Today my story is about a rare art form which originated in Russia. It is the art of eggshell decoration - which is still practiced in Ukraine as &ldquo;Pysanky&rdquo;. But the form I am going to talk about today was the art, inspired by Russian royal jeweller, Faberge, who created those out-of-the-world gifts for Russian Czar Alexander the Third who presented them to his mother and wife on special occasions like birthdays or wedding anniversaries. The first Faberge egg was created in 1885, and Faberge and his house continued creating those egg-shaped decorative pieces until 1917. Although egg-shaped, he designed and created those amazing pieces with intricate patterns inside and out, with gold, diamonds, rubies, and similar precious gems, as befitting gifts for royal families. Till today, some of those creations are prized possessions of some royal families all over the world.<br \/><img src=\"\/storage\/app\/media\/RareArt2_500.jpg\" \/><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The history of Faberge Eggs is fascinating. The first imperial Faberge Egg dates back to 1885, when Russian Czar Alexander the Third, recruited master goldsmith, Peter Carl Faberge, to create a gift for his wife for Easter. Over the course of the years until 1917, fifty imperial eggs were created by Faberge, of which, forty-three are believed to be existing, till today. When the Czar&rsquo;s family left St. Petersburg after the revolution of 1917, all the imperial eggs were left behind. The small, intricately designed, decorative art pieces are still considered to be some of the most artistic works ever created.&nbsp;<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Today my story is about a similar art - which is also rare in a sense - it is Faberge-inspired, but the decorative pieces are created using real eggshells of different sizes. Obviously, this art is dealing with extremely fragile materials, which makes the pieces stunning. Those are not made with gold or silver, and not decorated with precious gems, but they are precious for the intricacy of cutting and shaping.&nbsp;<br \/><img src=\"\/storage\/app\/media\/RareArt6_500.jpg\" \/><br \/>How and where did I learn this art? That&rsquo;s a fascinating story of my life! I was fortunate enough to live in an exotic country for quite a few years. This country is Qatar, a small but fabulous country to live, in Persian Gulf. We lived in the capital city of Doha for thirteen years. I had the privilege of joining the Falcon Club - exclusive for employees of Qatar National Oil Company. Fortunately for me, the club had a tiny section for crafts - members were only women.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&nbsp;A few women from UK started the craft-club and organized the materials to be shipped from England. They were having five different crafts five days a week, and some of them started teaching the craft they were good at. One lady from UK (I never met her) lived in Doha for few years, and she taught this exquisite art to a group. Even after she left, her legacy continued. Others took over, and the class did not stop. I was there at the right moment at the right place, and grabbed a lifetime opportunity to learn.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img src=\"\/storage\/app\/media\/RareArt1_500.jpg\" \/><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">At this point, someone may question - how was it possible for these women to spend all weekday mornings teaching and learning crafts? That was the interesting part of living in a Gulf country. Very few women worked there, at least twenty years ago, especially the women who were expatriates from other countries, and came with their husbands. And the women of the soil? They did not need to work!<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Now we come back to our original topic - the art of eggshell decoration. After I joined the class, I was almost obsessed to this phenomenal art form. In between my regular housework, and raising three children, I attended the class every week, and kept working on very fragile eggshells, and my cabinet was getting full with them. I was almost obsessed, and looked for paints, stones, crystals, everywhere. The cleaned eggshells used to be supplied by a craft store in England, and they were delivered by mail.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">When I came to Canada to live permanently, all I was carrying in my handbag, were eggshell decorations, almost thirty of them. And let me tell you, they came in one piece. So fragile, but so precious! The airlines and airports were not that panicked at that time, and didn&rsquo;t even ask me a lot of questions, or didn&rsquo;t break the shells to find out if there was anything suspicious inside.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img src=\"\/storage\/app\/media\/RearArt3_500.jpg\" \/><\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Other than birds like Goose, I worked with special eggshells like Ostrich, Emu and Rhea. Emu eggs are so special - it&rsquo;s hard to believe they are real eggshells - they are dark green in colour. They are excellent for carving pictures. Rhea eggshells are off-white, almost the same colour as Ostrich, but smaller in size.<\/p>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Learning this exquisite art was an adventure for me. I was living temporarily in a small, but one of the wealthiest countries in the world. We were enjoying every possible luxury like residing in a palatial villa surrounded by plush gardens in the middle of a desert. But there was an obstacle for me. I didn&rsquo;t have a driving license, and let&rsquo;s just say - it was hard to get one for an expatriate woman. When I joined the class, which was in the mornings, a friend gave me a ride for the first few days. Then she stopped attending, but by then I became obsessed with my new vocation. I hired a cab - a chauffeur used to pick me up and drop me off. It was expensive, and more than that, I was not a local, I didn&rsquo;t speak the local language, it was not completely safe for me. Every time I travelled, I had butterflies in my stomach. But that did not stop me. I continued to travel like that every week for a few years, to attend the art class of my dream.<\/p>","content_html":"<p><img src=\"\/storage\/app\/media\/MalabikaRoy_100.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p><strong>Malabika Ray Choudhuri, Canada.\u00a0<br><\/strong><strong>A teacher by profession having keen interest in Art, Music, Poetry<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Self-reflection is a way of finding our true self, understand our passions, interests, successes and failures. Sometimes I can\u2019t decide what I am most passionate about - is it writing, is it music, is it art, or is it cooking? I started my writing journey with a blog about Indian cooking, documenting recipes from my grandmother\u2019s kitchen. I believe, we can do all!\u00a0<br><img src=\"\/storage\/app\/media\/RareArt5_500.jpg\"><br>Today my story is about a rare art form which originated in Russia. It is the art of eggshell decoration - which is still practiced in Ukraine as \u201cPysanky\u201d. But the form I am going to talk about today was the art, inspired by Russian royal jeweller, Faberge, who created those out-of-the-world gifts for Russian Czar Alexander the Third who presented them to his mother and wife on special occasions like birthdays or wedding anniversaries. The first Faberge egg was created in 1885, and Faberge and his house continued creating those egg-shaped decorative pieces until 1917. Although egg-shaped, he designed and created those amazing pieces with intricate patterns inside and out, with gold, diamonds, rubies, and similar precious gems, as befitting gifts for royal families. Till today, some of those creations are prized possessions of some royal families all over the world.<br><img src=\"\/storage\/app\/media\/RareArt2_500.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The history of Faberge Eggs is fascinating. The first imperial Faberge Egg dates back to 1885, when Russian Czar Alexander the Third, recruited master goldsmith, Peter Carl Faberge, to create a gift for his wife for Easter. Over the course of the years until 1917, fifty imperial eggs were created by Faberge, of which, forty-three are believed to be existing, till today. When the Czar\u2019s family left St. Petersburg after the revolution of 1917, all the imperial eggs were left behind. The small, intricately designed, decorative art pieces are still considered to be some of the most artistic works ever created.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Today my story is about a similar art - which is also rare in a sense - it is Faberge-inspired, but the decorative pieces are created using real eggshells of different sizes. Obviously, this art is dealing with extremely fragile materials, which makes the pieces stunning. Those are not made with gold or silver, and not decorated with precious gems, but they are precious for the intricacy of cutting and shaping.\u00a0<br><img src=\"\/storage\/app\/media\/RareArt6_500.jpg\"><br>How and where did I learn this art? That\u2019s a fascinating story of my life! I was fortunate enough to live in an exotic country for quite a few years. This country is Qatar, a small but fabulous country to live, in Persian Gulf. We lived in the capital city of Doha for thirteen years. I had the privilege of joining the Falcon Club - exclusive for employees of Qatar National Oil Company. Fortunately for me, the club had a tiny section for crafts - members were only women.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u00a0A few women from UK started the craft-club and organized the materials to be shipped from England. They were having five different crafts five days a week, and some of them started teaching the craft they were good at. One lady from UK (I never met her) lived in Doha for few years, and she taught this exquisite art to a group. Even after she left, her legacy continued. Others took over, and the class did not stop. I was there at the right moment at the right place, and grabbed a lifetime opportunity to learn.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img src=\"\/storage\/app\/media\/RareArt1_500.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">At this point, someone may question - how was it possible for these women to spend all weekday mornings teaching and learning crafts? That was the interesting part of living in a Gulf country. Very few women worked there, at least twenty years ago, especially the women who were expatriates from other countries, and came with their husbands. And the women of the soil? They did not need to work!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Now we come back to our original topic - the art of eggshell decoration. After I joined the class, I was almost obsessed to this phenomenal art form. In between my regular housework, and raising three children, I attended the class every week, and kept working on very fragile eggshells, and my cabinet was getting full with them. I was almost obsessed, and looked for paints, stones, crystals, everywhere. The cleaned eggshells used to be supplied by a craft store in England, and they were delivered by mail.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">When I came to Canada to live permanently, all I was carrying in my handbag, were eggshell decorations, almost thirty of them. And let me tell you, they came in one piece. So fragile, but so precious! The airlines and airports were not that panicked at that time, and didn\u2019t even ask me a lot of questions, or didn\u2019t break the shells to find out if there was anything suspicious inside.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><img src=\"\/storage\/app\/media\/RearArt3_500.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Other than birds like Goose, I worked with special eggshells like Ostrich, Emu and Rhea. Emu eggs are so special - it\u2019s hard to believe they are real eggshells - they are dark green in colour. They are excellent for carving pictures. Rhea eggshells are off-white, almost the same colour as Ostrich, but smaller in size.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Learning this exquisite art was an adventure for me. I was living temporarily in a small, but one of the wealthiest countries in the world. We were enjoying every possible luxury like residing in a palatial villa surrounded by plush gardens in the middle of a desert. But there was an obstacle for me. I didn\u2019t have a driving license, and let\u2019s just say - it was hard to get one for an expatriate woman. When I joined the class, which was in the mornings, a friend gave me a ride for the first few days. Then she stopped attending, but by then I became obsessed with my new vocation. I hired a cab - a chauffeur used to pick me up and drop me off. It was expensive, and more than that, I was not a local, I didn\u2019t speak the local language, it was not completely safe for me. Every time I travelled, I had butterflies in my stomach. But that did not stop me. I continued to travel like that every week for a few years, to attend the art class of my dream.<\/p>","published_at":"2020-09-25 02:17:00","published":1,"created_at":"2020-09-25 14:27:23","updated_at":"2020-09-25 22:14:41","metadata":null,"ginopane_blogtaxonomy_series_id":null,"seo_title":null,"seo_description":null,"seo_keywords":null,"canonical_url":null,"redirect_url":null,"robot_index":null,"robot_follow":null,"summary":"Self-reflections is a way of finding our true self, understand our passions, interests, successes and failures. Sometimes I can\u2019t decide what I am most passionate about - is it writing, is it music, is it art, or is it cooking? I started my writing journey with a blog about Indian cooking, documenting recipes from my grandmother\u2019s kitchen. I believe, we can do all!","has_summary":true,"categories":[{"id":27,"name":"\u09aa\u09cd\u09b0\u09ac\u09be\u09b8\u09c7","slug":"international","code":null,"description":"","parent_id":null,"nest_left":53,"nest_right":58,"nest_depth":0,"created_at":"2019-02-01 15:15:12","updated_at":"2019-03-14 15:07:02","url":"https:\/\/www.banglaworldwide.com\/category\/international","pivot":{"post_id":863,"category_id":27}},{"id":32,"name":"\u09aa\u09cd\u09b0\u09ac\u09be\u09b8\u09c7 \u09ac\u09be\u0999\u09be\u09b2\u09bf","slug":"non-resident-bengali","code":null,"description":"","parent_id":27,"nest_left":54,"nest_right":55,"nest_depth":1,"created_at":"2019-02-12 14:22:34","updated_at":"2019-03-26 16:47:56","url":"https:\/\/www.banglaworldwide.com\/category\/non-resident-bengali","pivot":{"post_id":863,"category_id":32}}],"featured_images":[{"id":1307,"disk_name":"5f6daf1b17437485562503.jpg","file_name":"RearArt_900.jpg","file_size":141866,"content_type":"image\/jpeg","title":null,"description":null,"field":"featured_images","sort_order":1307,"created_at":"2020-09-25 14:19:31","updated_at":"2020-09-25 14:27:23","path":"https:\/\/www.banglaworldwide.com\/storage\/app\/uploads\/public\/5f6\/daf\/1b1\/5f6daf1b17437485562503.jpg","extension":"jpg"}]} November 21st pm 30 9:31pm