Confused About Classification! Silver or Silk?

Here is an exquisite artwork of silver thread … with a little silk woven in…so shall we classify this as a work of textile art or silver art?

Just kidding!

This is a Benarasi Sari from the early 1900s that has the silver sari thread woven all over the body on a silk base.

The source acquired this from a Parsi lady who had held on to it since her grandma passed away in the 1980s. Woven in Benaras or Varanasi, this amazing work has over 600 grams of silver i.e. over 80% of the weight of the piece! So my confusion is justified.

The exposed portions have been oxidised with exposure to the pollutants in the atmosphere and reveal exactly how the sari had been folded during storage! [I’d make a great Sherlock or at least Watson]

In my childhood I’ve watched many zari saris being sent for ‘polishing’ by my grandma and her sisters when the zari had darkened and a wedding was coming up! So I’ll just do the same when I find a use for this gorgeous treasure!

***

Too often I wonder at other people’s awesome luck – with no effort on their part they are lucky in games of chance and in games life plays. And I always envied them. And wondered why I did not have a similar spectacular strokes of pure luck coming my way! Self pity is always fun isn’t it?

But this morning as I think of this piece now in my possession, I am reluctantly compelled to dispel that self-pity…… and am forced to be happy about by good luck ….

Thankfully the artwork is enough to distract me from the endless self-psycho-analysis

See it on wovensouls.com here.

jm

December 2018

The post Confused About Classification! Silver or Silk? appeared first on The Art Blog by WOVENSOULS.COM.