Making off of Lily's Jewellery / Assista ao desenvolvimento da coleção de joias de Lily Cole4/6/2013
0 Comments
During the training and production days, one of the participants, Andreia took a series of pictures, which were exchanged and are posted below. These shots display some of the moments that we were not working in the project and reveals the commitment of the families with the project.
Sharing these pictures with the community was also a significant moment of the project. In my return to the community I recorded a DVD with both mine and Andreia's pictures, which the families could watch on the TV. In the forest there is no electricity supply, but there is a generator, which is run by gasoline and that we turned on. They loved to see the pictures and the children were giving everyone a buzz. Then, I used the occasion to show them pictures of the work of Doutor da Borracha, who does rubber shoes in another community, in addition to other natural rubber handcrafts made by other communities from the Amazon Rainforest. This generated a rich discussion about doing rubber products and a range of new ideas. It was fantastic to return to the community of Seringal Veneza at Parque das Ciganas after two weeks and realise how the families own production. In the previous week it was raining a lot and the best course of reaching the community was by boat. About three boats were there waiting for me the moment I arrived, just a very friendly reception indeed. On the way Iris was telling me about the amount of rubber they produced in the meantime since I had left. She was very glad with the quality of her rubber sheets, the amount produced and the new colours that she explored. In my arrival to the community, we all gathered at the big house's terrace to sort the work for the next days. I also remunerated them the bonus regarding to the training days. They were all satisfied and again committed with the project. On the next day at 5 am we woke up to a intense working day, when we made a quality control of the produced rubbers, selected the best ones and analysed what kind of problems we had with the bad sheets, weighted the production, washed the material and also produced more rubber sheets in the afternoon.
Creative ProductionDuring th e FSA training, on the first week of the project in Brazil, I taught the women that were participating of the training how they could work with the FSA rubber while it is still wet in order to make artefacts. How was my great surprise I had in seeing what they produced in two weeks and how enthusiastic they were with the rubber. Madalena, a very shy woman, who sometimes did not expressed her enthusiasm, also did a bag, some flowers, a tree and some armbands. Moreover, other women, as Aninha, that did not participate of the FSA training, was also making rubber artefacts. I was surprised in seeing Aninha working with the rubber that we separated during the quality control. She was really focused on cutting the rubber delicately to do armbands while the children looked at her enchanted. Her older boy Gustavo also develop his own cuff. I really left it flow without interfere in their creative process. I also gave them some tools and materials such as hangs for earrings, threads, pliers and stylus, among others for complementing or helping them in the artefact making. On the following day, some of the visitants bought practically all the armbands the women did. Andreia told me how she was happy in having learned how to manufacture the FSA and with the perspectives of developing her products further to sell them. She was already thinking in prices and in selling them in a local fair in 2013.
Filming day 28.11.2012
|
Mr. Raimundo Flor is the president of the Parque das Ciganas Producers' Association. | Coincidentally, we had just arrived in Rio Branco and met people from Parque das Ciganas Producers' Association. They were going to travel to a rubber tapping conference, but unfortunately, later we heard they lost their flight. So, Raimundo and Edinaldo return to the community to work with us, which was important as they are local leaders. |
We were very welcome by the families who would be involved in the course. However we were a bit frustrated because we expected to have latex to begin the course on the same day, but the production was not organised yet. In the end everything was right as we employed the time to discuss how things would work during the next days. Soon, women and men assumed their best roles, one in tapping the trees, others in organising the work space, cleaning, and producing the rubber sheets, among others. On the next day, each one were in their way to makes things happen.
Reorganising the producing unit.
Women cleaning the trays to the rubber sheets production and organising materials. While we were waiting the guys with the latex, I played with the rubber showing them how we could work with the material to develop jewellery and other artefacts. Mrs. Andreia and Mrs. Heloilda were very keen in learning and developing crafts with the rubber. |
I brought these FSA (Semi-artefact sheets) to show them.
First production
As the latex arrived, the first production took over. Mr. Piloto (wearing hat) highlighted himself for his performance in fixing, building, transporting, organising. Mr. Gentil collected a good amount of latex and were happy for this. | Mrs. Andreia highlighted herself among others for being very articulated and for her expertise in doing the FDL, consequently having great facility to learn how to deal with the FSA. |
The first production was very enthusiastic. We made about 60 rubber sheets, but lost some of them because it was also a day of testing the latex with new pigments to achieve the pastel colours we wanted. We also lost a part of the latex because of the long distance and warm weather.
Tests with laces on rubber
On the second day we could see what were the pigments and sheets that worked and the ones that did not. From our notes, Vanda and I knew beforehand what worked well and what we should not repeat. After pressing the coagulated rubber we did some tests of printing some sheets with laces textures.
From semi-artefact to artefacts
After pressing all the rubber sheets I showed Iris and Andreia how to work with the wet rubber to develop products. They were enthusiastic about it and immediately began to materialise ideas. I was also glad to be part of this emerging creativity process.
Visitants
Later on, the team of the The Economist newspaper, with WWF UK and WWF Brazil arrived. They came out in such special moment, which just became even better through out the reportage. The rubber tappers exposed the difficults they are facing because of deforestation and the importance of the rubber and other productive activities in the forest. Moreover, we explained the FDL and FSA technologies, which the processing method was demonstrated by Vanda and the producers.
I am the design consultant of the Rainforest Fashion Project of the Sky Rainforest Rescue in partnership with WWF UK and WWF Brazil. This was initially a private blog made to share the development of the jewellery collection in Brazil with team members. Know more about the development of Lily Cole's jewellery collection.
Archives
June 2013
January 2013
November 2012