Theres a contest I entered, a quite surprising one. The theme was the Kolam, a ephemeral work of art, created from a grid into complex designs and colored red ochre and white,or four very bright colors; Divya’s contest, the Kolom or Kolongol. Whan Divya first proposed the contest I was intrigued by the images she posted and while I liked the brightly colored palettes, I found myself drawn to the simple red ochre and white color scheme. I ordered some delicas in these colors. Because I am so very literal I saw a simple design of knots which I made using the Easy Bead program. Then Divya posted more pictures and directed us to look at Kamala’s website(which by the way has an amazing selection of vegetarian Indian recipes as well as an elucidation of kalongals and many examples along with instructions on how to draw them. I immediately saw that my comprehension of kalongal was flawed. They were designed from a grid of dots, in the number 3,4,15, etcetera, and then the lines were drawn around, or to the dots. color was added last. It is an elaborate process, yet way the dots morphed into the designs was , besides being a good design technique and maybe related to pentangle, just fascinating to me. But it wasn’t so easy to translate these designs to the 22 bead wide peyote base I was using. I developed another design and then using Kamala designs, made a thisrd in the three dot kolongol. SoI went for a traditional interpretation with a learning curve thrown in.
A number of Indian designers joined in on this contest. There were many good designs. Some of my favorites were earrings that match my bracelet and a bead in four bright colors.
 |
| Kolam bracelet |
