Hello ,
Greetings from Spain
Last week I was telling you that I am in fact a turtle, you can read it here.
In related news, Merlin the Crow (have you been following this?) has deserted us, gone, flown away.
The strange bird that adopted Ancient Wisdom endlessly tapping on windows and doors and nicking our milk deliveries has gone.
Perhaps it's the football, if I could get away I would to, I hate football, I really do. The beautiful game? Give me a break, it's all lager louts and loutish behaviour and now a showcase for Russian media masters to brainwash the already lobotomised football fans of the world.
And today all Spain is tuning in to the Spain / Portugal match, that's it.. all this part of Europe is closed.
If you love footy.. Calm down.. I'm just joking Ok. OK! It's just game, don't stress :)
Erm.. moving on..
Meanwhile back at AW HQ, the silver I mentioned last week came.
It's from Celuk the silver town in Bali found in the fabled Sukawati artisan region. See.. I tell you all the trade secrets.
Over the years we have found a few artisan silversmiths in this area of Bali.
A town (or area really) between Ubud and Denpasar it's famous for Silversmiths. On the main street there are lots of showrooms, one or two really quite grand mainly geared for tourists. But dig a bit deeper and you can find the dealers where traders go to buy silver. Silver from here is shipped all over the world. One guy told me he ships 200kg silver to the USA every month. So it's actually big business. But supporting that business - in the back streets and surrounding farm houses, family artisans beaver away, picking up subcontract work from the big boss traders. Naturally, we wanted to deal directly with those artisans. This is Ancient Wisdom, it's what we do.
So Ringo (that's our agent) and I drove to the outskirts of the town and basically started knocking on doors and asking if they were silver artisans within. After a couple of unfruitful hours of asking people who just referred us back to the main road trader, or shrugged and suggested the next lane. About to give up, we found ourselves down a narrow lane next to a paddy field, with a stream on one side and nowhere to turn round. There is this high wooden gate into a farming compound, if we open that maybe we can back into turnaround. We knock on the door, and an old lady opens it to let us turn round. It's a farm, chickens squarking and running about, but there in the corner of the yard is a silver buffing machine. Well, one thing led to another and we had found our family. Mother and Father and two well built sons.
They took us into a small workshop, like a shed really with a big teak table in the centre with all those tools they use in the middle and bits of kit fixed to the table, the sun streamed through a small window like a blessing from heaven. There the family sat Mother and Father and two strapping sons all smiling and happy as they work deftly at creating the stuff we take for granted. Those silver earrings you are wearing come from a place like this.
We showed them our silver samples and designs and asked them to quote us. Father said, well let us try and make it. There and then he pulled out a flat strip of silver, that looked nothing like silver all grey and oily. As swiftly as you can imagine using a mini jigsaw he cut the shape purely on sight. Handing it to his wife, she blasted it with hot gas flame, pumping air on a foot pump. Then it was passed along about six processes, to each of the sons in turn to do their stuff until a gleaming sample was handed back to the father, who ceremonially unwrapped a silver stamp from a leather pouch and added the official 925 stamp. This he explained had to be tested and verified at a local assay office before it could be exported.
This is how we love to do business at AW, helping family businesses to grow and trade, selling to the independent gift shops, also family run who bring gifts (those little acts of love) to families everywhere.
When you trade with Ancient Wisdom, your trading as directly as possible with artisans, in Indonesia, India and China. You are part of that karma-tic circle of trade - love - gifts - trade - love. Join it :)
So much better than football no?
Have a great weekend, and if you have time check out the deals below. Complete the circle join us today.
Take care
David
