Treasure of Nepal - Sample Flip Book

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WOOD CARVING Ratnamani Bramhacharya’s home and workshop is tucked away on a hillside in the village of Bungamati in Lalitpur on the southern side of Kathmandu. It’s December and the days are cool and bright. Anmol, Shailaja and I met Ratna at his small shop in Patan and followed him over the busy ring road and out into the green countryside to Bungamati. This area is known for woodcarving – every household has some connection to the craft. Village shops line the streets and people are sitting out on steps in the sun, dogs wander lazily across the road and chickens scamper to safety as we pass. Here the air is clean and fresh and rice fields are dotted between the new concrete buildings and the older houses. Ratna has been working for over 30 years and has practiced more than a dozen crafts. His family profession was tailoring and it was through them that he became interested in craft. His family came from Tilaurakot; a direct line of descent from his family to the Buddha’s. It was this family connection that inspired him to create religious works and by the time he was 12, Ratna had visited temples and watched the work of other craftsmen, spending the early days of his childhood listening to historians and people who told him the tales surrounding the old temple’s gods and goddesses. Gradually he moved to working with wood; here in Bungamati everyone understands wood. It is only through the shared interest of community that craftsmen can flourish. With all the work he and his workers have, it is not easy to make a living. We enter the property through the low wooden doorway of an old brick building, past a dark passage and out again into the bright sunlight to Ratna’s home and workshop – a fairly recent 5-story house built into the side of a hill. The house is built as separate rooms accessed by walkways and staircases open to the air and I 74 Right: Carvings are often created in relief, referencing old photographs when there are no physical models available. The images are so familiar to these craft workers than they can translate the two dimensional representation into three dimensions, drawing on years of practice.
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Page 2 and 3: © 2016 - Gary Wornell Text and pho
Page 5 and 6: INTRODUCTION In 2012 I took part in
Page 7: The work in this book covers both s
Page 10 and 11: COPPER CASTING It’s 4:00 am and u
Page 12 and 13: 14
Page 16 and 17: metal, he is in regular demand and
Page 18 and 19: Newly cast bronze dorjes in a small
Page 21 and 22: GILDING जलप
Page 23 and 24: 49
Page 25: motorcycles, scooters, cars, lorrie
Page 30 and 31: COPPER FORMING Inside Rabindra Shak
Page 32 and 33: 64
Page 35: WOOD काठ क ुद ्न
Page 39: wondered what it must be like movin
Page 44 and 45: STONE CARVING In an open space in B
Page 46 and 47: 94
Page 48 and 49: Prayer beads and antique thangka, B
Page 53 and 54: SILK THANGKA रेसमको थ
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