University of Hawaii visit

Pretty excited to share with you the details of my trip to Hawaii; I was invited by the Department of Architecture at the University of Hawaii to do workshops on design as well as present my work at Kara. I don't think a blog-post would do justice to this experience, but here's a short photo-essay:

I stayed on a quite part of this spectacular coastline in Waikiki.

Sunrise over the beautiful Kapiolani park and Diamond Head Crater Park

Monday started bright and early at the Dept of Architecture at the Univ of Hawaii

They're working on a small project in branding I did with them over the week.

Loved seeing their stuff lying around; reminds me of my studio desk most days!

We divided them into small groups for reviewing each other's work.

I'm getting ready for my talk here; was super thrilled to see the turnout and the Q&A afterwards!

Maria Simon (l) and Erin Yuasa (r) were kind enough to take me on a tour of the University; Maria teaches in the Dept of Architecture; Erin teaches in the Ceramic Dept. Both are fellow alums from my grad school, the Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Beautiful textures in remnants of a clay piece by Phoebe Cummings

This tree, outside the art department, was incredible to look at!

Erin makes beautiful work about re-purposed clay stepping stones, made in the shapes of found containers

These beautiful stemware by Erin's boyfriend Mark Mitsuda, a talented glass-artist and educator

Erin and Mark in his office at Punahou High School. They were kind enough to take me on a tour of this amazing institution!

This beautiful school is also where President Obama went to school at!

This is the Glass and Ceramic workshop areas of the school; loved the airy spacious space!

Here are some other fun things I did:

Lazy Sunday breakfast underneath the lychee tree with Aki (l) and Maria (r)

En route to Bellows beach, near the historic air force station with the same name

Nomoola does some incredible work on sustainable food practices; found their stand at the lunch-stop.

The sunken warship USS Arizona at the Pearl Harbor memorial; the colors are from the oil seeping out of the ship.

I also did a solo road-trip to the north shore of Oʻahu; the landscape was spectacular!

This lil dude was sunning himself on the coast when I got there; hello Sea Turtle!

Did I say how incredibly simple and delicious the food was? :)

Some life-truths I picked up:

Nature is the best pedicure, ever!

All food tastes great, if you're at the beach with friends! (with Tim & Maria)

Traveling in an open jeep can can make your face & hair happy! (with Aki & Maria)

Our fabric works with any lifestyle, any part of the world! (here Aki confirms it with the Infini)

Grad Students + Kara Weaves

At the office: Indu giving a small talk about the Kara Weaves story and process to the students and faculty

Last week, we were really happy to host a group of students from DePaul University Chicago and Kerala led by their faculty Prof Ramya Ramanath and Prof Vinay Raj respectively. The students were a mix of MBA and the Non-Profit Administration graduate program by both the schools.

We were happy to hear that what we had to share was of interest to both the groups of students since we are a business in the progress of registering ourselves as a non-profit organization. We prepared a little slideshow  presentation (shown below) explaining our working process and how we engage with local and international communities.

We were also fortunate enough to be joined by Anup Nair and Tony Jose, the co-founders of Local Economic Development Society (LEDS), a visionary group providing local-to-local networking for micro-enterprises across Kerala.

Anup Nair gives an engaging talk about his work