Swimming in Devotional Art

Troves of uniquely framed devotional art

I’ve been digging through some of my old travel photography, being instantly drawn back into past adventures the way rummaging through old photographs allows us to do. When people visit my Dharma Boutique shop they often comment on the smell as they come into the rooms (“Oh, it reminds me of India!”), as so many of the vintage and antique items still possess elements of the aromatic essence of their origin. As you enter the big room, on your right is a wall of literally hundreds of framed devotional art prints: antique frames filled with original lithograph prints from the early/mid 1900s, as well awesome reproductions of old hand-painted miniatures.

Happy Hunting

In my element, awash in history


11:14 p.m., Sunday March 8, 2009

Today is my father Edward’s birthday—#79. Just spoke with him by phone a bit ago, wishing him well in Concord New Hampshire during his morning and my evening of the same day.

Today was a grand adventure through two nice warehouse showrooms of textiles young and old. One I’ve been to a number of times, the other was a gem offered by our driver Surjeet, with whose car service I intend to travel to both Vrindavan and Jodhpur, in whichever order unfolds.

I went initially in search of old Gudri blankets, wonderful textiles with a marvelous variety of form and color represented in their patterns, sometimes manically different from front to back. Some I want to use for a small upholstery project, some for making some one-of-a-kind, uber-special party jackets, and some for simply bringing home to enjoy as is.

Lo and behold, the first stop even had a stack of enormous hand-embroidered vintage Afghan Suzani pieces, quite like the ones I scouted out myself last year in Afghanistan for me and some friends in New York. (Though I paid about half this asking price when I was in Afghanistan, no doubt. This year, it doesn’t feel worth the risk to travel there again.)

I picked a few out, sent some pics to a couple of clients to see if they were of interest, and picked a few that were nice enough to want to keep for sure, even though my budget didn’t include a Suzani score. That’s why God made credit cards, right? And scored almost twenty sweet Gudri pieces along the way, too. I’m having those cleaned and delivered to my guest house tomorrow—nice!


A splendid Afghan piece from the day's exploits


Got textiles?