Designer Arpine Matevosyan questions their origin
“There is such tendency among Armenians: if one has something, the other wants to have right the same too. For example, I had made necklaces with the same decoration but with different colors, but the purchaser asked me for one with a certain color that once I had suddenly come up with. And so you again make efforts to make it, and you fail, so they either buy one with another color, or they don’t buy it”, smiling, tells designer Arpine, who has named her handmade production as “Sunflower”. As a result of studying decorative applied art (she has studied at the ASPU Art Education Department), she mainly designs jewelry and jewelry boxes. She says that decoration in handmade products is not as important as their applicability. “In my opinion, decorative products are not sold so much. Once I made a vase, which was quite large, not for everyday use. I can say that such items are relatively rarely consumed”. She learned to work with clay in her native village of Areni, when she was still a student. Her first attempt was to make salt-cellar.
Arpine believes crafting is both creative process and business: after all, you put all your energy and time into it. Once she tried to sell her works in Vernissage but did not succeed: “After trying for several days I felt that the trading psychology was not for me”. Today, she carries out sales mainly via Facebook, taking 2-3 orders a week. Talking about the purchasers, she notes that there are ones who prefer the ornaments to be symmetric, others like asymmetry: “The nature of true handmade is really in asymmetry, and if you truly love handmade products, you prefer your jewelry to be such”.
According to Arpine, recently handmade items have become very common, however, the quality is not always guaranteed: “I have noticed that often the quality is not so good. In most cases, roughly speaking, those are poor quality works. That is not the real handmade”. The worst for Armenian designers is that very often foreign culture is presented as Armenian. She often notices products with Turkish patterns. Although those sometimes have some similarities with the Armenian ones, their origin is still Turkish. “The color is usually dark red. Those are cloths with Turkish patterns brought from Turkey that are used in Armenian folk costumes. But it is not Armenian. The costumes are sold to foreigners as Armenian. I think it’s the worst thing to present foreign patterns as your own”.
She tells that she has noticed cloths with the pattern of Artsakh’s “We and Our Mountains” tuff sculpture in several shops, whose origins are questionable: “The reason is that when I asked at these stores, they said that those are produced in Turkey and brought to Armenia from there.
Besides clay jewelry nowadays Arpine, also makes carpet bags and eco bags that are designed for everyday use and shopping.
Nelly PETROSYAN
