I spent the past weekend in Providence meeting various artists at the henna conference.
The conference overall was well put together with some great presentations on a variety of henna related topics. The role and style of henna in various cultures around the world was my main reason for attending. Of that there were several presenters.
Nic of
Nomad Heart Henna gave an overview of a variety of the less well known styles from around the world including the Sudan, the Gulf states, Tunisia and Mauritania among others.
Noam Sienna presented on his work researching the henna traditions of Jewish cultures in North Africa, Asia and the middle east. Many of those traditions have been lost sadly but there are some who are attempting to revive / reinterpret them for the present day.
Neeta of
Mehndi Designer gave some practical insight into the construction and elements of Indian bridal henna, along with work pages for students to practice with. One of the top presenters was Gina Rite from New Zealand, who is using
mehndi as a means to bridge cultures and as a tool for the youth of her community to embrace their own culture.
There were also presentations in gilding, face painting and the realities of working in a festival environment. It looks like face painting is becoming more popular with henna artists although they all admit it is a different mind set from applying henna. I know I would enjoy face painting but the thought of adding yet more supplies and tools to my already heaping stack is a bit daunting at present. We shall see if I decide to try that road later on.
Naturally, since there were two presentation rooms, there were other presentations that I would have loved to take part in. There were also some great crafting ideas that would be a lot of fun to explore - should I have the time to at some point. That's what it all comes down to, isn't it? How much time do we have to explore the paths that fascinate and sing to us?
Here are a few designs that I created for people at the conference. Getting used to another person's paste and cones is always a bit of a challenge and I don't think I did so well personally. I can see why some artists chose to bring their own paste. Ah well, it just means I need to buckle down and practice more. But then, for me this is still fun so I am perfectly ok with that!
As promised, here is the stain from my design of the other week. Posting was delayed due to my brief holiday (more on that later) but no matter. The nice thing about the top of the arm / hand is that the skin is fairly even so you get a similar stain all across. The skin on the fingers is naturally a bit thicker so the stains there get darker.
Ahhh... Sometimes it seems like it takes forever for me to get around to applying any henna on myself. Then again, as I took the design to the far side of my arm, getting over my own lack of flexibility may play a role in that. This little piece was a fun improvised design from the other night. This picture was taken while the paste was still on. I will endeavor to post another picture showing the actual stain in the next day or two.
This is my first attempt at a large tribal style piece. Ok, I will amend that - this is my first tribal piece ever! I paired up with another artist, she henna'ed the lady while I did this piece for her partner. We pulled our source images from the web since we are both new at this kind of design.