Matsya

I am a big lover of Indian art & crafts and when I came across Matsya, I was completely amazed by the lovely products created by artisans from various parts of India.

Jat Embroidery pouches.

Matsya~ Is a venture started by Neha Gandhi, an artist, potter & a craft lover. Neha studied at Sir. J.J School of Art, Mumbai and then went on to learn studio pottery in Golden Bridge Pottery, Pondicherry. Her love for the rich art & crafts of India took her to Maharashtra & Gujarat where she used her creativity to work closely with various artisans.

Matsya is a platform through which Neha wants to create awareness about artisans' life, their culture and age old traditions by featuring the artisans stories about their skills, time and creativity they invest into the craft. Also how our purchasing choices directly impact the livelihoods of thousands artisans and the survival of generations old traditions.

Stunning hand embroidery.

Neha says,"Our goal is to showcase the natural beauty and workmanship in Indian arts and craft by presenting them in contemporary style and form. By doing so, we offer original art that all of us can relate to. They serve as a reminder of our roots, to everything that we have been and therefore are even now."

Hand painted local terracotta pottery.

Here is a collection of some of the many art & crafts at Matsya

Beautiful wooden lacquer craft ladles.

Intricate embroidery by artisans from Kutch.

Leather pouches.

Patchwork Quilts

Block print bags

Jain Keri design on contemporary cushions.

Ceramic Urli.

Hand painted Coffee Mugs

Handcrafted Coffee Mugs & Madhubani coasters.

Jain Art on a pen stand.

In addition to displaying innovative uses and designs of traditional crafts at Matsya, They retail & take corporate orders of an assorted variety of stunning products.

You can get in touch with them at matsya.crafts@gmail.com or become a fan of Matsya Crafts on Facebook to get updates on their various products & events.

(images by Neha Gandhi)

Ship Lake Traverse

There's a creek that runs through downtown Anchorage called Ship Creek. It's a popular salmon fishing stream and in summer is packed with people trying their luck at catching some dinner downtown. Ship Creek comes from Ship Lake, high in the mountains above Anchorage. I decided i'd like to go see the lake one day, and the quickest way to do that is to take "The Ramp".

A lot of people don't realize just how colorful it is here in the fall.

The Ramp is a miles long incline in the mountains that rises 1,300 feet in two miles. At the top is a pass overlooking Ship Lake. From the pass you can continue up a ridge to a mountain, also called The Ramp, go down to the lake, traverse to another pass, or turn around.

Super nice day with a happy dog. It made me want to run around on a horse. It certainly would have made the trip faster.

The first time i went was in fall, on a day with perfect skies and a dusting of snow on the mountaintops. My goal was to ride my bike down the Powerline Pass trail for 3 miles, ditch the bike and cross the stream, then hike 3 miles up to the pass where i had plans to continue up to the top of the mountain to take a VR.

What i would call the beginning of The Ramp. The Ramp leads around to the left and ends at the pass in the distance. The mountain peak just visible on the far left shares the same name. The Wedge is in the middle, and Powerline Valley on the right.

Looking back down the ramp from the pass. You end up well above all the fall colors. This large area was already dead, just waiting to be covered in snow. The long wall on the left is The Wedge.

Things went well that day until i got to the ramp, where a steady cold wind was blowing down. I was moving fast and hot and to keep from sweating too much i was dressed lightly. I guess i should have gone slower and worn another layer because by the time i got to the pass my wrists and hands were so cold i could barely operate the zipper on my back pack. At the pass itself, that strong wind had increased to a bitter hurricane gale. I could barely stand up, and even the dog was seeking shelter. Taking a VR was out of the question, so we headed back.

Fisher ran ahead over the pass first, and out of site. As i was nearing the top, the fierce wind tore my hat off and carried it high up into the sky and out of site! A minute or two later i came over the top and could see that Fisher had found my hat. He was overjoyed to see me, spinning in circles and jumping up and down, even though we'd only been out of site for maybe two minutes at most. It appeared that he may have thought the wind had blown his master to kingdom come, leaving behind only his hat!

Two hours later as we were close to getting back i noticed the sky was glazing over in front of me. I turned around and saw that the mountaintops had disappeared in thick stormy clouds. Just a few hours after that it was snowing. That hurricane force wind was the violent arrival of winter, and we were up on the pass during the very last snow free hours of the year. At least i could rest knowing i'd made the most of fall!  A few years later it was early summer in 2009 and i plans for later in the summer. I was doing hikes solely to get in shape for harder things later on, and divised i a neat excuse to go back up the ramp....

Ship Lake a few hours before the permanent arrival of Winter, and two years later in early Summer. The idea was to walk down there, follow the valley out to the intersection in the distance, and take another right to the pacific ocean catching another trail that hopefully existed at Indian Pass. The snow that summer was dirty with ash because of nearby volcanic eruptions in Spring.

I wanted to go to Ship Lake, and i knew i also wanted to go to a place called Indian Pass. The two places are pretty close together in a straight line, although not connected by trail. I figured if i went to Ship Lake i could hike 3 miles cross country to Indian Pass where i knew i could pick up another trail there, and take that all the way down to the ocean. The cool thing about that route would be that, although it was 16 miles total, i would only have to walk up hill about 2,000 feet and i would get to walk downhill for 4,000 feet. Also, almost all of the uphill would be in the first 6 miles.

See the very faint trail in the right foreground? It doesn't look like much, and disappeared again only about 50 feet away, but even a trail as faint as this can greatly speed up travel if you can find and track them.

Again, things went well. Fisher had lost his leg so i was on my own, but descended the 1,300 feet from Ship Pass to the lake in 1/2 a mile. I quickly found an old intermittent trail right where i had decided the best route would be for travel down the valley. I'd gotten into the bad habit of not bringing maps with me and i almost walked past the valley i was supposed to turn into because the vague path i was on suddenly turned into an old jeep trail up ahead of where i was supposed to turn. It was pretty inviting, but in no time i had made it to Indian Pass and immediately found the official trail that led down to the ocean. From there it was just a waiting game. Waiting for my legs to carry me the last five miles along the stream through what eventually becomes monotonous forest. It wasn't really that boring though, there was lots of fresh bear skatt and the grass and bushes had already grown up to neck height, so i was kept focused on alerting any bears in the area to my passage.

Here i nearly walked to the far valley instead of taking a right up the closer one. The farther valley just looked more like the correct way, and there was a definite well defined trail over there.

These strange patterns of thick ash really threw me for a loop. Eventually i realized they were laid out according to the contours of a melting snow patch, which had only recently disappeared, leaving the ash in exactly the same design.

When i got done I was pretty tired, and my joints were worn out, but when i pulled out my new iphone, i realized the GPS mapping app i had been running through the hike had depleted my battery, and so i had no way to call Maree to come get me. It was about 10:30 at night (but still light), and everyone else was long gone (actually i hadn't seen a single person since i left the powerline trail). I was pretty upset, because that meant i had to KEEP WALKING. After another mile and a half i made it to a nearby saloon where i finally, was officially done.

Final approach to Indian Pass (actually on the far right). Going down the other side the ferns and bear grass soon grew up so neck height.

From Indian Pass you can glimpse of the ocean before heading into the trees. It was still 6 miles away but that was the finish line.

That extra walk sucked, but i have to admit that it was MUCH niceer waiting for Maree while sipping a beer than it would have been to wait on a log by a mosquito infested dirt road. Plus, it's always fun to see the faces when you stagger into a saloon covered in grit, with sticks in your hair and such. Up here the looks are only momentary.

Time for a beer.

DIY~ Bulb Plant Holders

Rang Decor reader, photographer and home decor lover~ Meena Sriram from Ottawa, Canada shares with us a simple but beautiful do-it yourself, Bulb Plant Holder.

Meena narrates, "To be honest, I found this bulb in a small but very quaint store called Laras, downtown Ottawa. I picked one up from the store, later tried making many, got my apartment superintendent to help clean out the bulbs, its not something that you can easily do with a kitchen knife (err..realised that after some very painful tries)

Once the inside of the bulb is cleaned out, the rest is fun and easy, decorating it with African beads and shells and anything else that strikes your fancy!"

The bulb plant holder enhancing the beauty of a corner...

Bulb Plant Holder decorated with African beads...

Now, that is something I would definitely try out:-) The bulb plant holders can add a magical touch to any corner of you home.

Do give it a try!

( images by Meena Sriram)

Happy Monday!

Here are some cheery yellow flowers from my home to brighten your Monday:-)

I received a beautiful gift, a ceramic incense holder, it was so lovely I decided to float these yellow flowers in them.

Have a great day!

Black Rapids Glacier

Well now, this is supposed to be a blog about Alaska, but it seems like ages since i've had any posts about what goes on when i'm up here. I've got two Alaskan summers of postings to catch up on. The summer of 2009 was spectacular, but in my typical fashion, i'm just going to mention that it was fantastic, and point out that i did tons of cool, spectacular stuff, but i'm not going to talk about it again for months. No, instead, i'm going to start off 3 YEARS ago. Sorry.

This was  really nice campground. Here we were in a miles wide braided river bed covered in flowers. The tents were in the forest directly behind us, and there were only two other sets of campers.

So, one day i decided to take Fisher on a camping trip to the Alaska Range. I had this idea that i wanted to go see the Black Rapids Glacier. It's a huge, long glacier (27 miles) that terminates near the Richardson Highway. It's also called the Black Rapids Glacier, which is way more macho than something like, say, the Anderson Glacier. It became famous in 1937 when it advanced three miles in three months, threatening to destroy the road. It became famous again just a few years ago when a large 7.9 earthquake hit the Alaska Range. The quake split the massive glacier in half where it crossed the fault line, moving the one half 20 feet. The earthquake caused mountains to crumble, creating numerous landslides that buried miles of the ice. Yep, another area of incredible destruction, so i wanted to go there. You can see some pictures from the earthquake here. On that page, the photos labeled "printer friendly" work a lot better than the others.

I  think this is a really cool looking mountain. It looks like two mountains embedded in a great wall. Mt. Hayes is much more prominent when viewed from the north. For a nifty picture story of just what it takes to walk over to and climb a mountain like Hayes, click here.

It's kind of a long drive from Anchorage (7 hours that particular day), but then, it often seems that everything is a long way in Alaska. During this time in my Ranger i discovered that i HATE taking Fisher on a long road trip. I had a bunch of camping stuff in the back and so i had let him sit in the front, but he gets scared at high speeds and he was driving me nuts with his panting and constant movement. I also discovered during this drive that Guava flavored Rockstar poured down the arm will summon bees from thin air causing an instant swarm around you. Next time they can't figure out where all the bees are just pour that stuff out on the ground.

At Summit Lake i took the dog down to the shore so he could get a drink. He worked out a few metric tons of pent up anxiety, going nuts with the open air and all the available sticks. The bottom picture he has dropped his stick and then remembered that he hates to get his nose underwater. A perplexing problem, getting the stick again without using his mouth.

A few more miles down the road and i was sorely disappointed when i saw the glacier. It had receded far from the road, and what was visible was completely buried in rock debris. I wouldn't have been able to go over to it anyway due to a sizable river that was in the way. So i stayed at a nifty campground on the edge of the river and the next day picked a random glacial valley to hike up from the road. There were many to choose from and i picked one that had a short rocky road you could drive up. From there it looked like in the distance there was an ice arch on the top of the glacier that sat back in the valley. We followed a raging river to the mouth of the glacier and sure enough, above the gaping mouth was an ice arch that resembled a natural bridge.

The Gulkana Glacier, maybe the site of a future expedition?

The glacier ended in a huge gaping hole large enough to easily drive a  couple of firetrucks into. The cavern had a half circle shape to it and was cut into the side of a large flat sloping wall. The ice was melting at an incredible rate, you could almost see it moving back, and rocks fell so continuously down the front face that it made entry into the cavern dangerous. Fisher stood right in front of it not understanding where all the splashes were coming from. I had to yell at him to get away from it. I also had to yell just because it was so loud.

 

After looking it up on maps weeks later, i determined that this is the Castner Glacier, with aptly named Triangle Peak up in the smokey air. According to maps the glacier is covered in debris for at least 6 or 7 miles. The ice bridge is visible in both images.

The rocks in the area were very peculiar. They all had a metallic sheen and some large boulders looked like solid metal, with radiator coolant colored pools of water surrounding them. It looked like something from Myst. There was also ice quicksand. I'd heard of ice quicksand existing in Baffin and Ellesmere island, but i'd never encountered it in Alaska. Close to the cave entrance i fell into it, with my brand new hiking boots on. Seriously, i had literally just bought some new boots that week, and this was the first trip i used them on. I hadn't yet decided if i would return them. Filling the insides with metallic sand was going to make it a bit harder to get my money back. Fortunately they turned out to be some of the best boots i've ever owned.

Here Fisher is realizing that the current is stronger than he reckoned. Kind of a large river to be emerging from underground just a few hundred yards away.

You could drive a firetruck in here with plenty of room overhead to spare.

I  convinced the dog to climb up the rubble with me and try to get to open ice. We walked and walked and every time i came up to the top of a crumbling hill, i'd see another about a tenth of a mile away. We walked by big empty mudbowls where clearly a pond or small lake had suddenly drained through hole in the bottom. Eventually we came to what looked like two plates of obisdian lying on mudbank. On closer inspection they were ice windows looking directly in to the body of the glacier. The windows were perfectly smooth and crystal clear. Because they were in the shade i could see detail in the form of tiny cracks and bubbles for several feet down before things faded into blackness. It delivered the weird sensation of looking into a bottomless pit, and made me feel like i was walking on a thin layer of loose mud and rocks covering a giant empty void.

I don't know why this is the only picture of it that i took, but here you can see one of the ice windows. You can also see how all the young Alder trees are growing on top of the glacier, which is apparently covered by 4 feet of loose soil and rock. The ice windows were revealed when a large section of the top soil slid off the underlying ice, probably due to the hot summer. The rocks and mud were actively sliding away while i was there.

Oh yeah, did i mention that the glacier looked like it had beds of gold trapped in the ice? See, i don't just make stuff up. Pretty cool and very crazy looking. If that's really gold then i'm the biggest idiot in the world for posting this. These are the minerals that were responsible for that metallic sheen on the boulders in the area. The quicksand in by boots was the same stuff and trying to get it out of the fabric it didn't really look like gold.

Looking up at the ice bridge from underneath made it clear that i didn't want to climb on top.

After our exploration of the glacier i continued on down the road. Half the purpose of the trip had been to travel down the Denali Highway, a 90 mile dirt road that connects to the paved Parks Highway and parallels the Alaska Range. I completed the trip but conditions seriously deteriorated that day into thunderstorms and thick smoke from fires. So i'll have to make that trip again some day....