Rayela Art and HeART of Healing Gallery Bring the World of Textiles to Paducah!

Handmade ornaments from Thailand, India and Indonesia

Dr. Christi Bonds and I, Rachel Biel, have a passion in common: textiles!  Both of us are members of Paducah Fiber Artists, a group that meets monthly for show and tell, potluck and support.  Both of us quilt.  And, both of us love textiles from around the world.  Christi, a medical doctor who practices Integrative medicine, has an alternative health clinic in the heart of LowerTown's art neighborhood.  A large gallery room was dedicated to this love of textiles, housing HeART of Healing Gallery.  I had a booth downtown at 212 Broadway and was working two afternoons a week at Christi's gallery.  We decided that it would make sense to move the gallery downtown and free up the space for more health related programs.  We now have both of our booths across from each other, separated by an aisle.  It looks like one big ethnic textile shop! 

HeART of Healing Gallery's new space 

at Antique Galleria, 212 Broadway in Paducah

Rayela Art's booth faces HeART of Healing's

The booths work really well together as we have different specialties.  HeART of Healing Gallery has grown an impressive collection of molas made by the Kuna Indians in Panama.  Most are unfinished panels that can be framed or made into pillows, bags, or incorporated into quilts.  But, there also many mola blouses, an unusual find in most mola circles.  The blouses have panels on front and back and are set into the traditional gauzy floral fabrics so loved by the Kuna women.  These people are tiny, tiny, so most of us will have to enjoy these blouses as textiles, although I suppose they could be altered to fit some of us more Nordic types.

Kuna mola blouses from Panama

Another major focus found at HeART of Healing's booth are scores of vintage Japanese kimono, both long and short.  Christi originally bought these for the fabric as many quilters enjoy working with it, but we have found that our customers also love wearing the kimono.  So, cut it up or put it on, it's up to you!

HeART of Healing's closet of Kuna blouses and kimono.

Kimono + windchimes = good feng shui at HeART of Healing!

Rayela Art's focus moves to Central and South Asia: textile stamps from Afghanistan, ralli quilts from Pakistan, and Suzani embroidery from Uzbekistan. 

Rayela Art's textile stamps are always a big favorite!

Ralli quilts: use them on your bed or hang them on a wall.

Rayela Art also carries tribal and vintage clothing, 

kilim rugs, Indian spreads and other textiles.

 

Uzbeki coat and sarong from Bali, both Rayela Art.

Both of our booths also have plenty of small gift items, jewelry and interesting crafts that are bound to find their way to someone's home.  HeART of Healing also has a nice display case filled with African beads and some nice sculptures, not pictured here. 

HeART of Healing: Chinese cosmetic pouches, 

Oaxacan carvings, and more!

Rayela Art: Chinese statues and Moroccan lamps.

HeART of Healing: bamboo woven porcelain, 

bone carvings, Quan Yin, and jewelry.

Rayela Art: natural seed jewelry, tribal necklaces

Between the two of us, anyone who loves cultural textiles and crafts are bound to find something they like!  Nikki May of IList Paducah was kind enough to mention us in her tour of historic Paducah's hot shopping spots.  We invite you to travel the world with us, sharing in this wonderful gift of creativity and talent that connects all craft and textile people to each other!

Both Rayela Art and HeART of Healing Gallery have shops on Etsy.

Learn more about us on our websites:

Rayela Art

HeART of Healing

Rayela Art and HeART of Healing Gallery Bring the World of Textiles to Paducah!

Tithing for Textiles

Ralli Quilt from Pakistan

I recently had an Etsy customer buy three of my ralli quilts. She bought two the first time and then several weeks later, a third one. Most of what I carry in my shops are low end items, under $30. Textile stamps have the biggest following, but the remnants, beads, fabric and molas also get their share of attention. The higher end, vintage textiles (ralli quilts, suzani embroideries and kilims), sit for a longer period in my shops, but eventually, the right person finds them and they also sell. This customer mentioned that she was excited to spend money from her textile fund.

Textile fund? Interesting.... She set aside money every month until she had enough to buy something that really was special to her. That got me to thinking.... Most of the people that I know have lost a lot of money during these hard economic times. This lost money means that "disposable" income that could be used for fun, for impulse purchases, is gone. The belt tightens up and priorities (mortgages, utilities, food, etc.) take precedence over unnecessary purchases. Most would argue that buying a textile or art falls into that "unnecessary" category. Yet, even in hard times, most of us spend money on non-art things that we also don't need: a coffee, an electronic toy, a hamburger, and so on. $10 here, $15 there. I would argue that there is a place, a needed one, for beautiful, handmade things in our lives. So, what if we actually made that a priority and set up a fund for beauty?

Suzani Embroidery from Uzbekistan

Having limited income forces most of us to think more carefully about our purchases. I do think that this is a behavior that we, as a society, desperately need if we are to change how we impact this earth. We buy and sell so much junk, so much stuff that just ends up in a corner, eventually gets donated or thrown out. Stuff that will never biodegrade. Stuff that breaks the first time you use it. Stuff that becomes obsolete in two years. Stuff, stuff, stuff. When we don't have much money, we still have this urge to spend and this makes us go for what is cheap.

Banana Leaf with Butterflies, Mola from Panama

My mother is the incarnation of the practical woman who understands value as that what is lasting. She was a farm girl from Minnesota of Icelandic stock. When I was six months old, she and my Dad went to Brazil as missionaries and we spent the next 18 years there. Shopping was always a search for value. Not for what was cheap, but for what would last. We had one of those old wringer washing machines that would destroy anything that was poorly sewn. They boiled the clothes, so if dye was not set, it would leak on everything else. She would rather have one good sweater that would last twenty years, then 10 sweaters that would fall apart in a year. I learned that lesson from her and look at everything in terms of how it is built or constructed.

My mother reading me a story in 1962.

So, maybe setting up a separate bank account for beauty is one way to go. My customer also made me think of the concept of tithing. This is a practice many churches have of giving 10% of one's income back to the church in order to fund church projects and to help the poor. Jews, Muslims, and other religions have similar concepts. In the old days, this concept went beyond money and included one's labor: crops or products. At different points in European history, tithing was translated into taxation, overseen by the Church with political backing. Forced tithing or taxation resulted in imprisonment, land grabbing and finally, revolts. Tithing went back to a voluntary concept.

Handwoven kilim from Afghanistan

In thinking about this, I am attracted by the idea of not only setting up a beauty fund, but of also allocating a percentage of one's productivity toward charity. Those of us who are artists do have an asset that can be given back to society. We can volunteer our knowledge to a community program (after-school programs, nursing homes, hospitals, homeless shelters, etc) through teaching a free workshop or we can donate items that we make or our computer skills to fund-raising events or to the less fortunate around us.

Each of us has to find our place in this world and to choose how we spend our buying power and our productive energy. The handmade movement does have a huge impact on what is being made (is it junk?) and where these things end up. We can save for beauty, tithe for it, work for it, and slowly change the perceptions of what we need and want. My thanks to a wonderful customer who made me do a bit of thinking!

Tithing for Textiles