How palm leaf baskets are woven in Ramanathapuram
From a young palmyra frond to a lidded basket: the drying, dyeing and weaving behind our palm leaf storage sets.
A morning in Nachiarkoil
How a lamp is cast in a village near Kumbakonam, from wax to brass.
Nachiarkoil is a small temple town near Kumbakonam, and for generations many families here have cast brass lamps. We visited the Selvaraj family, who make our annam lamps, on a morning in March.
Every lamp begins as a wax model. Selvaraj’s son shapes the swan by hand from a mix of beeswax and resin, carving the feathers with a heated metal tool. The wax is then coated in layers of fine clay mixed with cow dung and sand, each layer left to dry in the sun before the next goes on.
When the mould is ready, it is heated in a small kiln. The wax melts and runs out, leaving a hollow in the exact shape of the swan. Molten brass is poured into it in a single motion. Since the mould is broken to release the lamp, no two lamps are ever the same; this is called lost-wax casting.
The rough lamp is filed, joined to its stand and polished by hand over two days. One 12 inch lamp, from wax to polish, takes the family about a week. When you buy an annam lamp from us, the tag carries the Selvaraj name and the month it was cast.
