Leh Ladakh
Arts & Crafts of Leh Ladakh
Working
in silver, brass and copper, they produce exquisite items for domestic and religious
use : tea and chang pots, teacup - stands and lids, hookkah-bases, ladles and
bowls and, occasionally, silver chorten for installa-tion in temples and domestic
shrines. Those who cannot afford the expensive ware of the Chiling craftsmen, are supplied by local blacksmitsh (gara), witht the bowls and cooking pots they need for everyday use, as well as with agricultural implements. The gara also make the large and ornate iron stoves seen in kitchens of the richer Ladakhi homes. In general, craftsmanship has not developed beyond and production of everyday item for personal and domestic use. Pattu, the rough, warm, woolen material used for clothing is made from locally produced wool, spun by women on drop-spindles, and woven by semi-professional weavers on portable looms set up in the winter sunshine, or under the shade of a tree in summer. Baskets, for the transport of any kind of burden - manure for the fields, fresh vegetables, even babies -are woven out of willow twigs, or a particular variety of grass. Wood work is confined largely to the production of pillars and carved lintels for the houses, and the low carved tables that are a feature of every Ladakhi living-room.
The
Handicrafts Centre also has a department of Thangka painting. These icons on
cloth are executed in accordance with strict guidelines handed down from past
generations. In the same tradition are the mural paintings in the gompas, where
semi-professional , both monks and laymen,, labour tokeep the walls decorated
with images symbolizing the various aspects of the Buddhist Way. The skill of
building religious statues is also not extinct. The gigantic representation
of Maitreya, was installed in Thikse Gompa as recently as the early 1980s
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