http://www.kashgar.com.au
I source a hugely diverse and eclectic range of furniture, rugs, antiques, handicrafts and jewellery from over 25 different countries including India, Nepal, Tibet, China, Thailand, Burma, Laos, the Philippines, Vietnam, Mexico, Peru, Turkey, Palestine, Syria, Afghanistan and Turkmanistan. The collection includes contemporary and tribal jewellery, a range of headhunting curios, antique Buddhist relics, tribal artifacts, textiles and hand-knotted rugs. I also stock a exclusive collection of one-off hand-beaded necklaces that I design and create myself using the beads and jewellery making techniques of various ethnic minorities from around the globe.
Where can you find all of this? At Kashgar in Sydney, Australia. Kashgar is a philosophy as well as a store. We are committed to supporting traditional artisans and small village communities by selling authentic handcrafted goods which are all personally collected by us. By supporting traditional methods of design and production we aim to encourage local cottage industries which have a low impact on the environment and help ethnic minorities maintain their self-sufficiency into the 21st Century. I am particularly committed to assisting women around the world and to this end work with several organizations including the Hua Bin Women's Union of Vietnam and the East Timorese Women's Association. As people all over the world give up their traditional dress in favour of Levis and T-shirts, time-honored means of craftsmanship and traditional ways of life are also disappearing. I see our trade as a means of staving off the inevitable encroachment of the 21st century, assisting communities to decide for themselves which parts of the western world they wish to incorporate and which they wish to reject. I encourage our customers to think of the handicrafts and artifacts they buy from us as an investment: a piece of history and a way of life that may soon be gone forever.
Kashgar has one retail outlet in Sydney. Our pieces have appeared as props in movies such as Wolverine, Mission Impossible 2, Queen of the Damned, Scooby Doo and Moulin Rouge, and in series such as Farscape and Beastmaster, as well as a large number of plays, commercials and museum exhibitions. We are occasionally commissioned to find special pieces for individual customers as well as for film sets, event management companies, hotels, businesses, consulates and embassies. The uniqueness of our stock means that we are also very appealing to interior and fashion designers around the world. New stock arrives all the time, and most of our items are one-off specialties; other pieces we only stock in small quantities. We are also jam packed with ideas for the home and work premises, with ideas for decorating that will challenge established concepts of design and storage.
I also have a new website
http://www.kashgar.com.au .
It's designed to showcase some of my own jewellery pieces and also the obscure tribal pieces and artifacts we've collected over the years from the remotest corners of the globe. There's a magazine section which contains excerpts from our travel diaries, photographs from around the world and articles on diverse subjects such as headhunting (one of my favourite subjects) and tips for easy traveling. If you have any questions about our work you can contact me directly via the site.
About myself, if I had one wish it would be to have super powers so that I could right all the wrongs of the world. But I don't, so I try to make other people's lives better one person at a time. I'm also an aerobatic pilot, although I haven't had a fly for a while - I spend far too much time working and traveling for work. All my life I've had dreams in which I could breathe underwater, so it's no surprise I became a marine biologist or that I love scuba diving. What else? I'm scared of spiders (even little ones) but I love snakes. I cry in sad movies. I hate injustice and the suffering it can cause. I find it easy to choose between right and wrong and I expect other people to be able to do the same. My husband is the best thing that ever happened to me. I love discussing different points of view with other people and I love learning. I'm good at keeping other peoples' secrets. People tell me EVERYTHING because I want to know.
In summary, let me paraphrase Stephen King: I have the heart of a young girl and I keep it in a jar on my desk.
Oh GOD that's right, I hate cockroaches too. Uggggg. And celery and marzipan, but not NEARLY as much as cockroaches.
So check out the website http://www.kashgar.com.au . I'll see you there!
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