Karuna Village | fair trade fine art

Karuna Village is a non-profit (501(c)3) organization dedicated to educating the community about fair trade and its benefits to artisans and communities. To create a friendly environment we sell Fair Trade Fine Art items from a variety of traditions from around the globe.  The goal is to make Fair Trade merchandise accessible via our online shop (coming soon), and through the Fair Trade Cafe for the betterment of artisans, their communities as well as ours.

About Fair Trade

Committed to providing fair wages and good employment opportunities to economically disadvantaged artisans and farmers worldwide.

Directly links low-income producers with consumer markets and educates consumers about the importance of purchasing fairly traded products which support living wages and safe and healthy conditions for workers in the developing world.

By adhering to social criteria and environmental principles, Fair Trade Organizations (FTOs) foster a more equitable and sustainable system of production and trade that benefits people and their communities.

The following are a few examples of the kind of high quality art that wil be on offer at Karuna Village online store.
With Fair Trade Fine Art from Karuna Village you are not just getting a high quality piece of art - you are getting a story.

Each piece comes with an information sheet giving the story behind the picture - the artist, the style of art, their country of origin and their culture.
Each piece is an original or signed and numbered limited edition print. We are negotiating to supply art from the following countries - Mexico, Guatemala, Nicuragua, Panama, Africa, Australia, Vietnam, China and India. We hope to discover artists from other countries as we progress and are always happy to hear from artists who think would fit our quality and style.

Karuna Village is a nonprofit agency.

Due to the nature of our artisan crafts, our supply and inventory is always in flux.
So please visit our online store (coming soon) regularly. 

Here is a sample of the kind of art we will be offering

	Huichol Yarn Painting, Mexico                                                                                                                                                             The Huichol Indians, whose pre-Hispanic culture still survives in the remote Sierra Madres ranges, live a life woven of magic and sacred mythology. Believing themselves to be that part of creation which entertains the Gods, Huichols are sustained by their earthly representatives - corn, peyote and the deer - thus symbolically renewing their divinity daily. These women and men keep alive the ancient traditions which remain a precarious reality for an indigenous people still relatively unaffected by Western civilisation. But, encroaching paper mills, airstrips, and government forces are rapidly altering this. Soon, all that will be left of this so-called "primitive" culture will be memories and the yarn paintings surviving in the hands of collectors. Shamanic art originated with prayer bowls placed in caves as offerings. Whatever the size, the yarn paintings are personal interpretations of some aspect of Huichol relationship to the Gods. In this land of canyons, sparse rainfall, and uncertain crops, these Indians depend on their close psychic connections with Nature to survive.
	Vietnamese Embroidery Paintings Vietnamese embroidery paintings are bought directly from the artists in the rural villages of northern Vietnam where they are made. Embroidery has a long history and is famous in Vietnam. The embroidering trade has been in business for more than 700 years. and originated in the provinces of Ha Tay and ninh Binh and are particularly famous for their embroidery skills. In some families that embroidery skills are passed on from generation to generation. Each piece takes a great deal of time to complete. Our large Vietnamese embroidery paintings, for example, may take over one month for a single artist to finish. The work requires much more patience than in painting and sculpting. It is even harder in the 3-dimension hand embroidery. This unique technique makes vietnamese embroidery paintings beautiful and original.
	Vietnamese Modern Lacquer Painting This modern style lacquer painting is made by the traditional method and material such as lacquer paint, golden leaves, golden dust, egg shells, mother of pearl. The theme of this particular series of paintings is women. Beautiful women transform into fantasies with flowers, waters, cranes, animals, sun, birds, and many creative waves.  Women around the world with different colors, different outfits, and accessories, made beautiful pictures. The designs, colors, details (eg. in the hair or the bracelets of the women - which unfortunately you cannot really see in the photo) and the theme make the paintings interesting with a new concept of Vietnamese lacquer art: praising the beauty of women and nature universally.
	Mayan Oil Painting A painting by Mayan artist Martin Chavajay, entitled "Corn Harvest Scene". Martin is from the Santiago Atitlan area of Guatemala and is one of the artists we are negotiating with to create a limited edition print run of a selection of his work. Limited Edition Prints will be made using the Giclee method and will all be signed and numbered by the artist. Each print run will be limited to between 100 and 250 depending on the individual piece.
	Batik from Gambia Made By: Roots Batik Workshop Each one is an original piece of African artwork done in the traditional double wax batik style of hand painting and dyeing on cotton.  At Roots Batik Workshop in The Gambia, Kabir and his apprentices are enjoying making special artwork that showcases and brings to the world their African culture, animals, and landcapes. Kabir makes only a few of each design every season so you will have a unique and rare piece of artwork.
	Oil Painting from Nicaragua This piece is entitied "La Naturaleza" and is by Nicaraguan artist Arnulfo Palacios. Arnulfo is one of the artists we are negotiating with to create a limited edition print run of a selection of his work. Limited Edition Prints will be made using the Giclee method and will all be signed and numbered by the artist. Each print run will be limited to between 100 and 250 depending on the individual piece.
	Ceramic Tile Paintings from Vietnam Bat Trang is famous for the paintings of vietnamese traditional folk themes using the colors of Dong Ho Painting style. These paintings are special in that they are painted on ceramic material. After painting, the pictures were put into the kiln and fired. These paintings are bought in Bat Trang, a village located in the south east of Ha Noi, about 10 km along the Red River.  Since the 15th century, the village of Bat Trang has been famous for its pottery.  The beauty of the paintings is sealed deep inside the ceramic tile, carved, engraved on the titles and then covered by a very light, fine glaze.  Each picture is hand made completely by the Bat Trang’s people. The significant characteristic of these paintings is that their colors can never fade. Each painting is a beautiful evidence of the combination of the long history of Vietnamese traditional folk art and Bat Trang people's talents.
	Vietnamese Silk Painting The traditional Vietnamese art of silk painting has become famous around the world for its simple poetic themes and vibrant colors. The success of a silk painting very much depends on the quality of the silk, and this depends on many factors, from the quality of cocoons to the decisive techniques of starching and weaving. The silk canvas are usually not painted. The Vietnamese traditional silk painting style tends to use the silk canvas directly as the background of the painting. The colors are used delicately with the canvas. The delicate white color found in the sky, water, or human portrait, is the color of silk. Whatever style they follow, silk painters must have an intimate knowledge of the material and fully exploit its shininess and its attractiveness. Painting silk is full of changing and unexpected characteristics, and a wrong stroke of the brush is irreversible. The series of  paintings we are offering are made by the Vietnamese artists in Hue, central of Vietnam (110km from North of Da Nang.) These paintings are about the beauty of Hue, the most splendid royal capital of Vietnam, and of other famous provinces of Vietnam.

Contact: jasper@karunavillage.com for more details.

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