UTTAR PRADESH

In India there’s a really deep-rooted belief that if you can, you should make something beautiful. Be that a patch on a workers shirt lovingly fashioned into a sweetheart shape or the vibrant pin-stripped, a joiners intricately carved saw handle, or the bedazzled decorations of the innumerable lorries, rickshaws, buggies, scooters and on occasion the odd donkey cart that spot the Indian landscape. As much as this principal is applied to everyday life in India, the most sublime results of this ethos are found in Uttar Pradesh. From the inlaid marble cladding of the Taj Mahal to the rhythmic, scalloped archways of Rumi Darwaza of Lucknow.

Uttar Pradesh affords us the opportunity to blend art, craft, and design to create items that are luxurious, hand wrought, and timeless. The variety of skill-sets of the craftsmen and materials is astounding. Nowhere else in the word, that we know, can you find a guild of glassblowers that rival those of Murano a couple of kilometers down the road from the finest brass workers you could hope to find. A short trip down the Ramganga river and you are on the doorstep of the finest metal foundries on the continent.

Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives, the cumulative experience of many masters of craftsmanship. Quality also marks the search for an ideal after necessity has been satisfied and mere usefulness achieved.

–John Ruskin