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I have long admired Elise Parmar’s colourful creative expressions and her new online boutique, Elise’s Colours, rejoices my heart! It is filled with vibrant polymer clay jewellery. Elise kindly agreed to tell us about more about her craft of jewellery making, what inspires her, and what she infuses into her creative process. Below are her answers, interspersed with images of her pieces.
What is Elise’s Colours?
Elise’s Colours is my way to show unconditional love and be generous to the world. A way to highlight the majesty and expressive power of colours.
Abdu’l-Baha said…: “All Art is a gift of the Holy Spirit. When this light shines through the mind of a musician, it manifests itself in beautiful harmonies. Again, shining through the mind of a poet, it is seen in fine poetry and poetic prose. When the Light of the Sun of Truth inspires the mind of a painter, he produces marvelous pictures. These gifts are fulfilling their highest purpose, when showing forth the praise of God.”1
I am a mother, painter, creator of crafts and I love to use art as a medium for therapy. Colours play a pivotal role in how I express my creativity, passions, stories so Elise’s Colours is an avenue for me to do that through beautiful jewellery, hand painted cards and crafts.
Could you please tell us a little about the craft of jewellery making and what it means to you?
Each piece is uniquely handmade using polymer clay and colours are mixed based on how I feel in the moment and how I am inspired to express. I work with polymer clay, which is a very lightweight material so I can create bold and big designs for earrings and people like wearing them because it doesn’t weigh much and feels comfortable even if it’s on all day.
The craft of jewellery making requires a lot of patience, practice and ability to be precise with your hands and eyes, as it means working on very small, sometimes fragile designs and materials for hours at a time. Although jewellery making has been there for a long time, the materials and methods have evolved.
For me personally, I feel like I am in my happy place when I am working on creating with polymer clay. Sometimes I become so involved in the process that it puts me in a calm, serene and prayerful attitude. I do put in a lot of love, reverence, prayer and happiness into each unique piece that comes out of this process. The process itself is my reward.
What inspires you to create? What inspires your designs?
My beautiful three children inspired me. My eldest daughter was sitting down watching someone make figures using clay on YouTube one day and I was intrigued. I told her that she could do it and make these little creatures herself. So we bought a packet of polymer clay and started making things, in the process I fell in love with it myself and realized I could do something with it. In the beginning I used the clay and movements to express myself and to express how I’m feeling.
The designs I make express my inner joy, my love for colours and majesty of the One Creator. I believe God expresses with colours in His creation and we can take inspiration from it and use it as a language when words fail us. The fact that I can convey colours, patterns and design feels empowering and inspiring for me and that gives me immense joy as it’s my way to serve the people who don’t necessarily want to use words to express themselves.
The following words inspire me and resonate with my state of being when I am being creative: “Arts, crafts and sciences uplift the world of being, and are conducive to its exaltation. Knowledge is as wings to man’s life, and a ladder for his ascent. Its acquisition is incumbent upon everyone.” 2
What spiritual principles inform either your designs or your business?
Service and love for beauty are my motivators. I also want to show these in action to my children so they witness the equality of women and men in action where they see their fathers’ contribution to the family through the hard work he puts in and they see my services and creative efforts as complementary to how we grow together, love and support each other. They see how we work as a team where my creative expressions are as important as their father’s business commitments.
It is also important for all of us to acknowledge that it is possible to support your family through creative expressions. Personally, it gives me joy to see when I see someone wearing beautiful colours and jewellery I create. It feels like I have been able to serve by giving a language and expression to people. And because it is affordable, it helps so that people can have a variety of choices without having to spend too much.
Thank you so much, Elise, for sharing this with us!
You can visit Elise’s online shop to purchase her pieces and you can admire her designs on Instagram.
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Horizons is an online magazine of news, stories and reflections from around individuals, communities
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Baha’i beliefs address essential spiritual themes for humanity’s collective and individual advancement. Learn more about these and more.
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