Have you ever heard about World Amigurumi Exhibition in New York? I heard it last year, but I had no confidence to apply to represent myself as they have high standard with specific theme to begin with plus I’m not that high-tech in designing Amigurumi freely 😀
And then….I received a surprised email from Resobox that I’ve been invited and to join World Amigurumi Exhibition in Long Island City, New York, from Dec 11, 2015 – Mar 31, 2016 to represent Amigurumi from Cyprus, one of 46 countries who will be joining this Exhibition. I’m very honored, happy and scared at the same time, because I’m not ready or I have no idea of what I’m going to make.
This year’s theme is going to be each country’s unique features using common medium of Amigurumi, it could be each country’s color, special type of yarn produced, beads, accessories, embellishment, fabric, symbol, cultural clothes or any other original idea about one country.
It took a minute to realize that it is a difficult theme for me as I’m not specializing in Amigurumi, but I really want to join to feel the vibe, to celebrate how crochet brings us all together in one place. So, I asked for my husband, who’s Cypriot to give me input of what should I do, and casually, he’s just replied me very quick, he said, “donkey, re” 😀
I was laughing outside and crying inside, thinking on how will I make this Cyprus Donkey to show its characteristic using Amigurumi.
So for the next nearly a week, I did some research on how Cyprus Donkey looked like back in the old days, as it was one of the most important transportation system in order to transfer goods from one place to another. I did my drawing based on an old pictures that I could find in internet, then preparing materials, colors, preparing myself as well because I have full time job as well, calculating the time to create, trial and error, shipping time to NY.
I came back from work earlier that day, around 4pm, I decided to just give it a go, as trial and error will always be part of our life 😀 I put headphone on and play music that I like from my playlist, a glass of coffee, closed my studio’s door. Approximately, three hours later, I went to living room with very big smile on my face. I showed it to my husband, and he was amazed. Work hard really paid off!
I was surprised with myself that I could really pull it off 😀 The next day, I finalized the Cyprus Donkey, his name is Mr. Kokos ^^, a very traditional name. Mr. Kokos has thick fabric across his back and he’s carrying two big baskets full of vegetables and he has big bell in his chest. He’s the working Cyprus Donkey from 1970s.
Along side with Ms. Kokos, I have made Ms. Kartini, symbolizing women from Indonesia, the one who fought for her rights to be equal with men in education. I also created my childhood ability to draw human :D, I called him “Orang” which means “human/person”. It turned out to be fun to make your drawing becoming something real, something that you can touch 😀
I hope that the exhibition will do very well and that somebody will adopt Mr. Kokos and friends to their loving home ^^. If you are living in the area, please come and visit us ^^
enJoy!