Wenlin Diaries: Home is where you hang your hoop!
Someone once said, “The recession won’t be over till we raise a generation that knows how to live on what they’ve got”. We are very thankful that we have got a handful of things to do while staying indoors. Our women artisans are embroidering the new pieces from home and every day we are painting new design ideas in our home studio.
We find it very inspiring sometimes how different syllables join together to form a word in the Chinese language. That was the basis of why we chose ‘Wenlin’ as our name. Wen (文) means culture and Lin (林) means jungle, so the meaning of Wenlin is; a natural setting where artists and craftspeople come together to share ideas and collaborate.
Similarly, if we look at the Chinese word for crisis (Wei-Ji), the first syllable Wei (危) means danger, while the second syllable Ji (机) means opportunity. Isn't it remarkable how ancient Chinese human experience is preserved in this way, telling us that the difficulty of the situation and dangerous circumstances are only 50% of the story. The other part of the picture is the tremendous opportunity that every crisis brings with it.
We find these opportunities everywhere. Sometimes it is a stitch, a brushstroke or just finding out new ways of using traditional embroidery techniques. We hope everyone stays positive and goes through this great test of humanity in these uncertain times.