Exhibition

As I have mentioned several times before, this Winter we have attended a special silver course. These courses are arranged and paid for by a government under the name of Public Education. The courses are usually attended by women, rarely men, mostly as these courses are often attended by housewives, or retired people, anyway often people who do not have a regular job as the course are at day time. We do not fall in any of the categories, especially NOT the housewife lol :) But we had great fun and learned some special techniques which we will be able to use in our new jewelry pieces.

After 5 months, 3 days a week our course is coming to an end, next week will be our final week, this week however all the different courses had their exhibition to showcase what we all have made in the past months. There was our Silver jewelry pieces, oil paintings, marbled paper art, ceramics, hand painted wooden objects, beaded jewelry, wearable and home textile and embroidery.

Everyone was also welcome to sell their pieces for some extra income, most ladies were pleased with what they earned in the two days, the sale feel like a little reward after all the months of hard work :)

Some of our pieces are already in our shop in the Silver category and many more will be listed, we are planning to explore more of these techniques this Summer.

Terracotta Army

One of the great things we did in Madrid was visiting the exhibition of the Terracotta Army.
Especially after finding out the facts about it you will be even more intrigued. 8000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses and also non military terracotta figures like officials, acrobats, musicians and strongmen are found surrounding the tomb of  Qin Shi Huang. These were made to accompany and protect the first Emperor of China in his afterlife. The Emperor was buried in 210 BC, more than 2200 years ago.

An old Chinese tradition was that when a leader died, his entire household would be killed and buried with him to serve him in his afterlife. This cruel ritual was to show loyalty to their leader but also so that they could serve him in the afterlife as well. Many graves are found like that with often 100-200 bodies in it, the leader with his wife, bodyguards, servants and the rest of the household were all buried at the same place.

But Qin Shi Huang became the first Emperor of China after uniting the 7 kingdoms which before then had been in war for 250 years. This war had reduced the population of China so much that the old ritual of killing entire households was a luxury that could not be done, and the emperor found a solution that was not inhuman; making an army of Terracotta.

Each soldier had weapons like spears, swords and crossbows. Many are now missing either due to the 2200 years of rotting or stolen, but some have been found.

One of the most amazing facts is that no face is the same, each of the 8000 soldiers are unique! For the arms, legs and heads, molds were used but then they were altered by hand to make them unique. The bodies were entirely made out of hand and are all different, the work was tremendous and it is estimated that thousands of people must have worked on this army.

The Terracotta is now clay colored but originally they were vibrantly painted to make them look more realistic. As soon as the Terracotta gets in contact with air the paint vaporizes and disappears, sometimes in a few seconds. The details are amazing, what a history.

Uncovering all the soldiers and most often shreds of terracotta and restoring them has already been going on since 1974, after 2 farmers found pieces while digging for a water well. And uncovering and restoring everything will take many more decades, maybe even centuries.

Most of the statues were replicas in the exhibition, only those behind glass were the real ones, but the replicas give a good idea of how impressive so many together must look like.

To appreciate even more the tremendous amount of work and amazing discoveries that have been made about the Terracotta army I strongly recommend you this documentary below, it is the one they were also showing at the exhibition and I'm glad that I found it on YouTube to share with you, be prepared to be wow-ed!