A Note from Marusya
Newsletter - Winter 2008
A Note from Marusya
The weekend of October 13 and 14th was gloriously sunny and warm in Wellfleet, Massachusetts on Cape Cod. An estimated 20,000 people from all over New England attended the annual Wellfleet Oyster Festival; they came to eat Wellfleet oysters and to shop for high quality crafts.
AFG sponsored a booth featuring textile crafts created under the auspices of the Georgian Textile Group (GTG). Artisans in the GTG teach women and children in the remote regions of Tusheti and Samtskhe-Javakheti as well as in other areas of Georgia how to create high quality crafts. The AFG exhibit was the most popular booth because of the uniqueness and quality of these crafts.
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Manana Abzianidze selling Georgian textiles
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Featured in the AFG booth were embroidered bags, gigantic felt flowers, felt animals, exquisitely embroidered hats, ethnic cloth dolls, slippers, bags, kilims, wool and silk scarves and Khevsuretian coats. By the end of the weekend, 95% of the Georgian crafts were sold and AFG was able to send over $7,000 to the women and children who made these wonderful articles.
Textile artist Nino Kipshidze founded the GTG to stop the isolation of textile artists and to create high quality crafts that can be marketed internationally. A newer goal of the GTG is the revival of the centuries old traditional textile crafts of Georgia as well as the reduction of poverty of women artisans struggling in remote regions of the country. Through the generosity of an AFG contributor, Manana Abzianidze, a Georgian textile artist, brought these Georgian crafts to America for this exhibit. This is the result of a 2006 grant from the Eurasia Foundation and USAID to support the training of local women artisans in remote mountain villages of Georgia where there has been a long tradition of sheep breeding and textile handicrafts. Manana is one of several GTG members who work with the artisans to meet these quality standards.