Welcome to the
Laos Essential Artistry website. Laos is our passion and we are proud to feature some of the finest in Lao silk textiles and handicrafts. All our textiles are hand-woven or hand-embroidered and reflect artisan excellence, coming from weavers, artists, and galleries where we have taken the time to establish personal, professional and principled relationships.
At
Laos Essential Artistry we understand that the quality of a textile is dependent on the structure of the weave and not just the visual appearance of its fibers, and we like to think that all the weavers, artisans and galleries that we represent, “the individual yarns and varying patterns,” are woven together cohesively and meaningfully in our website in a way that allow you to develop more of a deep understanding and appreciation of these incredibly talented weavers and artisans in Laos.
We believe strongly in
fair trade principles and especially the importance of developing
henjhai, the ability of seeing into the heart, and we encourage you to read more about the
Laos Essential Artistry fair trade philosophy on our
FAQ page. Our lives as educators and artists are all about making connections, and in the spirit of giving back to Laos, five percent of our profits go to support the important literacy efforts of
Big Brother Mouse. As Oprah Winfrey said in her commencement address to Stanford graduates (June 2008) "Life is a reciprocal exchange.
To move forward you have to give back." We couldn't agree more.
And we invite you to take your time and browse through our website. Our textiles range from simple and supple Tai Dam cotton scarves from Muang Sing to intricate and sophisticated silk masterpieces from
Taykeo Textile Gallery. Here at
Laos Essential Artistry you can also browse through a gallery of canvas paintings by Khamla Panyasith (we love the Dok Champa/Sandlewood flower series), check out some of our award-winning photo galleries (licensing rights available) or learn more about Laos and tours to Laos.
We also urge you to check out our
BLOG where we share photos, stories and opinions on all things Laos, with a focus on Laos textiles. And if you subscribe to our newsletter we will keep you informed on Lao textile news, updates to our website and any specials we might be offering. And as always, we value your opinion and feedback about our website and are always looking at ways of improving our display of textiles and how we can better promote Lao weavers and artisans.
We have also begun doing more custom orders for sinhs and you can read more about the process in our blog post
here.
