National Geographic, Nepal and me

I was recently organizing my bookshelf a bit and came upon a National Geographic magazine from April 1977. This particular issue, which came to my hands by way of an estate sale, has had more influence on the course of my life than any other piece of writing. My mother had bought the magazines in order to make paper beads, but luckily this issue was spared, and I was able to come upon it on my winter break during freshman year in college.





I had always known that I would want to study abroad, but I somehow knew that going to Europe was not going to be my choice. I sought a more complete re-ordering of my world view. When I read, in this article about Nepal, that the author had to walk three weeks to get to this remote region on the Tibetan border, I almost couldn't believe that such a place still existed in today's world. I thought of all of the things I was attached to in my life and wondered if I could live without for a year. I took it on as a personal challenge of the greatest magnitude.



I didn't walk on this exact trail, but I walked on a few similar to this!

It turns out that I never made it to the specific region (Dolpo), that is mentioned in the article, but I did end up spending two years living in Nepal. Reading it again, I find that it is laced with the seduction of exoticism, but then again, if it wasn't, would it really have gotten a young midwesterner like me to get her first passport, learn Nepali and commit to a year in distant country? The second year was on a Fulbright a couple of years after the first experience.

Painting by Tsering of Dolpo depicting the sacred mountain of Dolpo, called Shey (crystal mountain).

One of the things that strikes me so many years later is that there was a photo of a thangka painting in the original article, and that, as much as the article itself, was what got me hooked. This was my first exposure to Himalayan art, which has been a constant source of inspiration and a subject of study for me ever since. I still love the clouds (and have traced their history through history from the Uighurs to Mongolia to China, Korea and Tibet), and the way that rocks are represented. I did make it to the lower Dolpo valley, which is not a restricted area like the Upper Dolpo region in the article, and found that the rocks really do look like that!!

Revisiting an excellent article

I recently re-read an article that was written about me last year in JCK Luxury magazine, which is a jewelry trade magazine. It was such a good article that I think I should put it here. The author is Jennifer Heebner, and the photographer (the photo is above), is Erik Ekroth.

"WISCONSIN NATIVE NATASHA WOZNIAK JOURNEYS TO NEPAL TO LEARN BUDDHIST STYLE, AND FINDS HER OWN IN THE PROCESS.

Commonalities between Nepal-­think Kathmandu, Mount Everest, Hinduism-and Natasha Wozniak's hometown of Racine, Wis., are few. So when a National Geographic article about the country and its art (rich in spiritual tales) surfaced during her college years, Wozniak was fascinated. Nepal's allure was sointense that when her school, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, started offering yearlong exchanges to the South Asian nation, Wozniak secured one.

As a metalsmith student, her goal was to learn traditional Nepalese Buddhist statuary technique and style through 3-D wax carving and casting. To do so, she bunked in a sleeping bag on the floor of a room housing several other members of a Newar-a tiny Nepalese ethnicity known for sophisticated artwork-family. While privacy in the dwelling was rare, skill proficiency wasabundant, and the family assisted Wozniak with self-designed projects (she didn't work far them).She cast a bronze bell, and made myriad traditi­onal oil lamps like ones found in temples. These were cast from an alloy of 95 percent copper and 5 percent bronze-she thinks. "If they had old faucets lying around, they'd toss those in too,"she recalls about the primitive casting.

A year after graduation, she returned to Nepal and her family of advisors as a Fulbright scholar to "increase mutual understanding ... through the exchange of persons, knowledge, and skills," according to the mission statement of the government-run program. Her portfolio this time comprised a nine-piece collection of sculpture, all stylized Nepalese objects-rock formations from a valley leading into Tibet, trees because of their importance in Hindu spirituality, and lotus flowers and water in ref­erence to the deity Manjushri and the geogra­phy of the Kathmandu Valley. The pieces met program requirements, and moved Wozniak closer to fulfilling a personal goal: creating a signature style using favorite aspects of conven­tional Asian design.

Now as a seven-year jewelry design veteran, Nepalese influences are obvious in the Wozniak "look"-a curve, a stylized curl cast in sterling or 18k yellow gold with a silky-looking patina. Sinuous and leafy necklaces from the Flourish collection resemble foliage from temple facades, with jasmine and jeweled leaves punctuating junctions much like blossoms do on the vine. Amulet boxes-spiritual vessels made to protect contents-inspire Foliage lockets, in design and ability to house precious possessions. Pear-­cut stones mimic the shape of petals. Even the simplest designs feature subtly twisted shanks that reinforce Wozniak's aesthetic: organic, and influenced by Nepal. "I focus on small details of Asian ornamentation," she says."