On Tue, 29 Sep 2009 02:33:13 -0700, Ted Frater wrote:

William Black wrote:
Abrasha wrote:

Dude, it's time you educate
yourself and stop with your inane ramblings, and feigned interest in a
variety of subjects.

He's operating in India, an environment where the only formal training
available is in jewellery design, and the design taught is computer
based, stereotyped and almost totally rigid.

In India there is little or no respect for craft skills and craftsmen
are paid very little.

There aren't any schools where he will be able to pick up useful
professional level practical skills, except those run for ladies who
want a hobby.

This has advantages, a plumber or an electrician costs about $10 a
day,
and disadvantages in that highly skilled craftsmen such as jewellers
(Karigars) are paid little and learn their skills sat at their father's
feet.

Now musical instrument makers and cabinet makers can set up as
self-employed, their raw materials cost little there. But an Indian
working in precious metals almost certainly can't afford the raw
materials and tools to set up by himself, especially somewhere like
Mumbai (where I live when I'm in India) where rents are high and
commercial rents are astronomical.

Every respectable Indian lady has a jeweller, but he sits in his shop
and designs things on his shop computer for his customers and employs
poorly paid craftsmen to make the stuff.

The idea that a respectable Indian jeweller would make his own items,
or even have the practical skills to make them after designing them
would sound slightly absurd in a society when the normal mode of speec=
h
for a person talking about a piece of jewellery they have had made by
their jeweller is: 'I have made this pendant'.

The guy's got problems not of his making, but, to be honest, what he
actually needs to get out of India and into one of the big European or
US jewellery schools for a couple of years.


If as you describe, the jewellery trade in India and the craftsmen
working in it are devided into those who design and those who make.
the latter being poorly paid.
It cannot be that simple.
Because some one somewhere has to find the money to pay for the raw
materials and jewels before the said poorly paid worker can start.
Does the designer ask for say half the cost up front? Or does he
supply the craftsman with the gold/silver and stones? someone has to
fund the exercise.
Wether in India or here.
Just curious.
Ted

Yes, and then there is the matter of their traditional jewelry,
and techniques. Surely that has not died altogether?