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http://experimentindesign.wordpress.com/

Someone once asked me how was it that I decided to become a designer.
Well, to be honest, there just wasn't anything else I was good at.
When I was growing up parents did not want to believe their children were talentless fools. They searched and prodded their child's brain to find at least one flicker of something resembling brilliance in any professional field such as arts, sports, science and so on.
It really was my own fault. I too was wrapped up in this idea, and I was sure I was a genius in waiting, or hiding, or whatever. I was convinced I was the real deal!
And thus started my misadventures in arts, sports and other thingies.

When I was in elementary school I saw this beautiful violin player on TV. So my parents got me a violin.


I thought I was really good. The same way that Jack Benny thought he was good.
(he actually was really good, but what comedy would come of that?)
So I insisted on a teacher.

My teacher wasn't like Jack Benny's Professor Leblanc. (voiced by Mel Blanc- aka Bugs Bunny and 999 other toons) Look it up.
My teacher was too sensitive to my virtuoso sound.


I literally blew her mind.
Well, okay, not literally.

So the violin was not for me. How about piano?

I thought I was doing rather well. Even if my piano teacher didn't.
I was in the moment, I felt the spirit of Beethoven, Mozart and Chopin move me!
I could feel the music running through my veins and ....


...and then running away.



Apparently I was not musically inclined, and before my dad could buy me yet another instrument to torture, my mother signed me up for chorus.

Let's just say, I couldn't hit a right note if it stared me in the face.



But one good thing did come out of this whole search for musical genius.
I now have absolutely no inhibitions when I sing.


In the Shower.


Stay tuned to the part two of the search for genius designer. Coming soon.

I grew up in a country with people who by day proclaimed fierce atheism, and by night clutched to their crosses and illegally acquired bibles.
I wasn't one of those who prayed in the dark corners or wore a cross, but I did read the bible. The children's version. That is how I happened upon the Old Testament in elementary school. I was digging the Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, braid for a pony tail and such business. What can I say? It made sense to me. And it came in handy on more than one occasion. Especially when dealing with bullies.

One day in school my little sister was playing on the playground.



A boy, lets call him Alex, walked up to her and hit her with a red brick.

At first we thought it was one of those wooden building blocks, like the ones she was playing with. Then we figured out that it was an actual red brick, the kind you build real houses with.


That night after we returned home from the hospital where my sister had to stay overnight, I was anointed by an authority figure to 'take care of business', by any means necessary. This meant a very ugly end of one Alex the bully.





I won't claim to be a seven year old Don Corleone in the making, but if you wanted someone 'taken care of', I was the seven year old you searched the playground for.






The kid was scared. It was my third hit, and I still didn't know why I was scaring people so well. I was small in stature, I spoke quietly, albeit fast. So I was always surprised whenever I was taken seriously by my targets. I assumed it was the two toughies behind me.

Later, much later, when I had to 'take care' of someone else in the US I had no muscle to back me up. By then I learned that words are much more powerful than punches. It didn't surprise me when the intended target cried like a baby after listening to my threats. By then I knew that the reason the kids believed my threats was because I really meant them.


I don't want to say I was enjoying the beating Alex was getting, but it didn't bother me either.
Besides I was pretty sure after that day he would think twice before he attacked anyone else on the playground again.



As usual, my pleasure was thwarted by my teacher.
I tried to get out of it.

There's nothing going on, I said, nothing to see, just keep walking, (the way he had done when my sister got attacked), but he wasn't buying it.

You know, I know now what the US government must have been feeling when it was lectured by Pakistan for killing Bin Laden. How dare the US find and punish the terrorist Pakistan had been harboring for five years? Who do the US think they are?
I got the same lecture from a teacher who was supposed to have been watching the playground when sister was attacked. Apparently his complete incompetence did not mean I could take matters into my own hands. Who did I think I was? Didn't I feel at least a little remorse for what I had done?

Eye for an Eye baby! I said defiantly. It was a lesson I had leaned from the Old Testament, but I wasn't about to name my source.

I learned a different lesson that day.
While giving out a much deserved punishment, make sure to not get caught in the act.


US, next time you take out a terrorist, don't talk about it. Let his buddies search for him in vain. Let his creditors mobilize a search party for him.When asked, pretend you were asleep at the time. Admit nothing, unless you want to stay in the time out corner for a long, long time.

I had a lot of time outs. I leaned to draw then. I also learned to braid things.
Now I braid leather and sell it on Etsy.
http://www.etsy.com/people/Guruli


The peace sign? It's a sign of progress. I learned to put the Old testament and the New testament to good use. If at first turning the other cheek does not succeed, punching the lights out will definitely work.

Last week I also said I was thinking of a new clasp idea, and here it is.

Here's a few different colors I designed.

Check it out and SHOP and tell your friends about it!!!
http://www.etsy.com/people/Guruli

When I was in grade school I was sure I knew everything.

I knew the multiplication table, I knew the map of the city I lived in. I knew all the names of the important Soviet leaders. (They were all important). What else was there?
My teacher hated me. Hated. It pissed him off even more that I was a good student, always eager to show off my knowledge.

And I hated him right back.
So much so that before the Navy SEALs even dreamt of taking out Osama Bin Laden I was planning on doing the same to my teacher.

I just didn't want to clean up the mess.
So I thought, if I could, I would just make bad people disappear. Poof and they would be gone. No blood, no corpse, no trace. Like the Wicked Witch in Wizard of Oz. Except for the screaming and the melting.

The only thing left would be their shoes. I'd collect all the shoes and lock them up, so no one would be tempted to fill them.

Naturally, now that I am a semi grown up I have revisited this idea and designed an exhibition around it. I will post pictures as soon as my co-designer agrees they are good enough to show to public. Your comments will be appreciated in the future. I said in the future. Not today.


Anyway, I knew everything.
Sometimes I would raise my hand before he even asked me the question. Yes, I was that kid.


One day he decided to get even. He was a gambling man, so he turned the table on me.
'Lets switch this up', he said, 'why don''t you ask me a question. And if I answer it correctly you can't raise your hand for the rest of the period.'

Gulp. What could I ask him that he wouldn't know? When I was in grade school, I thought grownups knew everything. Everything grownupy that is. I had to give him something hard, something worth my punishment. So I resorted to the question philosophers have been asking themselves for decades, if not centuries.


I learned a valuable lesson that day...


Life is not fair.

And now onto the experiment in design.
This is a leather wrap around bracelet and it is truly an experiment, for I am still working on the closure.I went through snaps, magnets, buttons and all sorts of other closures. I think I have the one I want, but I have to make it first.
The Cloisonne piece in the middle is designed by me, but the sample was made by Anie M. in Tbilisi, Georgia.


It feels ridiculously comfortable on my wrist.

The silver ring is also in the process of being made. Next post, both will be available for your scrutinizing eyes.
I'll leave you with this question.

Why are strawberrys such bad drivers?

Answer this, and receive a high five from me.
cheers!