1
00:00:09,636 --> 00:00:12,676
It's just so wonderful
being here in Yerevan,

2
00:00:12,676 --> 00:00:14,158
on my third visit.

3
00:00:14,158 --> 00:00:17,878
My first visit was in 1980,
as a 16-year-old American kid.

4
00:00:18,090 --> 00:00:21,139
And I can tell you,
from my outsider perspective then,

5
00:00:21,139 --> 00:00:24,539
it's a very different place,
and it's very exciting to be part of this.

6
00:00:24,539 --> 00:00:27,634
My great-grandmother used to tell me
when I was a child,

7
00:00:27,925 --> 00:00:31,196
(Armenian)

8
00:00:31,292 --> 00:00:33,594
Which, for those of you
who don't speak Armenian,

9
00:00:33,594 --> 00:00:34,844
like myself, too well,

10
00:00:34,844 --> 00:00:39,936
it means "as many languages as you speak,
you're that many people."

11
00:00:40,672 --> 00:00:43,666
The message there is,
with greater understanding,

12
00:00:43,666 --> 00:00:46,558
and with language,
we can understand culture

13
00:00:46,598 --> 00:00:50,158
and therefore become broader people,
with a broader perspective.

14
00:00:50,540 --> 00:00:53,440
What I'm talking about today though,
is the opposite of that.

15
00:00:53,474 --> 00:00:58,041
It's about the value
of not having a broad perspective,

16
00:00:58,041 --> 00:01:02,631
of not having that sort of feeling
that you understand things

17
00:01:02,631 --> 00:01:04,481
or feeling like things are blasé.

18
00:01:04,481 --> 00:01:06,953
It's about seeing things
for the first time,

19
00:01:06,953 --> 00:01:10,276
and the visceral reaction we have
when we see things

20
00:01:10,276 --> 00:01:14,386
that are that sort of different for us,
and are foreign for us and our culture.

21
00:01:15,924 --> 00:01:19,624
I want to talk about how that
impacted me, as a designer,

22
00:01:19,633 --> 00:01:26,007
and what I saw, and what I experienced
on my first trip to India, in 1989.

23
00:01:26,980 --> 00:01:30,200
I went to visit some friends of mine,
who lived in New Delhi,

24
00:01:30,200 --> 00:01:33,545
and while I was there,
I would spend my day, sort of,

25
00:01:33,545 --> 00:01:37,882
ambling around the old city, Old Delhi,
which was about a different a place

26
00:01:37,882 --> 00:01:40,762
as I ever could imagine a place being.

27
00:01:41,349 --> 00:01:46,669
My friends from Delhi,
generally didn't go to the Old City,

28
00:01:46,669 --> 00:01:51,741
because they felt it was crowded,
there was no way to get there,

29
00:01:51,741 --> 00:01:57,472
except on foot or by a rickshaw,
and it was generally off-limits for them.

30
00:01:57,980 --> 00:02:03,600
For me, it was just this magical place,
which seemed like a place out of the past,

31
00:02:03,600 --> 00:02:06,760
like a hundred years ago,
or hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

32
00:02:07,167 --> 00:02:10,165
There was something ancient about it
that really fascinated me.

33
00:02:10,165 --> 00:02:14,149
As you can see the streets are so crowded
and it's really, very chaotic.

34
00:02:14,149 --> 00:02:17,740
But it was that difference
that for me was hugely exciting.

35
00:02:19,175 --> 00:02:23,555
It was a romantic city for me,
the calls to prayers echoing

36
00:02:23,555 --> 00:02:25,856
throughout the small lanes.

37
00:02:25,933 --> 00:02:28,806
I would walk up and down
the narrow lanes and discover

38
00:02:28,806 --> 00:02:30,870
all these small shops.

39
00:02:30,996 --> 00:02:33,819
Every small shop had things
which were handmade,

40
00:02:33,819 --> 00:02:37,379
and were generally made in workshops,
either right behind the stores,

41
00:02:37,379 --> 00:02:38,897
or right next to them.

42
00:02:39,338 --> 00:02:43,458
For me, discovering a place
where things were made, was electrifying.

43
00:02:44,493 --> 00:02:47,839
You know, all I had known,
from my experience in America,

44
00:02:47,880 --> 00:02:51,360
was things which felt
very pre-packaged, or manufactured.

45
00:02:51,360 --> 00:02:54,400
So to see things which actually
had that handmade element,

46
00:02:54,400 --> 00:02:56,675
was absolutely mesmerizing for me.

47
00:02:56,675 --> 00:03:00,275
I saw shops which did printed textiles,
hand-bound books,

48
00:03:00,275 --> 00:03:03,765
all kinds of things,
that I really couldn't imagine.

49
00:03:04,347 --> 00:03:06,697
The shops that impacted me
the most though,

50
00:03:06,697 --> 00:03:09,487
were the shops that were
making objects made in metal:

51
00:03:09,487 --> 00:03:12,278
hand-forged buckets,
and shovels, and scissors;

52
00:03:12,278 --> 00:03:14,724
things that took such skill to create.

53
00:03:15,221 --> 00:03:18,191
As a fine arts student in New York,
having worked in metal,

54
00:03:18,191 --> 00:03:20,332
I knew what it was like
to work that material,

55
00:03:20,332 --> 00:03:23,072
and it was something,
really awe-inspiring for me.

56
00:03:23,648 --> 00:03:26,982
I would hunt out craftsmen
in the Old City,

57
00:03:26,982 --> 00:03:29,524
by listening for the beating of the metal.

58
00:03:30,013 --> 00:03:34,063
I'd follow rickshaws, which had
interesting things on the back of them,

59
00:03:34,080 --> 00:03:37,966
all as ways to find workshops
where things were being made.

60
00:03:37,966 --> 00:03:42,628
I discovered a small workshop,
where they were doing sand-cast bronze,

61
00:03:42,628 --> 00:03:47,318
and learned to smell the baked molasses,
in the sand-casting process.

62
00:03:47,479 --> 00:03:51,293
I would hunt out other small workshops,
which were doing sand-casting,

63
00:03:51,293 --> 00:03:54,310
to basically learn how the crafts happen,

64
00:03:54,310 --> 00:03:58,077
to understand, what was available,
in terms of crafts.

65
00:03:58,923 --> 00:04:03,213
My impressions were,
that the pieces had a vibration.

66
00:04:03,213 --> 00:04:06,747
They had a vitality to them
that I didn't recognize,

67
00:04:06,747 --> 00:04:11,077
from products I had seen abroad,
which all felt very manufactured-looking.

68
00:04:11,318 --> 00:04:15,458
The pieces themselves
were highly imperfect, I would say.

69
00:04:15,611 --> 00:04:18,727
And they weren't very desirable
for the local community.

70
00:04:18,966 --> 00:04:22,162
People who were making
hand-forged buckets, for example,

71
00:04:22,162 --> 00:04:24,748
had made them that way
for hundreds of years.

72
00:04:24,748 --> 00:04:25,941
But the local consumers

73
00:04:25,941 --> 00:04:29,095
were running to the stores
and buying the imported, plastic buckets

74
00:04:29,095 --> 00:04:33,106
which held water, didn't leak,
were much lighter and easier to clean.

75
00:04:33,230 --> 00:04:37,020
Shops which were making scissors by hand,
beautifully, from my perspective,

76
00:04:37,036 --> 00:04:39,876
incredibly, beautifully forged
hand-made scissors,

77
00:04:39,876 --> 00:04:44,040
were withering because people were buying
the imported scissors made in China,

78
00:04:44,040 --> 00:04:46,992
with the orange, plastic handles
that cut paper really well.

79
00:04:47,036 --> 00:04:51,309
So there was this whole tribe of artisans
who were doing work

80
00:04:51,338 --> 00:04:55,242
which was absolutely exquisite
from my point of view,

81
00:04:55,242 --> 00:04:58,249
but, was becoming obsolete
in the local market.

82
00:04:58,525 --> 00:05:01,458
From my perspective,
as an artist in New York,

83
00:05:01,458 --> 00:05:04,609
the only people who were making things,
were other artists so,

84
00:05:04,619 --> 00:05:08,831
the work that they were doing for me
was utterly inspiring

85
00:05:08,855 --> 00:05:10,805
and really just took my breath away.

86
00:05:11,857 --> 00:05:15,917
At that point, there were no phonebooks,
no directories, no tradeshows,

87
00:05:15,933 --> 00:05:18,092
nothing to support the artisans.

88
00:05:18,092 --> 00:05:19,532
So the only way to find them

89
00:05:19,532 --> 00:05:21,998
was really to hunt them out,
listen for them

90
00:05:21,998 --> 00:05:24,220
and explore the Old Cities.

91
00:05:24,599 --> 00:05:27,419
These are the kind of workshops
I would just fall upon.

92
00:05:27,549 --> 00:05:30,829
What I would do is just,
watch the craftsmen stand in the shops,

93
00:05:30,829 --> 00:05:33,507
there I was, sort of the ultimate
American at that point,

94
00:05:33,507 --> 00:05:35,079
with a baseball cap and t-shirt,

95
00:05:35,079 --> 00:05:38,842
staring, and watching these guys
doing their incredible work.

96
00:05:38,887 --> 00:05:41,491
I think they thought
I was absolutely crazy sometimes,

97
00:05:41,491 --> 00:05:43,118
and wondered what I was doing.

98
00:05:43,118 --> 00:05:46,004
But over time, I did drawings,
in a notebook that I had,

99
00:05:46,004 --> 00:05:49,940
and would show the artisans
drawings of things that I had made,

100
00:05:49,940 --> 00:05:54,291
and asked them, in gesticulation,
and with drawings in my notebook,

101
00:05:54,291 --> 00:05:56,171
what I wanted them to create.

102
00:05:57,226 --> 00:06:01,372
Some of the craftsmen, like this guy here,
was making cooking vessels.

103
00:06:01,615 --> 00:06:03,264
The cooking vessels in India

104
00:06:03,264 --> 00:06:06,037
were something
that had been made for centuries.

105
00:06:06,037 --> 00:06:09,747
But now, with modernization,
and industrialization,

106
00:06:09,747 --> 00:06:13,637
most Indian kitchens were looking
to become more westernized and modern,

107
00:06:13,637 --> 00:06:16,381
and were looking for pots and pans
with plastic handles,

108
00:06:16,381 --> 00:06:19,445
which would be easier to hold,
and more convenient.

109
00:06:23,807 --> 00:06:27,138
The craftsmen, which I considered
national treasures,

110
00:06:27,156 --> 00:06:29,376
and people who just had
extraordinary skills,

111
00:06:29,384 --> 00:06:31,407
were just becoming obsolete.

112
00:06:31,407 --> 00:06:35,098
Generally, India, on its quest
towards industrialization,

113
00:06:35,098 --> 00:06:38,955
was looking for things which felt
more modern, and felt more western.

114
00:06:39,178 --> 00:06:43,268
So, I decided at that point
I would work with the local craftsmen,

115
00:06:43,280 --> 00:06:46,708
and try to make objects
which celebrated what they did.

116
00:06:46,959 --> 00:06:50,001
What I looked at, was the beauty
of the imperfection.

117
00:06:50,001 --> 00:06:53,824
Unlike the cookies we ate earlier,
and the talk about design perfection,

118
00:06:53,824 --> 00:06:57,594
my philosophy was that we have
to celebrate the handmade process,

119
00:06:57,594 --> 00:07:01,265
and look at the inherent quality,
in the handmade goods.

120
00:07:01,421 --> 00:07:03,519
It was something very different for India,

121
00:07:03,519 --> 00:07:06,783
and also something very different
for the US market at that point.

122
00:07:07,158 --> 00:07:10,436
What I did, was make pieces which showed
all the hammer marks,

123
00:07:10,468 --> 00:07:14,330
all the hand-cut edges
of the metal, and really say,

124
00:07:14,330 --> 00:07:17,157
let's celebrate the humanity
in these pieces,

125
00:07:17,157 --> 00:07:21,909
and say, yes, we're not machine-made,
that's precisely why it has value.

126
00:07:22,172 --> 00:07:25,561
And it was my outsider perspective,
that saw the value in that,

127
00:07:25,561 --> 00:07:29,659
where these Indian artisans generally
had very little pride in their work;

128
00:07:29,672 --> 00:07:31,777
in fact they were embarrassed about it.

129
00:07:31,777 --> 00:07:34,065
My Indian friends were also
quite embarrassed

130
00:07:34,065 --> 00:07:36,516
about what was available
locally at that time.

131
00:07:36,516 --> 00:07:40,875
It was all about getting imported goods,
and how wonderful everything was abroad,

132
00:07:40,875 --> 00:07:42,838
and people felt very apologetic,

133
00:07:42,838 --> 00:07:46,523
and really had no sense of pride
in what was available locally.

134
00:07:46,523 --> 00:07:50,320
I made some buckets with those guys
who were making the pots earlier,

135
00:07:50,320 --> 00:07:53,721
and instead of making them
in copper and brass,

136
00:07:53,721 --> 00:07:56,099
I encouraged them
to make them in stainless steel,

137
00:07:56,099 --> 00:07:58,539
which was a material
they had never worked with.

138
00:07:58,539 --> 00:08:02,539
So, we made these steel pots, and they
were laughing to themselves afterwards,

139
00:08:02,543 --> 00:08:04,213
and finally, I understood why.

140
00:08:04,213 --> 00:08:07,543
They said the pots looked like the pots
they put cow dung in.

141
00:08:07,931 --> 00:08:11,281
So there was a lot
of back and forth, and confusion,

142
00:08:11,281 --> 00:08:13,464
and giggles about the process,

143
00:08:13,464 --> 00:08:17,593
but over time, we really learned
a lot from each other.

144
00:08:17,593 --> 00:08:21,156
And I decided to set up a workshop,
there I am, there in my studio,

145
00:08:21,156 --> 00:08:24,693
and it was a very exciting time,
when I set up the workshop,

146
00:08:24,693 --> 00:08:26,937
because we had a lot of magazines,

147
00:08:26,937 --> 00:08:29,778
international magazines
come and see we were doing.

148
00:08:29,778 --> 00:08:32,737
We had film crews from Europe
coming to photograph it.

149
00:08:32,737 --> 00:08:37,497
We had a lot of encouragement
from the wealthy Indian clientele

150
00:08:37,497 --> 00:08:40,037
who would come to the studio,
and buy my work.

151
00:08:40,063 --> 00:08:43,675
But I think the ultimate for the workers,
when we had Bollywood stars come

152
00:08:43,675 --> 00:08:46,168
to the workshop, and buy my things.

153
00:08:46,168 --> 00:08:47,838
Because finally, they realized

154
00:08:47,838 --> 00:08:51,978
these things have value, and they weren't
just my "rotten iron pieces",

155
00:08:52,003 --> 00:08:55,263
as a lot of my Indian friends call them.

156
00:08:55,462 --> 00:08:59,306
Interestingly enough, over the years,
this is some of my work now,

157
00:08:59,316 --> 00:09:02,236
I've had the opportunity
to exhibit them all over the world.

158
00:09:02,335 --> 00:09:07,557
I was voted Indian designer of the year,
by "El Decor" magazine in India,

159
00:09:07,557 --> 00:09:10,137
which I took as a great
compliment, as a non-Indian.

160
00:09:10,614 --> 00:09:12,901
I was also invited
by the governemnt of India,

161
00:09:12,905 --> 00:09:15,429
to represent the best
of Indian handy crafts,

162
00:09:15,429 --> 00:09:18,494
at trade shows in Australia, and Japan.

163
00:09:18,494 --> 00:09:21,881
When the organizers found out
I wasn't Indian, they were a bit shocked,

164
00:09:21,889 --> 00:09:23,602
but that was a lot of fun.

165
00:09:24,115 --> 00:09:28,295
And recently, at a trade show in New York,
I was exhibiting my pieces,

166
00:09:28,304 --> 00:09:32,924
and an Indian manufacturer came up to me
and said, "Are these made in Italy?"

167
00:09:33,405 --> 00:09:37,166
And I kept saying, "No, India."
And he kept saying, "Italy? Italy?"

168
00:09:37,166 --> 00:09:39,076
And I'd say, "No, India, India".

169
00:09:39,078 --> 00:09:43,324
And it wasn't until I told him in Hindi,
that he finally understood,

170
00:09:43,324 --> 00:09:45,832
that these were pieces
made in his own country,

171
00:09:45,832 --> 00:09:47,791
that could be made with his own workers,

172
00:09:47,791 --> 00:09:49,151
in his own factory.

173
00:09:49,151 --> 00:09:51,690
It took an outsider's vision
to prove to an Indian

174
00:09:51,690 --> 00:09:53,506
what could be done in his own country.

175
00:09:53,514 --> 00:09:55,197
Thank you very much.

176
00:09:55,197 --> 00:09:58,421
(Applause)