I sat down with Caroline this week at a coffee shop in Silver Springs for our first SCRAP-DC interview with a local artist involved in creative reuse. Caroline is a vibrant and beautiful woman from Brazil who designs jewelry using acai and other plant seeds. In this interview she explains her process and how she started her company, Bella Acai.
-- Celia Emmelhainz, guest blogger
So tell me about yourself.
How did you get into beading?
When I was in college I just used a lot of regular beads, like glass, plastic, and crystals. I knew about acai beads before I moved to the US, but never got the chance to work with them.
But this year I went back to Brazil with my husband and we were looking for acai – you know, the acai juice is so popular because it's so nutritious. So when we were looking for the juice we found this group of women who extract and sell the juice, but there are so many seeds left over from this process so they also treat the seeds to make them into beads.
How do they do that?
They clean the seeds, they polish, they drill, and then they dye it with natural colors from the Amazon forest. It's a woman's co-op and so I bought a bunch of seeds from them and said, I think I want to come back to my crafts. The beads are very fancy so I decided to have my own shop in the United States – I bring everything here, and there you go.
So how long have you had your website, Bella Acai?
Well, I was in Brazil in January and I just decided I'm going to quit my job and do these and find my way back to school. And this is going to support me while I make this transition. So I created my Bella Acai company in February.
And how's it going?
It's good. It's hard to catch people's attention online, but I'm doing very well in the markets and festivals around DC. When people have the chance to see these necklaces, they're very excited. Natural seeds are very warm, warm to the touch, they're alive, and they have a nice energy.
Where do you sell in person?
Because I live so close, I go to the Fenton Street Market in Silver Spring, Maryland, as well as the Marcatus Festival, on the first Sunday of every month in SE near the Navy Yard. You can come see my work at the Jazz Festivals at Takoma Park (June 5th) and Silver Spring (June 18th). And I'm looking to connect with stores, selling wholesale to boutiques and other shops.
What are your designs based on?
I love what Native Americans have done and they inspire me a lot. I like the style, but don't like the metal and cold stones. So I work with similar designs but add Brazilian colors. I like the style but I want it to be warmer. And most of my necklaces are long.
Have you tried to work with North American materials?
People have approached me with avocado seeds asking what I could do with them. I'd like to do something with these seeds, but haven't yet found someone to work with to polish and drill them, to boil with specific pigments and colors.
What other materials do you work with?
The acai seeds are definitely a plus, with so many different colors and nice sizes. But I also like Eye-of-the-Bull seeds, what we call oyu dibu. It's like good luck and protects you if someone looks at you with envy.
For my whole life I've worked green. I also use seeds of palm and vegetable ivory, what you call tagua in America. It has the same look and feel as ivory, but it's natural so you don’t actually have to kill animals to get it. Working green is important for me and all the seeds I use, they fall off the tree. People take the juices and other products so this is a way to get further use out of the seeds.
How else have you worked with creative reuse?
I've been invited to do classes for students as well as general jewelry classes. I love doing this – I introduce the seeds and tell students how it's important to work with recycled materials, with warm materials from nature. They often don't know that you can do jewelry from seeds.
What's special about these seeds?
How the seeds are treated is part of what makes them special. Women from this Co-op in Brazil drill each seed by hand, one by one, working in a group with their children. So when the seed comes to me it has all this energy from the people who've worked with it. For me, the designs are the easy part – the hard part is processing the seeds.
So they're hard to find, but exciting once you get ahold of them. It's a conversation piece and it's meaningful. So much of what the US has shipped in from China, it's not meaningful. It's just stuff. But when you find something like this, that's been made on a small scale, it has so much positive energy.
When I sell these, the seeds are alive. I let people know, don't hide them in a dark box, where they'll get stale. Hang them on your wall and let them breathe – wear them in the sunshine and let the colors brighten and the warmth grow!
Caroline Sales Knight sells natural seed necklaces in brilliant colors on Etsy as well as at local craft fairs. She is available for classes and demonstrations, and can be contacted through her website at Bella Acai.
Celia Emmelhainz is a guest blogger for SCRAP DC and posts an assortment of modern and classical artwork regularly at the ShapelyWomen blog.
Maret seventh graders are in to the environment. They spend time learning about things like reusing, recycling, energy conservation and how our habits affect the world. They are environmental ambassadors at their school, teaching other students that "green" is more then a color. SCRAP is in to that too. So it seemed like a natural partnership when Maret and SCRAP teamed up to do a full day of creative reuse for the students' Community Service Day in late April.
>>My favorite. So cool!
