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by Carol Aloysius

Ramanie Arseculeratne

Versatile Ramanie Arseculeratne, well known for her prolific creative talents, will shortly showcase her skills before a largely female audience at Stockholm, Sweden.

An expert in floral decor, beauty culture, vegetable culture, costume jewellery, fish scale craft and decorative paintings in glass, among other novelties, Ramanie says she is eagerly looking forward to her visit to Sweden this month following her acceptance of an invitation by the Sweden-Sri Lanka Association to conduct workshops on arts and crafts for the benefit of Swedish housewives and working women.

Birds carved out of potatoes and a nest made out of water melon.

I'm really looking forward to conducting them as I have never demonstrated for a hundred per cent foreign audience", Ramanie told in an interview on the eve of her departure.

Although this is the first time this versatile artist will showcase her skills to a hundred percent foreign audience, she is by no means a novice when it comes to demonstrating before audiences abroad. As she points out, "Prior to these workshops, I have demonstrated several arts and crafts to educate Lankan women living in Singapore, London and New Zealand among other countries. I have now received an invitation to hold a workshop in Dubai for the Sri Lankan community living there and I hope to go there after my visit to Sweden. This workshop has been arranged by one of my former pupils and I'm looking forward to yet another opportunity to promote creative skills in women".

Skirt done with jambola.

In Sweden, Ramanie will hold her first workshop at Norrtalje, a town seventy kilometres away from the capital city. She will also conduct another workshop in the capital city of Stockholm. At both workshops she hopes to share her expertise in the intricate art of vegetable and fruit carving, glass decorative paintings, costume jewellery making, dried and pressed floral art, fish scale craft (one of her latest innovations), floral arrangements, interior decor, pottery painting and fabric painting.

A long time practitioner in the field of arts and crafts with professional training, this multi-talented artist who now runs her own Academy in Arts and Crafts under her own name, at Bambalapitiya, says she encourages students to use local raw materials since they are cheaper, fresher and more in keeping with our culture.

Her greatest satisfaction? 'When I see a pupil who was diffident and expressed doubts about her creative ability at the beginning of my course, turning out something beautiful and novel - out of her own imagination, by the time she completed the course".

"All women have creative skills - whether they are artists in their own right or beginners in the field. What they need is guidance and encouragement to bring out these skills", says this artist cum teacher who has patiently guided and encouraged hundreds of housewives, career women and school leavers to, "think imaginatively and use their inherent creative skills to their maximum potential".

Canneries with apples

She takes joy and pride in the fact that many of her former pupils have either set up their own businesses or earn a supplementary income by selling objects they have made themselves, combining their own techniques with the methods she taught them. "The world of arts and crafts is an ever changing world. People want something new, novel and exotic. It is important to observe modern trends in the field and learn the latest techniques and be innovative if you want to succeed in this field", she says.

Her own innovative methods of teaching were recognised internationally as far back as 1988, when Ramanie was selected to represent Sri Lanka at the eighth Commonwealth education Conference held in Montreal, Canada when leaders in education from all over the world discussed modern methods of teaching and education relevant to the new millennium.

Her advice to women who wish to pursue a career in arts and crafts, is "Make the most of your creative potential. There's beauty in everything you see. It requires only a little imagination and some guidance to transform the most ordinary object into something extraordinary and exquisite".

Featured are some of the vegetable and fruit carving done by her which are indeed exquisite...

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