Matale lacquer bangles
Colour melted on at speed, then lined with a thumbnail while still turning.
$130
Sunil Wijesuriya
- Wijesuriya lac turning
- Matale, Central Province
- 1994
The lac comes from an insect that lives on the palu tree. It is collected as a resin, cleaned, coloured with mineral pigment, and drawn out into sticks the thickness of a finger. Sunil holds a stick against a wooden blank spinning on a foot-powered lathe until the friction melts it, and the colour goes on in a single unbroken pass. If he lifts too early there is a seam. There is no filling a seam.
The technique is called niyapothen weda — nail work — because the fine lines are laid with the edge of the thumbnail while the piece is still turning. Sunil has done it since 1994 and the nail on his right thumb has grown back thicker than the other one.
He works in four colours: the red that comes out of the resin naturally, a yellow from gamboge, black from lamp soot, and a green he mixes himself and will not explain. Ask him about the green and he will offer you tea instead.
