Lion stalking human - can human escape?.
Human encountering lion - what now?
Parent and child - harmony.
They are all made on the same piece of palm leaf. The original leaf was about 15 feet long. This is part of the stem of the leaf, which wraps around the trunk of the palm tree. When the leaf dies, it dries up and the whole thing falls off the tree.
I started making things with palm leaves while conducting service-learning projects in Cambodia. We were installing solar panels to generate electricity for villages which are not covered by the electricity utility grid. We gave them LED lights mounted on bare circuit boards for lighting.
In Cambodia, palm trees are everywhere. Leaves dry up and fall to the ground. Then they are considered useless and often burnt up as garbage. On the other hand, there are also lots of geckos, small ones and big ones. Some as big as a foot long, and colourful. I started seeing that some palm branches can be sculpted into animal sculptures such as geckos. I also shaped some into nice looking shapes with pleasing curves. Dr. G suggested to insert LEDs into them to make lights for the villages. So we did. I made the frame, K put in the LEDs, a simple circuit and rechargeable battery.
While we make LED lights with those palm leaves for service-learning, I have continued to make things with them, dozens and dozens of them.
This is a new collection of footprints. This leaf was picked up from a palm tree only meters away from PolyU, next to the footbridge leading to Tsim Sha Tsui East.
No comments:
Post a Comment