Clarity,
from Bhutan.

Bhutan counts thirteen traditional arts: weaving and embroidery, carving and carpentry, painting and sculpture, blacksmithing, silver and gold work, bronze casting, masonry, papermaking, bamboo and cane work, and woodturning.

They are not kept behind glass. They are taught in institutes, practised in workshops, and used in houses people live in. A carved window frame, a turned wooden bowl, a woven belt: all of them ordinary, all of them made by someone trained in a named discipline.

Three of the thirteen run through most of what we make. Thagzo, weaving. Parzo, carving. Lhazo, painting.

Much of Bhutan's cloth is still woven at home, on a backstrap loom that the weaver tensions with her own body. There is no printed pattern to follow. The design is counted out from memory, thread by thread, and a kira dense with supplementary-weft brocade can take the better part of a year to finish.

The colour comes from what grows nearby: madder root for red, indigo for blue, symplocos and turmeric for yellow, lac for deep crimson.

The cloths have names, and the names carry their valleys. Yathra, the thick patterned wool of Bumthang. Kushuthara, the brocade of the east. Bura, raw silk. Mathra, the checks. Each one is a different craft, a different region, a different pace of work.

COAH draws on Bhutan for everything it makes: its craft, its landscape and its way of living. Giving is how we return something.

We work with eight charities in Bhutan, and we support them in two ways. Every project is paired with one of them before it is released, and carries a donation. Separately, a share of every sale goes to the eight.

Each project page names the charity it supports, so you can see where a piece sends its money before you buy it.

Meet the eight