CAH
Comite Artisanal Haitien (CAH) was founded in 1973 as a non-profit organisation to support rural artisans in Haiti to sell their crafts in the local markets at Port-au-Prince and in doing so help reduce the migratiion of rural youth to the city. It has since grown to focus on finding international markets for Haitian crafts.
Today CAH represents about 200 artisans across Haiti, and covers a wide range of traditional crafts that reflect the vibrant Haitian culture and rich tradition including unique metal artworks made from recycled oil drums, river stone carvings from naturally occurring, soft river bed stones, paper mache masks and hand painted wooden products.
CAH's work creates new job opportunities and livelihoods for artisans, and as part of this work offers skills development, literacy training, health facilities and financial assistance to its artisan members. CAH's artisans works with CAH as independant individual producers, in family workshops or in cooperatives and are paid a fair wage, which for many is their sole source of income.
Stone Carving
CAH works with skilled stone carvers located in the villages of Leogane and Gressier in Haiti. This region is known for its craftsmanship in stone, and many of the artisans that work with CAH have been carving stone for 10-20 years.
The stone comes from a mountainous region in Haiti, where it is abundant. Riverstone is a soft stone, easy to carve and shape and appears naturally in shades of white, grey, pink, and green. It is used to create elegant sculptures, lidded boxes, paperweights and other decorative items.
Stone pieces are selected and brought to the carvers’ workshops. A rough cut is made of the desired design using chisels and saws. The pieces are soaked in water to make them easier to work with. The shape is refined using hand chisels then sanded smooth over three stages using progressively finer files and sandpaper.
Once the sanding is completed, the details are added to the carving. Textures, designs and details are added using chisels, punches and different hand tools and techniques. The final step in the process is to polish or dye the finished piece. A polish is applied to bring out the natural textures of the stone and to protect it. One piece can take between 2 hours to a full day to complete, depending on the size and complexity of the design. Each artisan usually specialises in a different stage of the process with more senior or skilled artisans carving the finer details.
Click the link to watch a short video of the process. https://vimeo.com/5099926
All products from this producer . . .
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White Stone Box
$29.50
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Grey Stone Box
$29.50
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Grey Heart Box
$25.00
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White Stone Box
$29.50 -
Grey Stone Box
$29.50 -
Grey Heart Box
$25.00
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