Worcester, MA
United States
The Guragai family (the parents Nandi and Kaushila and their daughters) make numerous crafts and among these are their excellent coiled and colorful seating mats (pira). These show that a household is giving a place of honor to guests for them to sit upon. In rural Bhutan sometimes houses have few chairs, by design; these decorative mats are used in place of those. Newborn babies are also placed on these pira, as a way to welcome them to the house, family, and society. Tight plait work is highly prized in pira hand-production. Nandi makes especially well-wrought and forthright pira,with tight coil work and bright colors. Through RAW, Massachusetts customers seem to see pira of this type as home decorations, coasters or trivets. Additionally in some institutional Massachusetts settings large pira gain other public uses. For instance, in the Gale Free Library in Holden, MA, wide pira are being used as seating mats for small children during Story Time.