Cowrie Threads is the publishing thread of my (Sivani Mata's) work,
and that which holds the books I am birthing into the world.

As a child, my father (who was from Trinidad) always referred to cowrie shells as gris gris. It was years before I learnt the name cowrie (or knew that they had in some places had been so valuable they were used as currency), but I always had the understanding that these shells were something special, that they held some kind of magic. In my later life as I became curious about the different ways that people connected to the Sacred, I found out the term gris-gris was a West African term referring to a charm or amulet used for protection. Without understanding the roots of the word, that's what these shells had become to me. A symbol of power, magic, protection and a connection to my ancestors. Not only that, the cowrie is a symbol of the source, of the female genitalia, from which all is birthed.

As a keen embroiderer, weaver and lover of textiles, the idea of threads woven together is a common way I see the world. The name Cowrie Threads is a homage to the threads from the source of creation that are woven into the fabric of our being and inspire how we see the world.