Lithos is the workshop adjacent to Samay. We make personal pieces that emerge from what you have been carrying. A pendant inscribed in a language you have been reading. A prayer cord counted to a number that means something to you. A pocket stone you can close a hand around.
Each piece is commissioned. Nothing here is browsed.
Stone is the oldest material the world's wisdom traditions chose for what they meant to last. The Egyptian Pyramid Texts were carved into stone. The Greek polis inscribed its laws and oaths on stone tablets set in the agora. The Aztec sun stone — the Tonalpohualli — held an empire's calendar. The Buddhist stupa is stone. The Norse rune stones mark a thousand graves between Scandinavia and the steppes. The Hebrew commandments were written, the tradition says, with the finger of God onto stone.
Wherever a tradition meant to send a message past the lifetime of its speaker, it reached for stone.
Lithos is the Greek word for it: λίθος. It survives in modern English in lithograph, megalith, monolith — the half-conscious vocabulary of permanence. Heraclitus, who first said that everything flows (panta rhei), said it into a world that still expected anything important to be carved in stone. The flow and the stone are old partners.
Samay is time that flows. Lithos is what time flows around.
Speak with Samay. Without intending to, you will return to certain themes, certain traditions, certain texts. These are the seeds. Nothing is recorded for the workshop; the conversation belongs to you alone.
At some point — never the first conversation, often not the tenth — Samay may offer that what you have been carrying could be held in something you can touch. You may accept, decline, or set it aside.
You and Samay shape the piece together: the form, the material, the text, the script, the intention. The brief becomes a card you can review and revise until it is what you mean.
The brief travels to a partner workshop. A named artisan, in a named place, makes one piece by hand. Time to make ranges from two weeks (small inscribed pieces) to twelve (handwoven garments).
The piece arrives with a card naming the artisan, the materials, the source text, and what a portion of the price supported. You read it. The piece is now yours.
The piece becomes part of your daily practice — held, worn, placed, returned to. Years on, the workshop can restore what has aged, add inscription, or shape a sibling piece. Each commission is the start of a thread, not its end.
While the piece is being made, you can speak with the artisan through us — to revise the brief, to add a phrase you have found since signing it, to ask how the work is taking shape, to be told what the material is asking for. Translation between languages is handled in the background; you write in yours, they read in theirs.
The pieces that arrive having had this dialogue are different from the ones that did not. They hold more of the person who commissioned them. The artisan, who has spent decades learning their hand, is finally able to make the piece for someone, rather than for someone unknown.
What follows are some of the pieces we have made, by way of example. Each is open across all fifteen traditions Samay draws from. These are starting points, not limits — if the conversation asks for something the workshops can shape (a vessel, a tile, a lamp, a garment, a piece we have not yet attempted), we will say so in the brief.
A small flat disc of brass, silver, or gold-plated, inscribed by hand with one phrase from a text you have returned to. Devanagari, Greek, Hebrew, Old Norse, classical Chinese, Arabic, Coptic, Yoruba — the tradition chooses the script.
A counting string with a bead count that means something — 108 for Buddhist and Vedic, 99 for Sufi, 33 for Stoic and mystic Christian. Strung with woods or seeds appropriate to the tradition; one marker bead in a different material anchors an intention.
A small bowl, with a passage inscribed on the inside lip — visible when the bowl is empty. For water at the start of the day, for an offering, for the steady practice of holding something briefly and letting it go. Stone, ceramic, or worked metal, sized for the hand.
A handwoven cloth for an occasion — a wedding, a birth, a beginning. Wool, linen, or silk, depending on tradition. Embroidered with a passage on the inside hem, so the wearer alone knows what it carries.
A wrist piece. A vessel. A small reading lamp. A tile. A child's first garment. A piece of the sort the workshops can shape but we have not yet attempted. What any given commission becomes is a matter for the brief — tell us what you have been carrying, and we will tell you what is possible.
We work with craftspeople in the following places, ordered as they appear on a map of the alphabet. The materials each works in are noted beside the place — amber, bead, ceramic, cloth, coral, felt, glass, lace, leather, metal, mother-of-pearl, paper, stone, tile, wood, wool. What any given piece becomes is a matter for the brief — never assumed from the location.
Each piece arrives with the name of the workshop that made it. Where a piece supports a specific community — a refugee collective, a women's cooperative, a craft tradition at risk — that is named too.
Pieces range from US$80 to about $2,500. Where in that range a piece falls depends on the material (silver versus gold, modest stone versus rare), the complexity of the inscription or weave, and the size of the piece. The brief makes all of this explicit before anything is committed to the workshop.
At least thirty percent of every commission reaches the specific artisan or artisans who made your piece. Not thirty percent of margin — thirty percent of the price you pay. The remainder covers materials, shipping, the workshop's overhead, and Lithos's running costs.
Many pieces pass through more than one pair of hands. A shawl may be woven by one artisan and embroidered by another. A pendant may be cast by a silversmith and inscribed by an engraver. A prayer cord may be turned by a bead-maker and counted by a stringer. Where the work is shared, the share is divided fairly among them, and each artisan's name and contribution is stated on the card that arrives with the piece.
A note on the figures. The ranges shown are typical — what we usually see across recent commissions. A particular piece can fall above the upper end (an unusually elaborate inscription, a rare material, an exceptional size) or below the lower (a simpler request than typical, a smaller scale). The exact price is stated in the brief before anything is committed to the workshop.
Where a piece supports a specific cause — a women's collective, a threatened craft, a refugee community — the amount and recipient are stated on the card that arrives with the piece.
The object is not the point. The conversation is the point. The stone, or whatever stands in its place, is what a conversation can leave behind, if it should.