Back to Basics

The twist comes in when intervention from these urban designers shapes indigenous small-scale craft into 8216;products8217; that cater to urban markets. It8217;s no longer uncommon to see Warli lampshades, tableware crafted from Kerala terracotta, or a leather planner covered with cane designs from Tripura at exhibitions.

However, it8217;s a delicate process where the designer needs only to nudge the craftsperson with suggestions rather than impose ideas. 8216;8216;The highly skilled Tripura women, for whom weaving is second nature, were a little hesitant about travelling to the city for exhibitions and invariably, it8217;s the men who do the negotiating,8217;8217; says Chelna Desai, a freelance designer who8217;s working with Oloom for their first big exhibition in Mumbai.

8216;8216;One has to be careful it doesn8217;t become a pastiche where their skills are simply grafted onto urban ideas8212;that is a bastardisation of the art,8217;8217; says Jinan, whose recent visit to Mumbai for Paramparik Karigar8217;s Craft Village exhibition saw him showcasing terracotta tiles from Aruvacode.

Most of Desai8217;s intervention centres around implementing designs suggested by her to women working on the lap loom, a traditional weaving technique. 8216;8216;The mechanical Jacquard loom is a threat to traditional weaving. One way of combating it is by incorporating new designs that the machine can8217;t duplicate,8217;8217; she says.

Meera Mehta, another Mumbai-based designer, believes in the 8216;teach them to fish and they eat for a lifetime8217; policy. This clothing and textile designer8212;a Maharaja Sayajirao University and NID alumna8212;has been working with craftspeople like Suraj Prakash Maharana, a bell metal craftsman and Kalamkari Jonnalagadda Niranjan.

8216;8216;It8217;s important to get them to be confident about their own ideas instead of getting influenced by personal patrons who have no clue about the individual character of their art,8217;8217; says a passionate Mehta.

Weavers Studio has a less intimate approach and simply outsources the work of several Kolkata designers who work with craftspeople on uncut cloth. Featuring block prints, natural dyes and embroideries, its broad-based approach works well commercially.

Sometimes the intervention comes from within the craft community. Sharad Kumar, an alumnus of Ahmedabad8217;s Kanoria Centre, comes from a long line of Mithila artists. KOHBAR is his idea of guru dakshina. His grandmother Chandrakala Devi, a famous traditional papier-macirc;cheacute; sculptor and Mithila painter, is his inspiration.

But having modernised this art form to feed his creativity, Kumar wants to share his approach and has been working with Bihar-based Mithila painters. 8216;8216;Despite their fame, traditional artists often lack the tact to carve a 8216;career8217; or create a 8216;brand name8217;. This makes it difficult to extend the life of their art practices,8217;8217; says Kumar whose latest venture Signed Memories at the Cymroza Art Gallery saw brisk sales. So despite frangible negotiations, the designer-craftsperson nexus has cash boxes clinking and customers beaming.