Day 80: Textile Artists

Today I went to a place that I LOVE-- a place that I will dream of in the future when I think about India. We went to visit a textile factory that HAND STAMPS all of their material. The material is organic, the stamps are hand-made and its not done by machine. That right there is ART. Look at this guy!

 

You wouldn't believe how fast they are... and how confident they seem. Just one mess up and the whole cloth (hours of work) is ruined! 

Basically there are a few steps... first the stamps are made. HAND MADE. There were about 10 artists sitting in a hut chipping away at wood blocks to make them look like this.

 

You can tell that these stamps (above) are for adding colour to the inside of designs because they don't quite look like any distinct design.

 The man who built this company started from nothing. He learned the art from his grandfather and slowly gained presitge for the quality of his products. Now he is very successful! This is one of the three of his national award winning stamps. He won three times in a row and then withdrew from the competition the following years to give other people a chance. This one took him 3 MONTHS to make.

Eventually he brought out all the ones that were for sale. Beautiful huh?

I ended up buying one :) This is Mohan Rao, the founder of Kanti Textiles. 

 After we went to the store and I bought lots of fabric :) I won't say why because that is a surprise! 

I felt like I could have stayed in that store forever. It was full of rooms piled from floor to ceiling with different cloths, carpets, sarees, bags... I am definitely a pattern person and I couldn't stop picking things up just to stare at the cloth. I wanted it all. I may not have gotten everything I liked but I left with a very full bag and a very happy smile on my face.

Okay... here is one sneak peak of a cloth I bought. :D I have this new found desire to design things after seeing all of the patterns! Pictures can't do justice to any of this. You will just have to visit this place one day. I'll come with you.

 Love,

Stéf