By
Team IAnD
Photography:
Team IAnD
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| Shyamala Rao making a presentation on block printing |
India Art n Design (dot) com’s
(IAnD) interactive session at the Make in India Centre brought alive the
traditional flavour
of taken-for-granted Indian aesthetics…
As part of the week long
Make in India events in Mumbai, IAnD was supported by four passionate artists,
who took the audiences back to 3000 B.C. as they enlightened the large gathering
of onlookers and participants on the ‘survival
of Indian traditional arts and crafts in the digital era’.
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| Daphene Dias conducting the metal craft workshop |
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| Metal scapes done by the participants |
Conducted under the aegis
of Association of Designers of India (ADI) and facilitated by the Confederation
of Indian Industries (CII), the morning session on the third day of the Make in
India week saw a successful turn-out of almost a 150-plus moving crowd. Young
craft enthusiasts diligently set their minds and hands to block printing, metal
craft and the art of tribal Warli painting.
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| Block printing workshop in progress |
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| A young participant with her proud creation |
Workshop leads, veteran
textile artist and renowned block printer Shyamala Rao; metal craft artist
Daphene Dias and Warli artist Nita Desai engaged their groups via
demonstrations and hands-on activities from the word ‘go’! This saw surging
enthusiasm amongst the participants, who were eager to try out the different
crafts being explored.
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| Gayatri Mehta painting a live portrait |
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| The portrait in dry pastel on paper |
The session was corroborated
and curated by veteran portrait painter Gayatri Mehta, who also took to the
easel to paint a live portrait of a pretty young lady, who was only too eager
to ‘sit’ for her. Gayatri, with her deft strokes, put dry pastel to paper, chiselling
the sharp facial contours
and capturing the essence of
the peaceable expression on the model’s visage.
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| Nita Desai making her presentation and demonstrating the Warli technique |
Such workshops – a total of
45mins of working time preceded by an interesting presentation on the arts and
crafts of India - right from the Bhimbetka rock shelters in Madhya Pradesh,
the earliest known representations of art, traversing through the ages and
touching upon different crafts that still hold a special place in contemporary
times - are not only rich knowledge sources, but reignite pride in our
country’s heritage.
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| A packed workshop session |
Presented as an abridged version of our vast histories
enroute sociological and economic factors, such pockets of specific information
dissemination are best suited to foster a good understanding of our arts and
crafts in youngsters, without touching upon lengthy historical aspects that
tend to bore the young minds. A wonderful way to forge the yesterday-today
connect!
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