Iris Publishers_Journal of Textile Science & Fashion Technology (JTSFT)
Design Intervention & Craft Revival with Reference to Pichwai Paintings: A Contemporise Approach
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to ensure if design intervention helps in the revival of dying craft with interesting ideas with new intervention models and create new range of products.
Design/Methodology/Approach: This study is based on a review of the literature and takes a case study approach. The study aims to suggest interventions as bridge between designers and craft persons to enhance and expand the craft vocabulary and reviving dying craft tradition and opening new avenues in the global market.
Keywords: Traditions; Paintings; Craft revival; Design interventions
Objective
• To revitalize this rare traditional art of Pichwai.
• To give new dimensions to this traditional art yet maintaining its value.
• To enhance the livelihood and to create employment opportunities for artisans.
• To create market segment for artisans at global level.
Introduction
Indian handicrafts are unique expressions of a particular culture or community through local craftsmanship and materials. With increasing globalization, however, products are becoming more and more contemporized and artisans find their products competing with goods from all over the world.
This kind of demand regarding a product and change its style, design and color creates a great threat for the producer artisans and push these conventional handmade products out, replacing them with mass factory made, machine crafts [1].
Though the Indian traditional crafts based on skills, has been transformed from generation to generation and many of them are still making their livelihood dependent on the indigenous modes of production, traditional skills and techniques to manufacture products.
Handicraft is the second largest source of employment in the country, after agriculture. Yet India’s hand industries are in a crisis of misunderstanding. Crafts Council of India- 2011.
According to United Nations, over the past 30 years, the number of Indian artisans has decreased by 30% indicating the need to reinvest in artisans to safeguard history culture and an important source of livelihood. -William Bissel, MD, Fabindia [2].
Among the oldest devotional paintings of India, the temple hangings of the Vallabhacharya Sampradaya, Krishna sect are one of the beautiful and mesmerizing ones . This painting style originated 400 years ago. The intricate and visually stunning devotional pictures on cloth or paper which portrays the tales from lord Krishna’s life. These hangings act as a backdrop and adorn the walls of garbgriha of lord Krishna’s temple.
These paintings are mainly done by the artist of the town Nathdwara , near Udaipur city . It is known as the center of Pichwai paintings. The artists here earn their livelihood through these paintings. The Pichwai artists belong to the communities of the jangidas and the Adi gauras [3].
Review of Literature
This research is inspired by the fact that crafting objects by hand is one of the defining traits of being human, then our present state of culture in which craft has disappeared in the “overdeveloped” world and it should cause us to pause and think about what is about to disappear.
Craft today is defined by preciousness, and an extraordinary value is attributed to the handmade craft as an exotic species. Caught between a rock and a hard place, people in the west fetishize the object, while in our world we romanticize the humble craftsman and his poor condition.
But neither of these approaches really looks past the artefact (as either a fetish or a commodity) to the role of craft as a catalyst for spurring thought and innovation in the society.
We may lament the loss of the beautiful objects we now see in museums, but what if the ultimate value of craft lies not in the artefact but rather in the process by which it comes to be? [4].
A study by Soteriou A [5] says that it is a process which seems to be getting lost as the artisans are trained in the art form by their ancestors over generations and craft was not about making a simple product. Rather it was about a historic legacy of generations and centuries, a tedious brutal labor and a proud skill, a battle between tradition and industrial modernity an expression of unique style and a vision of revival all connected to the heart and spirit of each individual artisan.
Research by Kasturi PB [6] reveals that – Has Indian design, in fifty years of the country’s independence, empowered the crafts community to become “freshly evolved and seek solutions themselves.” On how to resolve this problem of designing for new markets? Have designers asked the right questions of the crafts community to lead to such empowerment?
Perhaps it is now time to do so. “With adequate social opportunities, individuals can effectively shape their own destiny and help each other. They need not be seen as primarily as passive recipients of the benefits of development programs.”
While design intervention in craft is welcomed by some as a necessity and an opportunity for exploring new prospects and help in craft revival, it is often considered as a threat by others [7].
In short, collaborative innovation between designer and craftsperson is a good means of expanding the craft vocabulary and tapping contemporary markets.
Defining Craft
Crafts can be defined as “those activities that deal with the conversion of specific materials into products, using primarily hand skills with simple tools and employing the local traditional wisdom of craft processes. Such activities usually form the core economic activity of a community of people called “craftsmen”.
One definition state that crafts developed out of necessity to fulfil everyday needs of people. The products and objects made were for personal use and were instrumental in expressing their individuality and their way of life.
In the Indian context crafts have been both for personal use and an expressional fulfilment and economic activity. It evolved out of being a product of use, then was ornamented and given an aesthetic appeal to it.
A craftsperson is one who is skilled in a technique and though he may produce a number of similar objects, each one however expresses the maker’s creativity [8].
It can also be defined as a personal journey of the craftsperson where the main objective is self-expression. The personalization, imperfections imparted because of hard work and use of indigenous tools and skills are the factors that differentiate “craft” from a community. (Design Intervention and its execution in crafts in India, Amita Pandey) [9].
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