Craft Through a Rear View Mirror: My Personal Journey

Issue #003, Autumn, 2019                                                                      ISSN: 2581- 9410 I am happy to be here with all of you to Lucknow, and to Sanatkada, both of which are now very dear to me. I am also happy to be here to share my experience and my journey of nearly 40 years in the area of crafts and handmade textiles. I have chosen to call this story – “Craft through a rear view mirror” simply because I believe I am at a stage in my life where I feel the need to pause and reflect. Turn back to look at the road I have walked. Review the years that have gone by to put together all that my checkered journey has taught me. Yes this, but with my focus firmly on the road ahead. This journey started in 1982, that is, soon after Pradeep and I got married and moved to Baroda. Before that, I had spent five and a half years at NID, The National Institute of Design at Ahmedabad, immersed in an aesthetic and an inspiring educational environment and of course, how can I not mention many many hours at the Calico Museum, that was then just across the bridge from NID. There was also Manubhai - the most loved and generous dealer of antique textiles and all sorts of other bric a brac.  His sprawling home / godown was in Bukhara Ni pole in the walled city near Dilli Darwaza. These two were institutions in themselves and I learnt from them as much as I did in the studios of NID. In 1982 I was just about 24 years old having graduated from NID in 1980. For my final year project at NID which we call the Diploma Pro...