kalamkari

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Sri Kalahastri
I first saw this remarkable art craft at a market, and spoke in length to the artist displaying the craft of drawing on cloth, and then painting in the colors with vegetable dye. It is called karumkali, and is based out of this town. People here are taught for generations. The man told us we should come to his town. And so, we did. It is right next to Tiruputi, and we went following our twarted trip to the temple. But, we are not Hindu, so it is ok.Right?
We wound our way through unmarked streets, following our intuition, asking directions in a language we pretend to speak and understand, and head,yes, indeed to Sri Kalihastri. We stop at the entrance of the town, where we are requested to pay 15 rupees--but, no, we are not Hindu, we do not want to go to the many temples beyond the gates--we have just gone to the MAIN temple of pilgrimage--we are here to see kalamkari. AHH!! HEads bob! Faces smile!! A man hops on his bike, and we follow him, until we pass him, because we are in a car, and he is on a bike. We pass him, and he catches up, pedaling quickly and we follow him to a hovel of a home, where inside we find---indeed Kalamkari. We are ushured into a small compound where young girls are painting on the porch. Inside, a woman takes us inside, and shows us where her family has been making kalamkari for generations. Her father is the living master--he draws, and teaches the designs.
They hire women from
the village, who paint in their homes on their
own time, and they sell
their pieces to this
women's coop to sell.
We see young girls
(how young) drawing
and painting (poorly)
the cloth, that sells
for very little.

The master, shown to the left, is a big follower of the new born Si Baba. He spent 6 years making the worldest biggest kalamkari which is something crazy like 60 feet or meters--or bigger than I can think of telling some Hindi story. And he gave it to the fabulously rich SiBaba guy living in Bangalore. I felt a sink in the stomach over this, and the conditions that his family lives in, but a more enlightened friend than I said, "Oh, but think of the meditation and love that evolved out of that 6 years of painting." True.They pulled out hundreds of pieces for us to look at, each one, beautiful and with the imperfect work of a novice. My friend Barbara and I bought several,and then went to see the Kalumkari school of art.

Perhaps I didn't say this clearly enough, the work is drawn free hand, and then the artist dips their brush into a pot of vegetable dye, made through an enormously difficult process of making pigment, and then painted carefully onto the drawings. We met the school master. He had a beautiful educational video on the process, we watched--it is crazy all of the steps necessary to prepare the material and the dyes to work in the process----
and then he told us how he allows the women to work for months for free, until he will then hire them for 2000 rupees, =$40 a month. AHHHHH, I have such a problem, understanding economics. These people are
committing their lives
to the art of family to the expense
of their children going to school,
(to what ends) with unquestioned faith, that this is their job. THeir purpose. Who am I to argue?