Gandhi, handwoven khadi & village craft

Gandhi, handwoven khadi & village craft

Gandhi, India, khadi, artikrti

Today is Gandhi's birth anniversary- the 147th. Known as "Mahatma" or "The Great Soul", he is a national hero & leader for India like no other. His life, his writings and above all, his actions stood for certain principles that are timeless and valuable to all of us across the world: 

Holding onto Truth [satyagraha] & non-violence.

Equality, simplicity & compassion

Village craft & dignity of labor

Building character through communal life & work.

It is at the meeting point of village craft, communal life, simplicity & work that one finds "khadi" which means handspun or handwoven.

Kalamkari Art- 19 steps and just nine months.

If you have a river flowing by your home, a buffalo, bits of rusty iron and nine months of time, you are good to go, to becoming a kalamkari painter. Of course a bit of skill thrown in could help:)

Kalamakari is the art of painting on cloth with a ‘kalam’ or pen. And ‘kari’ means ‘work’. So literally it means pen-work- simple, right? But simplicity of craft is not what kalamkari is all about. But before you get to know how it is done, take a look at how a finished painting may look in some of the