“Endangered
Ethnic and Tribal Textile Craft Skills in India”
with Bina Rao
Creative Bee Design Studio,
Hyderabad, India
India is known for its rich
history of traditional textile types, such as the Brocades of Varanasi, Patolas
of Patan, Chintz (Kalamkari) from Machlipatnam and Thelia Rumal from Chirala,
etc. The hand weaving skills of India’s master weavers were very special
and religiously passed onto the following generations as a family legacy.
However, when the 20th century Industrial Revolution gripped India
soon after independence in 1947 with the advent of mill-woven textiles as a
mainstream fabric, hand woven textiles, which had been thriving for centuries in
rural India, began to steadily lose their marketability. These precious human
resources have today found themselves at crossroads, with not enough exposure to
the fast changing fashion world dominated by mill-woven fabric. Bina Rao and her
design studio have actively taken on this challenge to promote these ethnic
skills and transform traditional weaves and prints into contemporary color
trends in order to meet current fashion requirements. They have trained at least
700 rural artists in traditional techniques of natural dyeing and traditional
weaves, which is helping ancient crafts and arts from languishing and has
connected the rural weavers’ work with the global market, and in addition to
fashion houses, these textiles are now being purchased by museums and private
collectors.
Bina Rao is the owner of a
natural dye and textile-manufacturing company in Hyderabad called Creative Bee.
Ms. Rao and her artist husband, Mr. Kesav Rao (a renowned painter in India) set
up the company with the sole purpose of promoting and reviving ancient tribal
art forms in 1996. The design facility uses only organic materials and vegetable
dyes making the textiles 100% organic. The facility uses minimal electricity and
no electricity is used in manufacturing the textiles and fabrics. Ms. Bina
Rao has worked extensively towards growth and development of Ethnic Handloom
and Natural Dye craft heritage of India. She has completed many design,
development and revival projects for various textile clusters in rural India and
South East Asia as well as represented India at International Textile and
Fashion shows. She is on the Advisory Committees of Government of India,
Textiles Ministry, Adjunct Professor National Institute of Fashion Technology,
Member of WCC and Textile Society of America and Weavers Guild of Australia. Ms.
Rao invites TMA/SC members to bring examples of hand-woven Indian textiles for
show & tell.
PROGRAM
REVIEW:
“Endangered Ethnic and Tribal
Textile Craft Skills in India”
By Marjorie Franken
Bina Rao is a textile designer and
weaver who works in Hyderabad in the central Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. She
presented the dilemma of traditional Indian textiles as one of conservation
versus diversification. Briefly stated the problem is that slow traditional
production of hand-dyed and hand woven textiles has been competing
unsuccessfully with industrial production since the 19th century.
Conservation of these techniques and skills can only be accomplished by
establishing a supporting sector that designs for and markets to modern tastes
and needs in clothing and home furnishings.
The history of the Indian textile
trade is long and complex, as many of the TMA/SC members know. Export of Indian
textiles to the West began in the late 1700’s, but long before, evidence shows
that they were being distributed across South Asia via the Silk Route as early
as the 15th century. External trade was only part of the distribution
of silks and other fabrics. Internal consumption, especially by royal families
and temples, supported local production.
The nineteenth century brought
industrial production and increased export to Europe. Interestingly the biggest
stimulus to factory production of textiles came from the Indian government
itself. After independence in 1947 development was the overriding goal of the
new state. The techniques, knowledge and skills of traditional textile
production began eroding, forgotten as people found other occupations.
Creative Bee is a design studio
begun by Bina Rao in an effort to revive, preserve and re-teach traditional
techniques of textile production. Her organization has grown to include several
workshops employing over 700 artisans in villages near Hyderabad. The textiles
are 100% organic, from fiber to dying and finishing. Rather than contracting for
exclusive rights to her weavers’ production, she leaves them as free agents to
market their crafts to any interested buyer. Her major role, in addition to
starting up workshops and re-teaching techniques, is to design fashions with
traditional fabrics, colors, and motifs which will appeal to modern women as
clothing and home decorations. The creativebee.in website has photos of
many of these items as recently exhibited and marketed at international shows.
Although Ms. Rao studies many
types of traditional Indian textiles the program for TMA focused on only two
types due to time limitations. Kalamkari cloth is probably the most recognized
Indian textile in the West—it was called “chintz” when introduced to Europe. The
name Kalamkari comes from “kalum’ or “pen”. A photo of the pen showed a sort of
pointed spoon, the bowl wrapped in a cord that presumably absorbs and holds ink
for the artist to draw designs directly onto the cotton cloth.
Kalamkari production usually
involves several members of a family and often some neighboring crafts-persons
as well. The cloth is prepared to accept and retain the natural vegetable dyes
by a process of milk bleaching. This is an expensive, repetitive and
time-consuming process that results in a buff-colored cotton. This color remains
visible as the background over which the reds, blues, greens and yellows of the
design will be painted.
Many dye recipes have been lost
according to Ms. Rao, and the present palette includes less than a dozen from a
former selection of twenty or more colors.
The most skilled worker is the
artist who draws the design onto the bleached fabric. Young people are now being
trained in this skill to eventually replace the senior family members, male and
female, now employed. As Kalamkari fabrics were very frequently used for temple
hangings in the past, traditional designs concentrated on epic illustration of
the lives and adventures of deities such as Krishna and his companions. Modern
designs are more floral, especially variations of the “tree of life” pattern.
Bina Rao herself has designed more modern looking ones which include monkeys,
turtles and birds. The colors of the design are filled in by hand painters who
work as a family group, taking about two months to complete a three to four yard
piece. Kalamkari is now also produced by hand-blocking the outline design which
is then colored in the traditional way. This obviously speeds up production and
results in a repetitive design.
The second group of textiles
discussed are Tal’ dyed fabrics. Some villages have apparently specialized in
this textile for centuries. The villages are located in the Tribal Area of
Andhra Pradesh, an area of restricted access where the Indian government
conserves both the ecosystem and life-ways of the indigenous people. The
textiles use three colors only, a deep red, a rust brown and white. The red
color comes from the Morinda cirtifolia tree, specifically the bark
removed from the roots. (More information on this tree can be obtained from
Google, especially the U.S. Forest Service tropical shrub list. Two references
are given: Little and Wadsworth 1964 and Nelson 1996). The tree appeared to be
about 20 feet high, with oval leaves about 10 x 6 inches, rather like a large
ficus leaf. An interesting cooperation between two tribes produces the dye
itself. One tribe cultivates the tree in the forest, carefully extracting roots
on the periphery, seven to eight feet from the base of the trunk. The bark of
these roots is then delivered to a second village where the actual dying and
weaving take place.
Again the dying is a long
repetitive process, this time using cow dung and sunshine to prepare the cotton
and set the dye. In order to change the color from the intense bluish red the
bark produces to a rust-brown shade, iron is added to the dye bath. Apparently
the form of the iron is not critical-- old scraps such as nails can be used.
The threads are then woven into
pieces that appeared to be about two to three yards long and perhaps a yard
wide. Traditional motifs include stripes, birds and “temple domes” using an ikat
weaving technique. Ms. Rao has incorporated these designs as well as adding fish
and figures of children to her modern versions. Another modern use of this
fabric is in the home decoration division of the workshop. Table linens,
bedspreads and cushion covers are all coordinated in traditional and
contemporary textiles.
Ms. Rao’s design work is now also
part of government sponsored workshops that promote other Indian crafts, such as
woodworking, basketry and metalwork. Her own special area of creativity recently
has focused on “wild” silk. Cocoons for this type of silk are gathered from the
forest in contrast to a farming operation. Wild silk has different properties
than cultivated silk fibers, and Ms. Rao has invented a weaving process that
produces a semi-transparent cloth with a dramatic drape effect. The fabric was
used in several of the fashion photos that concluded the program. These photos
and much more are available on the creativebee.in website.
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