Thursday, January 22, 2009

Hands On - Origami Workshop

At Dastakar Nature Bazaar 2008 in Dilli Haat, Craft Revival Trust hosted Free Origami Workshops for Children.

We set up a table and some rugs gave out square origami paper and taught children how to make some basic origami animals. Starting with the very easy and getting progressively harder. The theme of the Dastakar Mela this year was butterflies so we taught three different butterfly designs besides teaching fish, and bird origami.


These Pictures were taken by the parents of one of the children attending the workshop which they very nicely emailed to us.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Pradyumna Kumar




Madhubani Paintings done by Pradyumna Kumar. I absolutely love the detail in his work.



Pradyumna Kumar is the first ever Indian artist to win the prestigious NOMA Concourse for Picture Book Illustration. Pradyumna won the prize for his work titled “How the Firefly got its Light”. Like the paintings above this is painted in the Mithila /Madhubani style of painting.

Pradyumna started painting only 5 years ago when surgery reduced his chances of continuing working as a land surveyor. His work is very highly influenced by his wife and sister in law who are some of the finest painters in the Mithila tradition.

The paintings featured above are available for sale from the CRT website.

Read more about Pradyumna here. Buy Pradyumnas paintings here.

Saturday, December 20, 2008


Shopping at Craft Revival
was set up a while ago and is now going strong. One of the main reasons for setting it up was to have a portal to sell Craft Revival Trusts Publications. Since then we have expanded the range of products we sell. We sell a variety of gift items, stationary, cards, Indian toys and games We have recently started selling original art via our website. We currently feature the work of Pradyumna Kumar, Montu Chitrakar, Kalam Patua and Vijay Kumar Sawhney. Shopping at CRT also makes it possible for people from around the world to buy these original pieces of art and unique craft products.

The money made from sales goes towards supporting Craft Revival Trusts efforts, particularly the website.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Love's Labour's Lost? The Commoditisation of Dowry Embroidery in Western India

PUTTING IDEAS FIRST

Love's Labour's Lost?
The Commoditisation of Dowry Embroidery in
Western India

Talk By Dr. Eiluned Edwards

Date: Monday, 5th January 2009
Time: 6.00 pm – 8.00 pm
Venue: India International Centre (Main)
Conference Room II
40 Max Mueller Marg, New Delhi


Edwards, Eiluned is Victoria and Albert Museum/London College of Fashion Joint Senior Research Fellow in Textiles and Dress. She has been researching the traditions of textiles and dress in India since 1991 and has worked extensively with the farming and herding communities of the Kachchh district, in Gujarat, documenting styles of dress and embroidery. She has also worked with artisans in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh and is presently working on a book on the traditions of textiles and dress in Gujarat.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

The CRT Logo


The Tree of Knowledge

The Craft Revival Trust Blog

Earlier we at CRT earlier used this blog to highlight some of the comments and feedback we received.

We have now decided to change the focus of this blog. We are now planning to use this blog to initiate discussions on the crafts sector. To feature interesting craft news; highlight different crafts, materials and processes. To talk about events in the craft world as well as in the world of Craft Revival Trust.

To tell you a little about CRT
The Craft Revival Trust (CRT) is engaged in bringing information on crafts into the public domain. As a part of this process, CRT has created an encyclopedic guide and resource base on the crafts, textiles and folk arts of South Asia, with a particular focus on India. This, as well as information on our other activities can be found on our website