Nits Arts and Crafts: October 2009

For most of us our grandparents would have been a great source of inspiration or their love and affection would have kept us going to reach our goals. For me my grandma is really special in all ways.

Those days most of the ladies used to attend schooling only till their primary or at the max they would have reached the middle school. My grandma was born and brought up in a little village where none of them studied more than 7th class. They get married right away and their lives change drastically. All that they have to do at home is to cook and then spend their time doing some art work or so. No television to entertain and no time killing serials to cry over. So she used to tell me that each and every lady she knew in her place had learnt at least one fine art. :) Wow.. Thats interesting isn't it.

My Grandma is a super active person who always wants to keep her brain and hands busy. She learnt loads of fine arts and also created lot of artistic things herself. Remember its all with the minimal facilities that were available those days.

She is in her late seventies now and she is still active with her creativity. Thats exactly what amazes me always. I love her. :)

She is good at Crochet, Matty, Hand embroidery, Bead work, Wire work, Flower making, knitting etc... the list goes on..

I am presenting few of her creations here for you to take a look. Most of them are around 50 years old. :)

Wire and Bead work

Wire flower vase and flowers

Bead work on a glass vase and cloth flowers

Bead table mat(I really wonder how good she was in mathematics)

Suitcase covered with beads (This is an amazing piece for sure)

Purses and Bags

Those days there was this fashion of carrying matching bags and purses. Here is my mom's collection that grandma made. :) I preserve them as my treasures.

Pinky bead purse :) ( I don't think you would ever get one of this kind now)

Woolen purse

Bead purse again (Too much of fashion trends those days na!!)

One more Bead purse ( I can't dare to try all these! )

Bright red bead purse

One more (A very cool combination and looks so neat isn't it!)

One other master piece ( Detailed designing)

A hand bag made of wire

Crochet and Knitting

Woolen Table mat

Crochet Sweater set(oops got to learn patience from her!)

Crochet frocks and sweaters (Some are that I wore when I was a kid and others are for my kids)

Crochet table spreads

Matty work

Matty work incorporating beads for the parrot

Matty bedspread(I remember her teaching me all the items in the spread when I was a kid :) )

Miscellaneous Creations

Aarathi plates that she made for my sister's wedding

Bride and groom decorated by grandma :)

Ufffff.. This is just a sample of her creations.. There are loads more of mom's and grandma's works.. Would surely collect more pictures and feature them later. :p

Quite commonly I used to face some questions when people see my art works.

They simply ask, who inspires you??? Who taught you all this??? How did you get these talents and interest???

The answer is simple.... My Mom is my inspiration!, followed by my Grandma :) Yeah!!! you are right the interest in art flows through my blood for generations.

But one astonishing point is that, we have never established ourselves in what the other one did. Meaning, my major interests was not on the works that my mom did and my mom's major interest was not on the works that my grandma did. :) Interesting na!!!!

Mom is an expert in Fabric painting, Metal sheet carving, Crochet, Hand embroidery, Machine embroidery, Kolam, Cross stitch, Glass painting and so on......

Thought of featuring some of my Mom's work in my blog too. Come on.. she is part of my life and why not part of this blog too ;)

Fabric Painting

She loves to do Fabric painting and can be called a master of it too. She started working on it around 30 years back. It should be the time when fabric paints had been introduced in South India. The most appealing and astonishing point is that she learnt it all by herself, without any guidance. She tried the concept of shading, color mixing etc. Here are few such samples. I will try to post more of her paintings soon.

This is a painting of Lord Krishna as Ratha Sarathi, done on fabric and framed as a wall hanging.

Click on the pic to get a detailed view. This one was done in a bed spread. I have done a collage of the pics here.

This one is the cute game of 'ring a roses' on my kurtha.

Metal sheet carving

Metal sheet carving is an art where pointed tools are used to carve outlines of a picture on a sheet of metal. I would tell you that it isn't as easy as I could say. It needs a lot of concentration and strength to do it. One slip of the hand can spoil the whole art. So I always appreciate mom for her patience in doing such detailed and pretty work. This is one of the many carvings that she did. She did lot of such pictures and had an exhibition and sale in Victoria technical institute, Chennai. She has gifted so many such pictures to our relatives. So will try to get more pics of her metal sheet carving soon. :) Keep waiting.

This is a pic of cute Krishna and Balaram as kids eating their favorite butter :)

Crochet

Mom learnt crochet from her mom who was a major expert it in. Both mom and grandma have done loads of stuff in crochet. This is one art that I really cant get into my head ;)