Natalie Wohlstader rolls out the 24-inch Patta Chitra paintings that depict Krishna Leela. She took 15 days to complete these paintings on the palm leaves—a traditional art form she learnt at Raghurajpur, a village in Odisha where every villager is an artist and each house a studio. And not just Patta Chitra, the villagers are known for other artistic traditions that have attracted national and international attention.
Not surprisingly, therefore, 20 artists from different countries camped here since October 13 for a fortnight-long art residency programme—the Raghurajpur International Art and Craft Exchange (RIACE) 2012.
An idea of Kshitish Das—a Bhubaneswar-based artist, and senior sculptor Carol Hummel of the US, this was the second edition of the RIACE. Kshitish says he first met Carol at Art Karavan International, a travelling art event in Kolkata, in 2010. “Along with Kshitish, I visited Raghurajpur the same year and was impressed with not only the quality but also the diversity of the art works of the villagers. I thought of doing some of these things and adopt them into my art work. Then both Kshitish and I felt that a lot of international artists would love to learn these art forms, and at the same time artists of Raghurajpur would be interested to know about the contemporary art scene in the West,” says Carol, an MFA degree holder in sculpture from Kent State University.
The camp was based on the ‘guru-shishya’ tradition. It allowed the international artists to learn nuances of a plethora of difficult art forms which require concentration and careful craftsmanship. They were taught Patta Chitra, Matha Chitra (painting on Tassar silk fabric), Talapatra Chitra (painting on palm leaf), wood carving, stone sculpture, paper masks, cow dung toys, coconut painting and ‘Ganjapa’ playing cards. But it was definitely Patta Chitra that fascinated them.
As a part of the residency, master craftsmen of all the nine art forms in the village were roped in by the organisers to teach and assist them in the learning process. Throughout the residency the international artists stayed in the village and were exposed to a “whole new culture”. “We also got to immerse ourselves in a culture that we would have never known before. In fact, living in the village and not in a fancy hotel, eating the same food as the villagers and working with the master craftsmen was a great experience indeed,” says 23-year-old Alex Krales from the US, the youngest artist in the camp.
Incidentally, Patta Chitra was fading out for some time till it was revived in recent years. “Earlier, 200 families of this village were engaged in Patta Chitra which was in demand among the pilgrims going to Puri,” says Gopal Moharana, an Odisha Lalit Kala Akademi awardee who taught Patta Chitra to the international artists. “But as times changed, traditional artists were marginalised, forcing many to leave the village or switch to other vocations. It was due to pioneering work of the late guru Jagannath Mohapatra that the glory of the village was restored.”
Surely, the RIACE and similar programmes will keep the art forms on the revival mode in the years to come.
OF PATTA CHITRA
● Patta Chitra refers to a pictorial depiction of various deities and myths on Patta—an indigenously-prepared canvas made of old cotton clothing. The brushes are homemade—from mouse hair, and the colours are basic ones prepared from vegetable or mineral extracts. The artists mix turmeric powder, juice of flowers, fruits and leaves with kaintha (wood apple) gum and paint on Tassar silk and palm leaves.
● In 2002, Raghurajpur was notified by the Centre as one of the 16 heritage villages in India and `1 crore was allocated for its development.