BHUBANESWAR: Painstakingly placed with a telling-effect, every strand of straw seems to weave a story in its purest form. Master craftsperson Pradeepta Kumar Nayak puts in 12 days to create a work of art.
Pradeepta’s straw craft and the beautiful portraits and scenery have found admirers among visitors at the ongoing Sisir Saras crafts fair at the Exhibition Ground here.
Nayak of Jiral village in Dhenkanal district, has been pursuing the craft for the past 25 years.
A childhood hobby to create wonders with waste became a passion when he experimented with straw. “People liked its natural colour,” he stresses.
The decision to make a profession of his passion did not go down well with the parents as they knew how miserable have been the lives of craftsmen in the State, he adds.
Pradeepta uses a special kind of straw for the work. Scouring it with a chisel, he polishes each strand of the hay. After applying a special gum, which is collected from tree stain, he places them directly on the cardboard.
Pointing at the cultural importance of the craft, he says there is no use of any artificial elements. “It needs a lot of hard work and patience which often make the younger generation leave the craft half-way through,” he says.
Pradeepta’s love for the craft can be judged from the fact that he teaches the art form to youths and women of his village for free. “I have trained more than 80 youths and women in the last 13 years. I run the training centre with my income and pay them 30 per cent of the sale proceeds for the products they design,” he says. At present, he has 20 youths working under him.
Prices of Pradeepta’s works range from ` 50 to ` 30,000 and his products sell like hot cakes in various fairs and festivals in and outside the State.
A self-taught artist, Pradeepta has won a large number of State-level awards and the National-level merit award for his contribution to the crafts form.
His dream, he says, is to put Jiral on the tourism map of the country for straw craft.