Manmohan Soni from Uttar Pradesh feels elated to fetch the Kamaladevi Puraskar for his artwork on brass. The exhibition cum award ceremony is to felicitate young craftsmen coming from different states of the country. Though Soni is 40, he would be considered young because it takes longer to get established in the profession, like it took him nearly thirty years.
Talking about the brassware craft, he says, “The brassware has an ‘antique’ look. We have to carefully polish or un-polish the metal to give that ‘oxidised’ gold look. The large pieces look ‘royal’ when you use it as a home decor item. Mostly, it is this antique look that is the USP of this work.”
Soni’s last few pieces that lay in front of him were a sindoor box, supadi breaker and small such artefacts of brass, that has thin black arabesque designs, running throughout the borders of the showpiece.
He has plans to put up a stall in the forthcoming art and cultural festival at Dilli Haat. Soni tells Metrolife, “I am going to put up a stall in Dilli Haat this year during Master Creation Art and Cultural Festival. The festival is for fifteen days and I will make new designs to sell. Some of them will also be life-size pieces.”
Dilli Haat melas are competitive and many artisans like Soni fill out tenders to take part in the festival. They earn a lot more in Delhi, in a fifteen-day festival than in a month, back home.
He has inherited this tradition from his ancestors and is supported by his entire family. His wife Deepika Soni is a national award winner for the same craft. With the manpower of two, excluding his children, he is able to produce maximum of two artefacts in a day. And these are as big as six inches by two inches.
“Some of them take three to four months to get made. It’s a long process as we have to make many frames of mitti (mud) and wax coats, in which we pour the molten brass. After heating and solidifying procedures, the brass has to be impressionable, so that we can draw different intricate designs on them,” says Soni, emphasising on the word, ‘intricate’ (barik).
Similarly, Mohammed Shafiuddin has sold his bidri artworks to many visitors at the event. Bidri art are artefacts with copper alloy base with design made from pure thin silver wires. Shafiuddin says, “These wires are 99 per cent silver. And this artwork has originated in Bidri in Karnataka and hence it is call bidri art.”
He has learnt bidri art in an art school, which had a two years course on the same. Taking it up as a profession, he also has a workshop in Karnataka. For him it is not necessary that his children carry on the tradition. His Nandi creation sold for Rs 2,800 at the event, which was his most expensive sale.
Other artworks on display at the exhibition were tarkashi (metal wire work) from Uttar Pradesh, ganjifa or playing cards from West Bengal, cane and bamboo basket ware from Tripura and ari embroidery fabrics from Kashmir.
Published 24 November 2015, 14:35 IST