THE INDIA CRAFT HOUSE

It is our effort to bring you an undeniably unique selection of traditional art and craft translated into a range of attractive contemporary products, while ensuring a fair price for every single artisan whose creations have been featured on this portal.

The India Craft House was born from an ardent desire amongst its founders to create a larger canvas than what exists today, for all the beautiful and unparalleled creativity that the simple artisans of India have been quietly perfecting for centuries. We hope to be able to raise the dignity of the Indian artisan in our own small way. This portal was conceived with the sole objective of featuring Indian art and craft in its most unique and contemporary form, bringing it closer to people across the world.

With the driving objective of creating a fair price platform for artisans who have very limited access to any market, leave alone global markets, the site is inhabited with a wide selection of products from every corner of the country, direct from the artisan, NGO's working closely with artisan groups or from enterprises that directly deploy artisans in the creation of their products.

Craftsmanship in India comes naturally to hundreds of thousands of its unlettered people who weave myths, legends and simple daily experiences into different forms of creativity that can change shape form day to day, yet maintain their consistency for centuries to enrich their lives.

There are many different worlds contained within the geographical boundaries of India. The world of its craftspeople, with their hand made goods and textiles, spans millennia and spreads across the length and breadth of the land. To hundreds and thousands of Indian artisans, fusion of utility and aesthetics comes naturally.

People's art in India does not wait for a canvas or paints made in a factory. Rock faces and caves, a village wall, the floor, a threshold, a palm leaf, a piece of wood, or even the palm of a hand is space enough. For colours, the infinite use provided by nature from flowers, leaves or stones suffices. The instinctive urge to honour nature and avoid polluting it allows people with traditional wisdom to experiment with any natural resource they find around them. Even when they move to pigments and consequently brighten their expressions, their images, stories, motifs and local identities remain true to their known cultural understanding.

The history of India's crafts is a story of humankind's engagement with Nature. Creative hands turn rock into objects of divinity, minerals into lamps to worship them, plants into woven textures to wear and waste matertais into beautiful objects of everyday utility.

To honour Nature is to honour its creator and to mould objects by hand is a mode of worship. The Indian crafts practitioner is therefore the greatest conservationist who craves to live in har-mony with his environment.