In this series, William Barnsley looks back on the journey that inspired his career change from office worker to a professional woodcarver. In this article, William travels to India, visiting the block carvers of Jaipur.
The journey
Though sad to be leaving Southeast Asia, it was time for a change, and I was excited to be heading to India, a country I had visited twice before. My first trip was in 2008 when I was teaching English in the Himalayan foothills near Darjeeling, and my second was in 2012 as part of a research project documenting the social impacts of tiger reserves on local indigenous communities in Tamil Nadu, Southern India. On both occasions, I had been blown away by the woodcarving and decorative crafts I had seen on display throughout the country. I had hardly scratched the surface of India on these two trips and was excited to explore the country through the lens of woodcarving.
The first and most obvious thing to say is that India is big. With over a billion people and a land area of around 1.2 million sq. miles, it has a rich variety of cultures, traditions, and arts. It would take me years to do justice to fully exploring woodcarving in India so I strongly caveat the next two articles by saying they simply provide snapshots of the craft.
Block woodcarvers of Jaipur
While on my travels, I had become interested in a slightly different form of carving, specifically the blocks used in traditional hand printing on to fabric. Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, was said to be a hot spot for block wood printing and, as we had flown into Delhi, just north of Jaipur, I thought this would make for a good first venture into carving in India. After a bumpy overnight sleeper bus, we arrived at the bustling city of Jaipur, which is often named the ‘pink city’ because of the colour of its buildings, such as Hawa Mahal. It is famous for the Amer Fort, which is an incredible building with stunning views surrounding it.
I was lucky to have found a contact in our hotel who knew a guide who was an expert in block wood printing and could show me the perfect places off the tourist path to meet the woodcarvers and see the fabric workshops. After a fun and dusty 14km motorbike ride south to a town called Sanganer, we stopped under the Metro, with traffic and camels everywhere. At the side of the road was what looked like a row of single garages, each packed with woodcarvers, sat on the floor and spilling out on to the pavement. It certainly looked like we were in the right place.
Shisach in hand block printing
The first workshop I visited was owned by Mr Virontra, whose son showed me around. A group of six carvers were busy working away, sitting on small wooden seats and using low tables to carve on. The owner’s son explained that the textile companies give the carvers the designs to copy, which are exactly to their requirements. These designs were transferred to the wood using mustard oil, which turned the normal paper into tracing paper – a very clever trick.
Copying over the image by tracing it with a small chisel and drawing it on the wood looked like quite the art. They used to use teak wood but now use sheesham as it is more readily available and they can source it in larger sizes. They carve into the end grain, mainly because it is easier to slice the pieces of wood that way, but also because it takes the detail better for this type of carving and holds the ink well.
The carvers used tiny chisels like those I saw for metalwork in Cambodia, each about five inches long. The wooden hammers were simple, long blocks made from tamarind wood. Interestingly, they carve the inside of the design first and then cut to the outline, which must be to stop it from breaking out, as the pressure would be released. A small block may take around two hours to complete, whereas a more detailed block may take one or two days. They don’t carve anything that takes much longer than this. The workers were said to earn between 10,000-15,000 rupees per month (around £108- £163 at current exchange rates). The carvers looked very poor and the stark contrast with their incredible skill was hard to witness.
Shoaib blockmakers
The next carving workshop we visited was owned by Mr Mukhtar Kham, who sold carvings to a famous fabric company called Anokhi, which had a gallery at the Amer fort. His workshop has been running for 25 years and he has seven carvers. These carvers originated from Uttar Pradesh and the carvings in this shop seemed significantly more detailed than the first.
The speed of the carvers was incredible to witness. They spoke about their enjoyment in the variety of work, as the designs changed every day or so a new project was started. Most of the designs were Muslim patterns, mainly f loral and suited to fabric. One carver was testing the blocks by dabbing a circular pad with ink, putting it on the block and then rubbing paper on it with a small metal dish. The general feeling among the carvers was that the art is slowly dying out and less fabric is printed by hand, resulting in fewer carvers taking up this profession. They said it takes between seven and 10 years of practice until a carver can effectively make the blocks used for block wood printing.
Fabric printing
Eager to see the whole process of block wood printing, I visited a nearby printing house. The owner gave me a little tour and explained the business, which had been running for many generations. He mentioned that block wood carving goes back hundreds of years. The workshop seemed to be quite a hub, like a training centre. Students would come to learn for a few months and there was a small display area where tourists could see the printing in progress. The workshop was a hive of activity and it was great to see the process of using the blocks to print the designs – slowly and methodically, working from square to square, making a seemingly unbroken pattern on the fabric. The workers certainly needed to have to a very steady hand when printing.
I was told that the printers use a minimum of two blocks in their patterns and a maximum of seven, after which the design would get too fiddly and the colours too overlapped to make a good print. Along the wall was a library of old blocks, which can be re-used repeatedly, so many of them were incredibly old. The table had padding on, which acted as a cushion to give an even print. To create the different coloured inks, they used a variety of substances including sugarcane, gum, and yellow clay.
I had a go at printing a camel while I was there – a simple two-block print with a blue outline and green body. It was fascinating to try out the blocks, having just seen them being carved in the workshops at Sanganer. The blocks have a handle on the back so you can get a good grip while printing. It is certainly an art that requires a lot of experience to know the correct pressure to apply, and one that requires a very steady hand, particularly when layering up the different colours. Overall, it was a wonderful few days exploring block wood printing in Jaipur and really nice to see a method of carving being used as a tool in another art form. Let’s hope this tradition continues to be practised and that the work of carvers and printers alike is appreciated for its incredible skill.
Next time, William journeys into the foothills of the Himalayas, visiting Darjeeling in the east and Himachal Pradesh in the west, where he visits a Tibetan institute of arts that is preserving the ancient skills of Tibetan craftsmen.