Prasanna’s paintings on auction to raise funds to train artisans

It will held at Chitrakala Parishath from October 7 to 10

Theatre personality Prasanna has turned artist and plans to auction the works he did on fabric during the second wave of the pandemic. The money raised will be used to set up a design centre at Charaka, where artisans from across the State will be trained in a variety of design technologies.

During the first wave, Charaka, a women’s self-help group based out of Heggodu, continued production of cloth through the lockdown, and with no market for the goods produced, stared at insolvency. “In the first wave, we only wanted to give work and pay, so we produced in excess and suffered losses. We learnt our lessons. During the second wave, we pooled our resources and took to retrain our artisans, paying them salaries, making use of the lockdown,” said Mr. Prasanna.

Through two months, the women at Charaka were trained in a variety of textile printing technology - block printing, stencils, and various imprints. For the first time, Charaka also experimented by using mud as a dye. “We had not done it before as only certain kinds of mud found in North India was suitable. But we experimented with a few colours of mud available in Malnad and found success,” he explained.