Artisan Saga... the journey continues

Artisan Saga, the journey continues...

One fine morning I woke up and wrote... Artisan Saga, an online store of exquisite collectibles! Yes that's the vision for Artisan Saga, not limiting itself, nor defining any boundaries... it's curation is governed only by love for beauty, detail n perfection... for 'Beauty is His footprint, showing us where He has passed' (a quote by Sri Aurobindo)

Me and my husband we both love to travel and meet people, we like different food, and I love to shop... so we decided to combine our work with pleasure and hence came the thought.... 

Although at present we primarily keep handwoven sarees but that's just a step towards our goal...

It's been 2 years now since it's inception, we began with costume jewellery... Waiting for the right time to begin our travels, a wedding invite came, it was Mumbai and that decided our travel plans, thus began our research, and we took off in our car beginning from Madhya Pradesh, proceeding onwards to Gujarat then Maharashtra and finally returning via Rajasthan... In  course of our travel, we came across beautiful stones and beads which we handpicked to handcraft our own signature collection of strings in real stones and silver.... We travelled for a month, covering 6200 Kms. In this short time, we met weavers, master craftsmen, block printers, dyers and so many artisans...

Chanderi Saree Weaver...

The entire street is their workshop...

The weavers village...

We saw all kinds of work in these states, different qualities, skills, workmanship... Oh it was tough to select few from such beautiful creations, we had to consider so many factors while purchasing but after shortlisting numerous times, we managed to handpick the few that we have been presenting to you...

Kutch embroidery from Rabari Tribe...

Graph fro Patola Weaving...

Chanderis, Maheshwaris, Dabu, Bagh, Poona Cottons, Himroo, Paithani, Patola, Bandhani, Ajrakh, Kota, Gota Patti, Bagru and so on... Product range included not only Sarees but Dupattas, Stoles, Shawls, purses, Clutch bags, Potlis, Blouse Pieces as well...

Ajrakh Printing Process...

Bandhani in progress...

Selection was not an easy task for sure, it was a repetitive process, a concentrated arduous work to remember, to visit again n again the same person, to select and then to refuse, so difficult... Our work would begin at 8am in the morning and finish by 1.00 sometimes 2.00 am at night for it involved lot of note-taking, assimilating info, sorting pics, and so on... In these 30 days (3 days gone in wedding) day n night we were breathing, living Artisan Saga...

In the beginning overwhelmed with so much beauty all around, we did make some mistakes, sometimes paid more, sometimes picked a wrong product as were unable to discern Handloom from Powerloom, from pure fabric to impure fabric...

Of course we went over budget and we did pick some unwanted things in the process, but all that's a part of learning and growing wiser...

Oh and I've to mention the back seat and the boot of the car that was overstuffed with no room left to push in even a small food pack! But what fun it was!!! So exciting, we lived life every moment in those days... And I must say it's then that we watched the 2 beautiful movies too, that had just got released, the last show at night after finishing our work for did not want to miss out on those either!!!

Our over stuffed car...

Exhilarated with our travelling experience, enriched in our knowledge and fully satiated with varied food of diverse culture  across different states, exuberant with joy and happiness in our new found profession, we were ready to exhibit and start our online website... Later, in the year 2016, we also travelled to Banaras and handpicked various different weaves from there...

Banaras, as we all know, is a saree lover's paradise but one has to be careful there if you want authentic stuff for banaras is also full of thugs and one must know who to go to, selling Powerloom in the name of Handloom is just too common a practice there...  we spent almost a week in Banaras alone and did a thorough research and I am proud of our Banarasi weaves. For as I often say, we pick the best from the finest hand...

 It's been now one and a half years since we launched our website and we have received tremendous appreciation and likes for which I want to thank all of you. Our FB page has more than 86000 likes in this short span of time. Thus encouraged we have also started designing now. Some of our sarees like Gota Patti and fusion of different styles have been customised by us and soon we will be launching a series of handpainted sarees too...