Painting Stories
Lives and legacies from an Indian Crafts Village
This website introduces my book Painting stories. Lives and legacies from an Indian Crafts Village. Here you can find information about the stories, my reasons for writing them, and photographs among other things.
About the Book
The stories concern painters from Raghurajpur, a small village in Odisha, Northeast India. Raghurajpur is famous for crafts — cloth paintings, palm leaves, papier-mâché masks, stone and woodcarvings — and draws Indian as well as foreign visitors. An increasing number of villagers turn to craft making as a means of living.
Each story presents a moment that has shaped the life of a painter. In their unity, however, the stories paint a larger picture of life amongst Indian craft makers and what painting means to them.
I have written Painting stories in close collaboration with painters I have known for more than thirty years. They want people to know what it is like to live as an artisan in a rapidly changing society.
"Perhaps writing for the future will allow me to give something back."
