Craft and Art .. Shahid Ansari. An interview

Shahid Ansari : an interview by Jeet Pandya. 

 A visit to Tvak studios by artist shahid Ansari led to an interesting conversation over a cool glass of lemonade. 

Who are you and what do you do Jeet asked him, as soon as he was introduced to Shahid and I share with you the details based on the conversation. 

Shahid hails from Radhanpur. He got inspired from the Traditional and aari work of  radhanpur primarily.He moved to Ahmedabad and for 5 years he  learned embroidery and different techniques with different mediums. 

At his workshop, He expanded his team and now has about 10-15 karigars. 

After spending 15 years doing job work like aari, zardosi and producing various bridal collection pieces In the year 2005- Due to the introduction of computerized embroidery the textile and related work industries were affected specially the traditional method of embroidery work largely, workers and karigar were left without work and people left to do daily wage work. At one point he had to shut down his workshop. For 2 years he was unemployed. About 800 karigars quit  but he never really quit he tried to see what to do with what skill he had 

The man has a vision he used his skill to do art pieces and Took the work to a new level.

His inspiration were the buildings of heritage. He studied these monuments. Learned about it.

Studied the lines and patterns of buildings and how they could be depicted in this new medium of Ari and jardozi. 

2 years passed and he got deeply engrossed in his work. studied ahmedabad and buildings and put them into textile format . 

Sitting at Delhi darwaja at 7 in morning for 2 hours before the traffic hit used to be his way of study and the building was one of the first he did. 

For 3 years he worked on his collection of different monuments of ahmedabad and the world. 

He works with Cotton fabric, velvet fabric, silk fabric. Fabric is stretched on wooden frames. Raw materials also include  metal beads, jardosi, nakshi, silk thread. 

Future vision : 

He hopes to open up a centre for education of the different techniques and traditional embroidery work to preserve it. He wants children to come and study and learn the process and take their products to a national and international level and also to provide employement to karigars working for the medium.

He says throughout the years People have praised and mocked him for his work. But Both of the views have helped him go ahead and he has never looked back.

He wants to create monuments of diff countries and have shows so as to share our traditional culture and the method and to have it spread across different nations so that people know about it and learn.

We wish him luck always !