What is Kalamkari ?
The Kalamkari tradition is more than three thousand years old. The earliest fabric samples of this craft found in the Mohenjo-Daro excavations date back to 3000 B.C. Some samples of Madder dyed cloth with traditional Indian motifs have also been discovered. Kalamkari is the ancient art of decorating cloth with the aid of a Kalam or pen. A term mainly used to describe cotton fabrics patterned through the medium of Vegetable dyes by free-hand painting and block-printing, this category of fabric now covers a wide range of textiles produced in many regions of India. The term Kalamkari is however applied to the fabrics produced in the Southern districts only because the ancient tradition of patterning with the Kalam is still practised here. Even where the fabric is block printed, the Kalam is used to draw finer details and for application of some colours. The Mughals who patronized this craft in the Coromandel and Golconda province called practitioners of this craft "Qua-lamkars" and the distinctive term “Kalamkari", for good produced in this region persists even to this day. While this Kalamkari tradition centered in the coastal city of Machilipatnam, The basic black dye used by the Kalamkari craftsman is an iron liquor preparation known as Kaseem. This is made by soaking hoop iron bits in a solution of jagger (Molasses) and water in a mud pot. The solution takes about twenty days to mature when it is decanted and taken for printing and painting. There are two distinctive styles of kalamkari art in India - one, the Srikalahasti style and the other, the Machilipatnam style of art. The Srikalahasti style of Kalamkari, wherein the "kalam" or pen is used for free hand drawing of the subject and filling in the colours, is entirely hand worked. This style flowered around temples and their patronage and so had an almost religious identity - scrolls, temple hangings, chariot banners and the like, depicted deities and scenes taken from the great Hindu epics - Ramayana. Mahabarata, Puranas and the mythological classics.