Indian Art Craft by the Family of Bhulabhai Chitara
History of Mata Ni Pachedi
It's literal meaning 'belongs to the back of the gods', the Mata Ni Pachedi fabrics are used to cover the idols of the Hindu gods in their temple or would be hanged to form a temporary shrine.
The trained eye will see the stories told by the fabric, these are the epics of the gods, imagined by the artists who are masters of Kalamkari, the art of handpainting textiles, each with their own distinctive style.
Each piece is uniquely designed, prepared, painted and coloured, the procedure to do so takes a lot of time, a single Mata Ni Pachedi fabric can take up to 3 months.
Production of the Fabric
Mata Ni Pachedi is originally drawn with all natural liquid mixure, whose indredients are all found in nature. This liquid mixure turns into colours after drying in the sun and washing in the river.
The Mata Ni Pachedi is usually started with some block-prints as a frame and filled up with religious symbols, which tell a certain story. After drawing the story on the cotton towel by using a selfmade bamboo stick, the artist colour the empty spaces. Still, the real colours are hidden, and the ones they paint on the fabric differs from the finished tones. When they finish the painting the Mata Ni Pachedi towel needs to dry for at least one to two weeks, before they go to the river to wash it. Once they have finished, they boil the pieces for several times to fix the colours.