The Journal

Journal

The economics of a hand-painted motif in the age of instant images

AI × CRAFT

The economics of a hand-painted motif in the age of instant images

A generated image costs a fraction of a rupee. A licensed Pattachitra panel can cost thousands. To some spreadsheets, that makes the artisan look inefficient. We think the sprea...

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What the machine cannot copy: AI and the artisan's hand

AI × CRAFT

What the machine cannot copy: AI and the artisan's hand

Ask an image generator for a Madhubani peacock and you will get something peacock-shaped, Madhubani-flavoured, in four seconds. So why does a hand-painted motif still matter?Bec...

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Twenty-three washes: Kalamkari's answer to the four-second image

AI × CRAFT

Twenty-three washes: Kalamkari's answer to the four-second image

A true Srikalahasti Kalamkari passes through roughly twenty-three steps, myrobalan treatment, milk baths, bamboo-pen outlines in iron-black kasimi, dye, wash, sun, repeat. The r...

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Why we use AI for mockups, and never for motifs

AI × CRAFT

Why we use AI for mockups, and never for motifs

Full transparency: AI exists in our workflow. It helps us mock up product photography, test layouts, and draft copy at midnight. What it never does is draw a motif.The line we d...

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Can AI be trained on folk art ethically? Consent, credit, compensation

AI × CRAFT

Can AI be trained on folk art ethically? Consent, credit, compensation

Folk art sits in a legal blind spot. Much of it is “traditional knowledge” owned by everyone in a community and therefore, in copyright terms, by no one. That makes it the easie...

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Raghurajpur: the village where every home is a studio

ARTISTS

Raghurajpur: the village where every home is a studio

Two rows of houses, a temple street between them, and not a single blank wall. Raghurajpur in Odisha is India's best-known heritage crafts village: around a hundred households, ...

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The last Patuas of Bengal: scroll singers in a scrolling age

ARTISTS

The last Patuas of Bengal: scroll singers in a scrolling age

A Patua does not just paint a story, they sing it. In villages like Naya in West Bengal, painter-singers unroll cloth scrolls frame by frame, performing tales of gods, floods an...

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Sita Devi and the women who put Mithila on the world map

ARTISTS

Sita Devi and the women who put Mithila on the world map

When drought struck Bihar in the late 1960s, the government encouraged Mithila's women to move their ritual wall paintings onto paper so they could be sold. Among the first to a...

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