Street art, with its focus on images and artistry, has become a primary mode of public expression in international metropolises and a global language for citizens to articulate sociopolitical criticisms all the while expressing individual artistry. When one walks through the streets of Chennai, it is hard to miss the street art that colour the walls. From bold Tamil slogans to portraits of politicians, Chennai exhibits a different culture of street art. The concept of street art or graffiti has evolved over time in every aspect. Themes, motivations, mind sets and tools have changed with time. Interestingly, street art in Chennai is a perfect blend of the traditional with the modern and the local with the global.
It is often said that politics is the art and technique of government. Every idea has an intention, similarly political idea also has the intention for implementation, but many people see this with negative mindset. It includes the activities to stay in power or to influence the government policies. It also includes the law- making policies and procedure. Political parties are indispensable for the working of modern democratic governments. The importance of Political parties lies in the fact that democracies cannot function without the existence of political parties.

For years now the canvas of the artist has been expanding. One no longer has to limit oneself to the boundaries of paper or cloth. The walls of the cityscape with their ever-widening horizons have turned into the media on which several artists choose to project their creativity. While there is no formal definition of street art, one can introduce this practice as one where artists leave behind their impressions on walls. Using paint brushes, cans of spray-paint, stencils, fingers, hands, and the like, as instruments, they mark the walls, either casually, or with political intentions; and sometimes the walls simply become an outlet for their creativity. One could associate it with a child doodling on her first blank sheet of paper.

While graffiti has traditionally been highly controversial, the advent of iconographic street art has opened new platforms for international youth to creatively express sociopolitical discontent. Ironically, Indian artists have been using graffiti like techniques for ages, right from store name boards and signages to movie posters and public service announcements, so the actual “influence” per se was to voice opinions about what may be considered taboo in the once conservative society of India. Indian artists such as Daaku, (also known as the Indian Banksy), are inspired to create and voice out common dillemas and current affairs, in public places and more.
Before the age of televisions and broadcast, the sole method of public awareness were wall paintings. With the vibrant and standard party associated colors, the party and the artist intended to create associative cognitive learning from spectating the grafffiti that illustrates the concerned parties colors, representatives name and style  Tamil Nadu Graffiti stands apart from the regular kind globally with its incorporation of typography, colors and visual hierarchy.

The previous DMK-led corporation council spent nearly 4.5 crore to paint nearly 15 lakh sqft of walls with murals depicting among other things rural life, shore temples of Mamallapuram and the Vivekananda Rock. Last year, the AIADMK-led council whitewashed all walls and is now clueless about what to do with them. Earlier, it planned to paint the government’s achievements on them.
But a casual gaze at the abandoned walls, street corners and even the beaches in the city, reveals a colourful blend of political portraits, vibrant graffiti and even modern art, created by those who are mostly called perpetrators of vandalism a.k.a. the street artists of Chennai.
While the poorer neighbourhoods in the city mostly contain political portraits and graffiti, as one moves down south towards the more affluent part of the city, the politicians and their various moods captured on enamel are replaced with spray paintings that are mostly an expression of angst by the angry, young city artist.


In the northern suburb of Ayanavaram, Chennai resides Mr. Kalai Cholai an artist by profession and a philosopher by night. He specialises in the art of wall painting and practises the same without any bias. He is humble, kind and wise as he tell me (an aspiring artist myself) how painting the shabby wall gives him spiritual peace of mind and keeps his skills trained. “Its all about scales” he says.
The design process begins with the client or the company the artist works on a tenure period with a party giving the artist an assigned artwork for a wall along with its dimensions. .Soon after that , the artist plans his scale and and the specifics of the image/ typography to be painted on. According to Mr. Kalaicholai an experienced artist’s sometimes do not use the grid and prefer free hand drawing, however the less experienced amateur artists use the ruler and grid plans to verify scaling.
The artist now evauates and budgetises the project and requests for it followed by receiving the same and spending it on the project. The artist now does a simple white was with putty to get the desired and apt background . They then paint sketch over the background post drying and paint it in. Once the first layer is done, the artist makes necessary changes, color corrections, and gradations .
note: the thickness/ number of coats of paints varies from wall to wall, i.e the grainier, the more layers and graffiti wont be considered as vandalism as long as the owner of the wall is awake and approving of it.

Traditionally, crafting objects out of coconut shell to make household objects was practiced by coconut farmers. They would scoop out the copra by making a neat hole at the top of the shell, and use the shell, which was the waste or by-product.
It is believed that as a craft, coconut shell/wood carving could have been experimented with by craftsmen from the Vishwakarma community in Kerala. Traditionally involved in sword making and carving wood and ivory, they may have tried out coconut wood and shell as well.


Coconut shell and wood craft is primarily prevalent in Kerala: in and around Calicut, Trivandrum, Attingal, Neyyatinkara and Quilandy in Kozhikode. Other states where this craft is practiced are Goa, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and a few parts of Bengal, Pondicherry and Tamil Nadu. Another instance of availability of coconut shell craft is in the tribal belt of Bastar where intricately designed patterns in white metal are inlayed in the shell and cut to make bangles

This craft is also prevalent in other countries such as Cambodia, Thailand, the Philippines, Java, Maldives and Sri Lanka.
Kavin crafts is group of artisans from Pondicheery India,manufacturing eco friendly handmade products.Kavin’s Craft has a small production unit with a lathe machine and a vertical drilling machine.

Epigraphy or incision of text on a hard surface like clay tablet,metal plate or a rock was a common practice for keeping literary records in all popular civilisations from Indus valley in the east to the Mayan civilisation in the west. Ever since the beginning of the human history, literary sources are considered to be the most valuable and reliable sources of information. Although in Indian subcontinent, there are evidences of written manuscripts which dates back to 1000BCE, but some archeologist believes that the languages used in these manuscripts are derivates of an older, much simpler parent language. While the ancient manuscripts from Indus valley is still to be decoded properly, the two oldest recognisable language from Indian subcontinent are Sanskrit and Tamil, written in various scripts like Dravidian, Devanagari, Brahmi and Prakrit. While Sanskrit was dominant in the North- Western part of the Indian subcontinent, Tamil dominated the South-Eastern part of it. Tamil is the oldest subcontinental language which is spoken till date. It has evidences to be found at around 300 BCE.

During the Pandyan rule of around 1200 years, the Thamizh script had changed drastically and is still going through a lot of of changes. The city of Madurai, which has long been the Pandyan capital is the best place to visit, to know the evolution of Tamil script. The inscription at Samanar malai has from 4th century AD in “vattezhuthu” has Jain aesthetic where as the inscription on the walls of eastern gate of Meenakshiamman temple has inscriptions which is from 12th century AD is quite similar to modern Tamil.
These Tamil epigraphs showed us how a script can play an major role in evolving a language over a course of time. These manuscripts also made us realise how important the art and skill of epigraphy was. Epigraphy is currently no longer practiced but this skill based art is the reason why we know what we know about our history.

Documented by Kritarth Ghosh

Wood carving is found all over India. We can see carved wooden pillars and doorways in temples and palaces across the country.and now, wood carving is mostly found in functional articles like furniture, bowls, boxes, lamp stands, etc. Depending on the availability, different types of woods were used for wood carving, and for making decorative wood installations. The origins of the craft can be traced back to the late 19th century which is  Closely associated with architecture, wood carving incorporated the design vocabulary of architectural carvings.


 HOW TO GET STARTED

First Select wood that is appropriate size and shape. For bigger art pieces more than one piece of wood can be used. Always Softer wood is easier to carve, but will also get damage easier. Then  next is shaping process which is done  using gouge  of various sizes. The gouge is a curved blade that can remove large portions of wood smoothly.For harder woods, the sculptor may use a chisel and mallet, similar to a stone carver. For making Smaller sculptures they use knife and for making  larger pieces they might require the use of a saw. No matter what wood is selected or tool used, the wood sculptor must always carve either across or with the grain of the wood, never against the grain.  Once the general shape is made, the carver starts using variety of chisels for creating details. They use a V tool for making fine lines or decorative cuts.The finer polishing is done with abrasive paper. After completing the carving ad finishing the artist starts sealing and coloring the woods using various  natural oils inorder to protect those woods from dirt and moisture. They use gloss varnish to get a shiny surface. And then they will do a final coating with a layer of wax which protects the wood and gives  shiny  soft  lustrous sheen


Types of tools used for wood carving is as follows
1. The carving knife: a specialized knife used to pare, cut, and smooth wood.
2. The gouge: a tool with a curved cutting edge used in a variety of forms and 
3. The coping saw, a small saw that is used to cut off chunks of wood at once.
4. The chisel, large and small, whose straight cutting edge is used for lines and cleaning up flat surfaces.
5. The V-tool used for parting, and in certain classes of flat work for emphasizing lines.
6. The veiner: a specialized deep gouge with a U shaped cutting edge.
sharpening equipment, such as various stones and a strop, necessary for maintaining edges.


ABOUT THE ARTISAN
MR. Ram Bhaskar is 42 year old wood carving art craftsman comes from a family of traditional craftsmen in uttar pradesh. While his forefathers carved ivory and sandalwood. Ram mostly uses palm wood. He has a experience of 38 years and works opposite max store, near tvs showroom, at Kottivakkam in ECR, chennai. 

The craft of serial light cutout is being practiced in many parts all over the world, Tamilnadu among them has the most significance for the craft. This craft is a part of the culture in Tamilnadu, The practice of Serial light cutouts began when kollywood stepped into commercial phase, movies were made to make money. Movies moved on from art to commercial, during this phase hero worship spread rapidly among fans, which turned the fans, as well as the stars, turn into rivals. Fans made paintings of their actor in gigantic sizes in theaters to show off that their actor is the best among all.

Paintings were made by splitting the image into many small pieces, painted separately and put in a structure which holds them together. But it was only visible in daylight, to make it also visible in night fans decided to use serial light cutouts which gloriously stood out in theaters during evening shows. From this point, this art of making cutouts from serial lights was made commercial. For the same reasons, this crafts was used in temple festivals and political party meetings. It acted an indication for the event which happened in that place.


The process of this crafts begins with sourcing bamboos which are already cut and ready to use. The required image is scaled and divided into parts using grids, The floor in the workshop have grids engraved which make the construction of bamboo grid easier. The image is sketched on the floor and grid constructed over them. Thinner strands of flexible bamboos are used to make the outlines and serial lights are fixed on them. Once various parts are created it is put together in the structure constructed. The artisans are electricians who also possess the aesthetic knowledge, the craft not necessarily goes on from father to child, but anyone interested can take up the craft. Materials used are bamboos, serial lights and GI wires to secure them. Currently, the craft is facing rapid development as it is used for many events.

Location of the workshop – Porur
Artisan – Hari
Contact - 09840561225

Documented by S V Aravindh Raj