At Bimba , we believe he is an artist who soaks in the depth of his inheritance of an artistic weaving practise.
Goberdhan hails from Koraput district in Orissa. His ancestral tradition is surely as natural - and ethnic
in the true sense - as you can get in the art of weaving fabric into life . Goberdhan aprrenticed under the
strict and watchful eye of his guru - his grandpa - in the entire process of yarnmaking to vegetable dyeing to
weaving the ancestrally appropriate stylised motifs of the Kotpad tradition.
He begins this traditional art of handwoven creations with cotton yarn , typically
handwoven, but now with the khadi yarn available from a government mill nearby in offwhite colors.
His wife Jema and a community of women prepare the vegetable dye from the bark of the
" aal " tree in just two rich colours of red and dark brown. The yarn is treated through fourteen to fifteen
handwashes after a specific oil application and addition of cowdung. When he declares it ready to absorb the
natural vegetable dye,it is boiled three to four times in a clay vat containing one of the two colours of vegetable dyes .
The naturally treated offwhite, rich deep red , and the textured dark brown yarns are now ready for Goberdhans
handwoven magic which distinguishes it from the oruna traditional craft of the panikka tribe.
Goberdhans loom is by itself a technical wonder which is ingenious in its conception. He can carry this combination
of bamboo and local wood and thread and jute coir rope ( he sometimes innovates with plastic rope that is easily available )
anywhere in a telescopic wrap . His spindle is a wonder for many students of the handloom for the way it carries the yarn .
His work station is earth itself - he needs about a 7 feet by 5 feet space in which he digs a hole for his feet to rest
in comfortably and then sets about his weaving.
The motifs he uses are chosen from the classic symbolism that his grandfather - and his grandfathers ancestors - would weave from
their repertoire . The most intricately woven fabric shawl or chunni or an elaborate or a simple saree or a " do patta'
to suit a daily or a ceremonial occassion. , would include the following elements. Elements we call the alphabets and grammar of the
new textile poem he hand weaves from his imagination:
1. A beautiful temple in red or dark brown or the combination on the two borders
2. Variations of a simple plus sign woven into a panel on the pallu of the saree/ dupatta/ stole.
3. The interspersed motifs he handweaves on the loom include stylised representations of implements like axes, sickles , arrows , animals and birds
and / or daily chores such as fishermen in a canoe, the honey gatherers , and such imagery drawn from simple rustic dwelling.
So what is the art about this seemingly repetitiuve craft . Goberdhan Panikka is a rare and precious " resource" . With just the
two vegetable colors and the textured and treated offwhite and the inheritted motiffing elements we just described , each piece
is aestheticall , skillfully and innovatively woven by him from his own imagination - not even pre designed leave alone
based on repeating what his grandfatrher did. Goberdhan lives the belief that with these seemingly limited elements
he can weave millions of permutations and combinations each more beautiful than the other. And declares with justified pride that the
yarn may tear but his rich dyes , that too red , will not bleed - something that the most advanced mechanised vegetable dyeing
processes would love to replicate.
Deepika Dorai discovered his artistry more than a decade ago even before she founded Bimba The Art Hut. And treasures the fact that
since then he has been decorated by the Prime Minister and the President of India for his mastery .
An exclusive exhibition with the spotlight on him- his process and some of his works - while he sat outside in his pitloom weaving aduppata which took him
Some of his recent experiments in the vegetable dyed handloom woven Oruna tradition - stoles , dopattas , sarees and limited fabric - are always available where Goberdhan sometimes halts with his loom to weave some magic. He avers that he finds such a nurturing environment- where he
is not requested to experiment with " imported" color schemes such as indigo and turmeric and urbanised " etnic " motifs or is beaten down by comparitive pricing
- hard to come by.
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