Maina Chitrakar

Maina Chitrakar is a pot artist based in Nirbhoypur, in the Pashchim Medinipur district of West Bengal. Our 42 years old artisan is State awardee and she is the daughter of national awardee Gauri Chitrakar. From the age of 5 she started practising Patachitra painting with her mother, grand-mother and other family members. Now her daughter and 5year old grand-daughter also practising with her. The entire family practise this art, though male members do farming also. Their earning is sufficient to maintain a decent rural life. In scroll painting they depict a mythological story and the story-telling is performed by a rural song. She has learnt these songs on mythology from her grandmother. If they paint any scroll on contemporary subject, they compose the song also.

Paintings are done by natural colours. Ingredients are like different kind of flowers, henna leaf, neem leaf, haldi, beet root etc and the bel fruits’ gum is used as fixer for every colour.

Artisans go to fairs and their maximum earning comes from fairs. Some social enterprises give these artisans opportunities to perform in different govt. and non-govt. events across India and abroad.