About us
Crafts Council of Tamil Nadu was inaugurated in Coimbatore in 1988 with about 25 members. Keeping the aims and objectives of its parent body Crafts Council of India and the World Crafts Council, CCTN had started off with encouraging the hand skills of craftspeople like the Todas, the mat weavers of Pattimadai and the Kurumba kambili weavers of Kalangal. This was done by helping them with design detail and opening up newer avenues of market.
CCTN through crafts bazaar provides a platform to the crafts people (Both textiles and handicrafts) from all over India to exhibit and sell their wares. This Craft Bazaar translates into action our main objective of existence, which is to show case craft and give a platform for craftsmen to exhibit their wares to a large customer/consumer base. This year there are over 100 stalls from Assam to Kerala.
1. Documentation
a. In the field of documentation CCTN started by sponsoring 2 students from the National Institute of Design to document the temple jewellery of S.india sponsored by DC(H).
b. An exhibition "Attic Allure" was organised. This show cased household utility ware in all mediums like stone, wood, iron, brass, copper, bronze and silver ware. These were painstakingly collected from household in our region. The Success of this venture led to CCTN's sending a proposal to the D(H). Development Commissioner Handicrafts for documenting the same in the year 1995. Smt.Jaya Meenakshisundaram was to be our principal researcher. After receiving the G.O. this was documented under the title "Functional Aesthetics".
c. A photo documentation of the Kurumbas of Kalangal and their craft in the weaving of a kurumba kambili was done. This is mounted and put up at The Kasturi Srinivasan Trust.
d. A Video documentation was done by us on the stone craft of Thirumurugan Poondi. This was put together by Pooja Iyer and her team of co-students of the dept. of Mass/Visual communications of the GRD College of Arts and Science. This was shown during our National Meet at Coimbatore in the year 2000. 5 State counil have taken a copy each of this presentation.
e. In the year 2005 we conducted a floral demonstaration work-shop over 3 days. This brought about our document titled "Pushpanjali - A floral offering", carrying more than 100 pictures on the various types of garlands, flower jewellery , floral carpets etc.
