A Colorful Tale:Poonam and Stacy Travel to India

Stacy Spivak, our designer, and I traveled in early January to India to visit some of our artisan groups and their representatives.

The trip was to (re)connect with the work, artisan communities, the artists’ lives in the post-pandemic world; to review and reimagine the work processes and future directions.

A two week trip, as you can imagine, was packed — from selecting the perfect red which meant creating (perhaps too) many variants of reds, some with a pinch of purple, others mixed with black, and others still with completely different viscosities then stamping each hue to see the color on the kora (unprocessed cotton) we use — to understanding weaving and embroidery patterns that we can employ for creating textures; reviewing sampling and production processes; stealing moments to see some of the popular sights; travel by electric autos, jeeps, trains and planes; eating food in the community cafeterias, cooking and sharing a meal on-site; or at a local restaurant to taste a super popular meal…the trip covered it all!

We come back encouraged and inspired by the artisans, their skill and commitment to this work, and also glad that we were able to put some processes in motion that we hope will help Sustainable Threads and the groups create samples and manage production. There is something to be said about meeting in-person, and connecting at a human level.