She is 23, but Abhinaya Rangarajan has her life sorted. While she is an architect during the day, by dusk, she is a busy entrepreneur. The Artist Project, a Facebook page started by her in July, is getting “overwhelming responses”.

The page that is followed by around 5,500 people, features an artist/artisan from across India every two weeks, and promotes his or her products.

“If you are buying a handmade product, you might as well care to know the hands that made it. After all, the product is a cumulative result of all the skills that the person possesses,” she says, taking just a second’s glimpse at her cell phone that beeps occasionally. “Ever since I started the page, messages have been pouring in — orders, enquiries and requests to be featured. I did not see it becoming such a hit. I get around five to six orders a day, am still coping with the success,” she says.

Abhinaya notes all the orders, and at the end of the week, passes them on to the artisans, who either courier it to the address of the customers themselves or send it to her.

“While I used to handle everything myself, with increasing orders, I now have an intern working for me; a final-year college student,” she says. A no-profit venture, Abhinaya runs it for the sheer pleasure of helping encourage the craftsmen/artisans (she refers to them as artists), and to provide a platform for those who either do not have access to market benefits.

Each post on the Facebook page has a brief description about the artist’s background, besides high resolution photos of their products. Till date, seven artists have been unveiled on the page — Auroville-based shoemaker Rajasekaran who runs ‘Aasai footwear’; an alumni of Vidya Sagar, Swaminathan who weaves mats and sells them in his boutique; Nimisha Zachariah who specialises in textile jewellery; Amrita Giriraj, a visual arts graduate from Stella Maris, who makes accessories from shells; award-winning leather puppet makers D. Venkatramana and K. Ramdas from Andhra Pradesh; and Karishma who makes home decor using bangles.

“The artists featured by us are happy. For example, the puppet makers were almost out of business. They were hosting workshops for a living, which hardly helped them meet their needs. Now, they get orders for their products, and make money,” says Abhinaya. “And Karishma, who had started making bangle decor as a means to pass time while she was pregnant, has now taken it on as a full-time project,” she adds.

It all began when Abhinaya, who graduated in Architecture from SRM University two months ago, was interning in Bangalore. “Since there was not much work, I would pack my bags and head to the outskirts every weekend. It was one one of those trips that I came across the wooden-toy makers of Channapatna. There were a line of stalls, all selling the same products,” she says.

And from her conversations with the artisans, she realised that they did not know how popular their toys were all across the world, and were definitely not getting the due for the amount of effort and time they put in.

Besides her steely resolve to give the artists a bigger audience, Abhinaya, who is planning to pursue a Masters in Product Design, says her interest was piqued also by the urge to know more about the creative products. “Also, I was a DIY kid myself. Be it birthday parties or get-togethers, I wanted to make my own earrings and hats. So this was expected,” she says with a child-like laugh.

For details, look up The Artist Project page on Facebook.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / by Naveena Vijayan / Chennai – November 30th, 2015