Patchwork Genius: Rediscovering Creativity in the Everyday

Patchwork Genius: Rediscovering Creativity in the Everyday – By Shruti Dandekar In frame- Shruti Dandekar Images Courtesy- Shruti Dandekar There’s a quiet kind of creativity that rarely makes it to galleries. It doesn’t win awards. It isn’t hung on walls or written about in journals. But it exists – woven, stirred, negotiated, stitched, and stirred into our daily lives. I first discovered this not in an art studio or a design school, but while sitting cross-legged with a group of women in a small village in Kutch. We weren’t sketching or sculpting – we were quilting. In frame- Favourite quilt ‘My heart’s delight’ For over 12 years, quilts were my world. What began as a sabbatical project turned into a decade-long love affair with colour, form, memory, and meaning. Every piece I made was both deeply personal and powerfully political – an act of preserving, creating, and storytelling. And when I began researching for a lecture on the traditional quilt-making styles of India, I was struck by something that still hasn’t left me: There is almost no formal documentation of quilting as an art form in India. Despite centuries of tradition, regional styles, symbolism, and stunning craftsmanship, quilting sits in that hazy space between “craft” and “utility.” It’s not recognised in museums, it’s barely studied, and it’s rarely celebrated. Why? Because it’s domestic. Because it’s done by women. Because it doesn’t look like “art” in the Western sense of the term – though ironically, quilting is considered high art in some Western circles today. This realisation sent me spiraling into a larger question: What other forms of creativity around us remain invisible simply because they’re ordinary? When Art Hides in Plain Sight In India, creativity is everywhere – but rarely where we’re told to look. Let’s begin in the kitchen. Take a moment to appreciate the sheer innovation involved in turning leftover dal into parathas the next morning. Or the colour palette of a Gujarati thali. Or the geometry of a perfect kolam drawn at 6 a.m. What is this, if not instinctive art? Running a household? It’s no less than managing a multidisciplinary studio. Schedules, resources, personalities, budgets, conflicts, aesthetics – you’re part-designer, part-CEO, part-firefighter. The Unacknowledged Artists Growing up in India, many of us saw our mothers or grandmothers sewing in the afternoon light, or arranging flowers in coconut shells, or folding laundry into sculptures. But none of them would have called themselves artists. That term was reserved for people who painted canvases or showed at galleries. But here’s what I believe now – loudly, proudly, and permanently: Art is not what hangs on the wall. It is what holds us together. A quilt does that. It holds together scraps of memory, fabric, and feeling. Everyday India, Artistically Speaking In our Indian reality, creativity plays out in a thousand subtle, clever, heartfelt ways: ● Auto drivers who create surround-sound systems with disco lights and Lord Shiva decals. ● Maidens at railway stations balancing combs, earrings, and pan-beedi in a travelling makeup studio. ● Junior architects who render projects in SketchUp while figuring out why the office fridge smells of garlic. Final Stitch: A Personal Plea As someone who has spent hundreds of hours threading needles and aligning fabric with pinched fingers and aching backs, I want to say this: Art doesn’t always announce itself. Sometimes, it quietly sits in your cupboard, keeping you warm. Recognise the art that lives in the unsaid, the undone, the everyday. Read the complete article in the 7th Issue of our Magazine ‘Footprints speak louder than words. How Green is yours?