Kalamkari
A type of hand-painted or block-printed cotton textile, produced in the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
Kalam in the Persian language means Pen and 'Kari' refers to craftsmanship. The coloring process involves natural dyes which are extracted from flowers and vegetables. This art involves 23 tedious steps of dyeing, bleaching, hand painting, block printing, starching, cleaning, and more.
There are two distinctive styles of Kalamkari art in India-the Srikalahasti style and the Machilipatnam style. The Srikalahasti style of Kalamkari, where the "kalam" or pen is used for freehand drawing of the subject and filling in the colors, is entirely hand worked. This style flourished in temples centered around creating unique religious identities, appearing on scrolls, temple hangings, chariot banners as well as depictions of deities and scenes taken from the Hindu epics.
