*Prasenjit Chakraborty
Agartala, September 09, 2019: Sometimes the things we do as fun activity gradually become an essential part of our goal. Even we can start earning income by utilizing the skills developed from such fun activities. Similar was the experience for Sucheta Dey, a young crafts artist from Agartala.
20-year-old Sucheta alike other members of her family used to take part in a creative fun activity — making of various attractive products by using waste materials. Now, she has become an expert in the field of crafting without any training from professionals and is planning for setting up small entrepreneurship. It is, indeed, a source of inspiration for many people.
When it comes to inspirational aspects of such creative cool activities, Sucheta’s mother commented, “Apart from commercial and aesthetic values, such art has another dimension which has great impact upon the society.”
Explaining further, she said, such art reveals an extraordinary message about the creative use of things which are labelled as ‘dump’ or wastage. Something or someone becomes useless, because of the limitation of our skills and capability to see the hidden beauty and value. Fun arts with dumped materials show that skills blended with positive thinking and patience can turn ugly into beauteous entities. This message of the art is very crucial for our society – and I hope, Sucheta will be able to spread the message through her endeavour to enlighten people.
Nodding her mother’s point of view, the young and energetic craft designer of Hapania area, a Nursing student of Tripura College of Nursing, is now ready to set a new benchmark with her handmade products.
“Various crafts can be made from waste materials – I got this idea from my mother Sobha Dey. I have started focusing on making such crafts professionally for last two years. I could not learn the art without support from my elder sister- Sourabhi Dey,” she said.
“It takes some times to convert the waste materials into attractive crafts. And, the cost depends on the project and design”, she said in an exclusive interview.
When asked about her future plans, she said that a plan to commercialize the products was already underway.
“I feel, the craft lovers like me have an opportunity to earn income by commercializing the handmade products through small entrepreneurship”, she said while expressing her hope for becoming a successful craft artist.
Keeping an eye on women empowerment, she then urged the state government to make the practice of creating crafts essential in school level.
“As the design industry strives to be more sustainable, crafted products are also witnessing a considerable surge in popularity across the country. If we can learn crafting from school level, it will have a major boost towards women empowerment”, she added.
She runs a YouTube channel – SuchetaCreation. This is the only platform where she could highlight the crafted products till today. At present, she is making various attractive crafts on ornaments, quilling arts, home decorative items, card making, scrapbook and show pieces. (First published in Tripura times)
* Prasenjit Chakraborty may be contacted at [email protected]
