Intern-al Views

Every year interns from all over the world visit us. Interns who believe in Fair Trade and hand-made products. Our interns don't make the morning coffee or file papers. They do actual work with us and the artisans! This year, Blake visited us all the way from Australia. It was a delight having him with us and we asked him to share his thoughts about his experience.

Blake Griffiths

University of New South Wales Art and Design (Former COFA-College of Fine Arts).

Sydney, Australia.

1.How did you find us? I was studying at National Institute of Designing. I was looking forward to doing an internship. It is mandatory for us to do an internship in our degree. While I was overseas in India, my dear Professor Liz recommended here. She actually recommended few places but we have had students in the past do their internship here so I chose CRC. Also, I wanted to work with crafts in India staying in India and not abroad.

2.What were your expectations before interning with us? I really did not research much about the company. I knew you work with artisans in India but I did not really know much. So I did not have so many expectations. I though I would be doing all boring stuff- like administration of design stuff which is probably what we expect out of an internship in our country. Like, if you are an intern, you get the boring job. If you are an intern, you do not actually do the designing because you are one of those at the start of the chain kind of guy. So I did not expect that I would actually come here and design!

3.What did you design? If you could tell us a bit more about your work. I worked mainly with Fulia- the weaving group. I designed 5-6 scarves and stoles for them to produce. They are all in jamdani. I wanted to make kind of simplistic, stylised monotone designs with the idea that once I leave or once the trend changes or once the fashion changes, they can apply the same principle and do different things. I have given them very simple motifs which they themselves can do. I also gave them an understanding about what they can do with a change of scale, change of placement or color or material, they can have some kind of ownership over the creative process also. More than a specific design I have given them a handful designs so that they can alternate themselves in the future.

4.What do you feel about the producer groups that you worked with? Very impressive. Super hardworking. Very good work environment. All the weavers are super friendly. I think you can tell, just by being there, the energy in the air and the vibe is very good.

5.What is your overall impression of your internship? Very good.I feel maybe I could have designed some more things. Leaving that out, I am quite happy with my work. I designed a towel with Fulia and it was probably the most difficult in terms of communication because the loom was really not prepared to do. We had to change the grid, we had to change the lifting order and change everything. It was difficult to communicate to the weavers but one of the guys figured out what I was trying to say. I learnt a lot around that communication. I was very happy with how it turned out. 

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