My “chat with an artist” series won’t be attractive if I do not share conversations with D N Bhat the wood sculptor and his works . I am fortunate that such an incredible artist is from my village and my far relative too! So I keep visiting him often and had some wonderful conversations on art . He is one of the artist who doesn’t talk about their art much but keep on working on their art not caring much about publicity.
Recently I visited him when he told about the Goddess Saraswati idol carved out of sandalwood. Nowadays sandalwood carvings are very rare to see because of two reasons. They are expensive and the wood is not easy to procure due to legal restrictions in India. When Dattanna ( that is how I call D N Bhat ) told that idol has come very nice then I went to see him with my camera. I was surprised to see this six feet taller carved out of sandalwood! The posture , the little intricate details and more than anything the calmness on her face made me humble and I stood like a child in amazement. The goddess of knowledge never looked so beautiful ! It was a masterpiece !
“getting sandalwood is very difficult! There is a lot of legal procedures ” says Dattanna ” and I have to pay quite a lot of money also! So the whole sandalwood carving becomes expensive if I am trying something new out of sandalwood. But this wood behaves like butter and amazing things can be done with sandalwood! If any other wood had the qualities of sandalwood wood artist’s lives were much better! ”
” it is not just one piece of wood but many pieces of sandalwood used for making one idol” he gets in to real details . The jewelries are made after studying old literature on the goddess . There are restriction on which jewelry , which side, what the goddess should be holding, the ratios of the head to body ” he surprises me with these words. Dattanna said this idol took 6 months of carving and still he has one month of work left. It is not a customer request so the investment is huge in terms of money and time. Now he has to wait until it sells to get the money back!
” wood carving artists do not have freedom nowadays . Everything need to be customized and customer wants everything very fast , very cheap and highest quality!” says the artist. ” The world famous Belur temple built in hundred years ! Three generations might have passed building it and two generations did not even get chance to see the finished temple! ” smiles Dattanna . I could see the sarcasm in his smile .
Dattanna hails from Kumta , Uttarakannda district. He finished his tenth grade in Kumta and before the results were out he decided to quit textbook study and started pursuing wood carving art. He thanks his guru Vittal Shetty from Kumta for his initial phase of learning. He joined a company in Kumta which made budda idols for a Japanese firm . D N Bhat was appointed as master in the company’s Bangalore branch but soon he left the company and started freelancing so that he can further learn the art and explore more. Now he owns a company which deals with his own artworks, handcraft items from different placed of India. He takes custom idol orders and some time in a day he dedicates for his own creations .
Just like any other artist Dattanna also felt the decreasing interest on the wood carving art. But he assures it wont die because of the immense satisfaction one gets in the wood carving . He says the subject might change as the people’s taste changes, and with technology there might come a new wave of carving art . Well that left me smiling with little hope . Let us wait and see what time has for us !
My other ” Chat with an artist” articles
Chat with an Artist: Karki Bhandaris
i want ur contect number i want to make statues so plz call me 9825546689 (surat)
Sir If you leave some contact information Then the artists may get some business and I may get some of those crafts in my house please consider