Manchaha x Petra began as a detour during a weaver’s design training stint in the village of Aspura, Jaipur. Hosted by Godhi ji and her family, I spent weeks sharing their sunny winters, her two goats at the courtyard, the smell of her chula and the chai, her granddaughter fiercely protective of the goats, and the rhythm of her every day at the loom shed.

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What if Petra comes from her world, as she sees it?

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The Manchaha Initiative by Jaipur Rugs Foundation encourages artisan originals that do not follow a naksha created by computerised maps. One such artisan paving up the required skills at the time was Godhi ji, leading a beautiful collaboration.

We spoke about goats, how they move, pause, graze and mingle with others as experienced by me on the hills and what that would look like for her to imagine her goats up there. From the deadstock yarn pile at the warehouse, I picked up a seemingly random palette of beiges and browns that had to be sequenced in gradation, and gave her precisely three directions to begin with. “Let the contrast of the colors guide you, keep the placements organic, and enjoy as you knot up hill”.

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Mornings began with conversations over chai, both of us looking at the same things differently; while mine were searching for texture, hers were recalling where her goats last wandered. I watched her test colors against each other, knot a little to pause, un-do and then re-do, thinking with her hands in a way only artisans can. At first, she instinctively placed the goats in symmetry just as she would for a traditional carpet, followed by the amusement of asymmetry and how it changed the whole mood of the visual. The surface progressed in tiny shared decisions and soon, contrasts became clearer and forms became freer, almost like a memory was unfolding in wool.

 

A month later arrived the final rug, a 2x3’ artisan original carrying the essence of her home, the quiet humour of her goats and the warmth of the hills of Surana.

One of the most contemporary pieces in the entire collection of Petra, quietly serving as a more accurate result to my initial inspiration of petroglyphs. A reminder that craft expands when you bring your own world into it.