For a lot of people, love and affection is expressed through gifts. For me, it’s a way of establishing social connection especially around festivals and momentous occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, and important milestones in one’s life, like weddings or graduation! I love to look for and discover handmade or sustainable gifts that convey meaning and are beautiful to look at. Here are three things I look for in the gifts that I select and curate.
- Functionality: I try and tailor this to the occasion and the audience. If it’s a corporate professional, things they use on a daily basis differs considerably than items that you can gift at a wedding. That’s the most logical thing. But items typically either have or don’t have giftable value. For example, I don’t like to gift paintings as they usually are so subjective, and the recipient may not want it up on their wall at all. On the other hand, a hand-painted item like a box, or photo frame or bookmark may serve the purpose of showcasing craftsmanship but also gifting something of functional use.
Functional art of India. Image by Eneida Nieves
- Aesthetics & Livelihoods: There is no dearth of aesthetic value in traditional Indian crafts. Be it the Gond art of Madhya Pradesh or puppetry of Andhra Pradesh or Madhubani of Bihar. These are just a few more popular ones but once you start to understand how intertwined crafts are with Indian culture, it makes us wonder how we don’t talk or think about them more. In the past, I only found them during my travels or shopping at small town markets, but with more designers pouring in their ideas to adapt these to today’s times, gifts should become reflective of these crafts too. If only more people ordering gifts can be mindful of supporting India’s arts and crafts!
Varied arts of India
- Sustainability: I want to make every purchase count. When I spending for gifts, it makes me feel better when I am spending to support someone’s livelihood or am contributing to the environment or, at the very least, I am not contributing towards harming it further. I started opting for plants, handcrafted items, and recycled/ upcycled gifts towards this. This is one area where I see the most potential for change at the workplace. Corporate India constantly gives out gifts for new hires, at events like All Hands Meets, for recognition or for expressing gratitude for people’s hard work. But it’s usually products from synthetic non-biodegradable materials ordered in bulk. It is my endeavour to change this and its one of the projects that Club Artizen is working towards. Even during the festive season, there is so much plastic packaging used in distributing sweets and other gifts to neighbours. Let’s opt for cloth or natural fibre packaging and discover/share more ideas this year!
Gifting is fun if you can discover new and contemporary lifestyle products such as those featured by Club Artizen. So this upcoming festive season, become a member, reach out to us and let’s get on this journey together!