Ivy Chakma is a Designer living in a city which we know as Mumbai, Maharashtra. Because of her father’s job, she and her family kept shifting from place to place. As per her 2nd standard, they shifted to Pune and later to Mumbai. Since childhood, she was interested in art.
The educational life of Ivy Chakma
After high school, she got confused about what stream to choose. But she knew she wanted to study business. So, she took up commerce. In her senior Higher secondary school! She got to know about institutes like NIFT. NID, etc. and some people suggested she pursued design courses.
To get admission into the college. She had to appear for some entrance exams, and she successfully cleared the entrance exam of NID (National Institute of Design), she majored in textile designing. After studying, she learnt to weave. Embroidery, various prints like black printing, etc., as much as she could cover, she made crafted documentation. Ivy Chakma and her two friends travelled to Tripura.
They stayed for a month or more. They visited places and studied crafts like how they were produced. The kinds of traditional elements they used and what are the motifs behind making the crafts. Later, she did some internship.
Early life of Ivy Chakma
Her dreams were not constant. She wanted to do fashion designing. Later, she thought of animation and, as she grew up; she got more interested in fashion designing. After joining NID, things changed because she understood the aesthetic and cultural importance. She realized she wanted to do something of her own, something related to the handlooms sector that involves crafts. She thinks it has inherited Ivy Chakma’s interest in art from her paternal family side.
Ivy Chakma’s uncle wanted to become a cartoonist, but in his generation, he could not do that. He kind of motivated her to pursue whatever she wanted. Even her father drew great oil-paintings when he was young, and during his 6th standard he got his first bicycle by selling one of his paintings.
She experiments and tries combining various materials. In the 3rd year of her graduation, she had a project where she had to find a substitute of jute to wrap another jute. Ivy Chakma travelled to Delhi with her friends and won the first position in the competition. They published them in Elfe Decor; It showcased them in a designing event named Indian Design. She has also conducted exhibitions during her college days. She is trying to figure out where she will go next.
Ivy Chakma has no regrets about her decision to become a designer during her childhood. She remembers being least interested in studying. But she has received a lot of demotivating remarks from teachers saying.
Where do you go with art and where will art take you?
She quotes that our education system is such that it doesn’t encourage creativity. The only careers that are visible to them are becoming engineers/doctors or accountants. But what is not visible to them is that there are scopes and opportunities in every field.
Right now, various sustainable crafts have been setup and where is it coming from?
It is, of course, coming from creativity. She is trying to experiment against the basic characteristics of Jute. In the next 2 years, she plans on travelling to Arunachal Pradesh or Tripura, she is looking for weavers who will weave. Ivy Chakma and her aunt want to launch their own brand. Most probably they will be based in Ahmedabad.
“One should know their roots well but always be open and welcoming to other cultures and learning, cause it’s only through the constant thrive to learn that one can progress up in the ladder of life.” Ivy Chakma
She is planning to search for Chakma weavers, someone who will stay with her. The process so far is very challenging for her, it is a little pricey too. To start a startup, one needs to research or sometimes the people give up. She feels anxious, but believes she can launch her own brand in the coming two years. She has also maintained a motif dictionary where she keeps all the motifs she has collected from various places.
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