The Hotel Lobby Pattachitra Commission
A hotel in Bhubaneswar commissions a 6 ft × 4 ft Pattachitra on treated cotton cloth for its lobby. The client wants acrylic colours because they are 'brighter and dry faster', and asks for the Jagannath triad to be placed inside a modern cityscape with a wedding procession. The deadline is 25 days, during the festival season when two of your four painters are unavailable. Traditional preparation-cloth stiffening with chalk and tamarind-seed gum, burnishing, natural stone pigments bound with gum-normally takes 8–10 days before painting begins, and fine line work another 15–18 days. Your two available painters include one senior line artist and one trainee. The client has paid a 30% advance and threatens to cancel if the deadline slips. The hotel's marketing manager says the artwork will be photographed for social media and may be reproduced on menus.
1. How should you respond to the client's request for acrylic colours? Set out the realistic options and recommend one, with reasons.
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The decision is not simply 'traditional versus modern'. It is a trade-off between authenticity, durability, drying time and the client's reproduction plans.
Option A - accept acrylic on cloth. Acrylic dries quickly and gives strong colour, which helps the 25-day deadline. But on unprimed or inadequately primed cloth it can sit as a plastic film, crack when the cloth is rolled, and look flat beside the layered natural-pigment surface expected in a Pattachitra. It also weakens the claim of traditional craftsmanship.
Option B - insist on traditional materials. This protects authenticity and the workshop's reputation, but 8–10 days of preparation plus 15–18 days of line work leaves almost no buffer with only two painters. A missed deadline risks cancellation.
Option C - split the commission. Recommend the original lobby work in traditional stone colours at a reduced size (for example 4 ft × 3 ft), or keep 6 ft × 4 ft with a 35-day deadline. Offer a separate high-resolution digital reproduction, or a smaller acrylic version, for menus and social media.
I would recommend Option C. Explain honestly that acrylic is a different medium, not a faster version of Pattachitra; if the client still chooses acrylic, prime the cloth properly, test adhesion, and record the material change in writing. Do not let the marketing use blur the distinction between the handmade original and its digital copies.
2. Analyse the iconography request. What can you agree to, what should you modify or refuse, and how should the decision be recorded?
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The Jagannath triad is a sacred image with established canonical conventions: the three figures, their proportions, attributes, eye forms and colour scheme are not free decorative elements. A wedding procession is a secular social theme. Placing the triad inside a modern cityscape with a wedding can trivialise the sacred image for devotees, even if the client intends no disrespect.
A workable compromise is to separate the registers. Keep the triad in a central shrine-like panel with traditional border and canopy. Place the cityscape and wedding procession in a lower narrative border or a companion panel, clearly divided by a decorative band. Alternatively, use the wedding scene as a separate secular Pattachitra and keep the lobby work purely devotional.
Refuse direct mixing that would make the deities spectators at a wedding, and refuse permission for the sacred image to be printed on menus without written conditions. Record the agreed composition in a small signed sketch, note the client's approval, and keep a copy. If the client insists, refer the matter to a senior artisan or local tradition-bearer rather than deciding alone. The aim is not to obstruct the commission but to protect both the client from public criticism and the workshop from being seen as careless with sacred imagery.
3. Produce a realistic 25-day work plan with the two available painters, and state what you would renegotiate.
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A realistic plan must begin with preparation, because painting on unprepared cloth will fail later.
- Days 1–7: both painters prepare cloth in parallel batches-starch/chalk treatment, gum sizing, drying and burnishing. The trainee handles measurement and burnishing under supervision while the senior artist checks surface quality.
- Days 8–10: senior artist draws the main composition and transfers the central figures; trainee prepares borders and background panels.
- Days 11–20: painting. Senior artist does faces, hands, eyes and fine line work; trainee fills flat colour, borders and repeat motifs. Daily target: one defined section per painter per day.
- Days 21–23: final line work, border correction and colour touch-up by the senior artist.
- Days 24–25: slow drying, inspection, rolling and mounting, with a half-day buffer.
This plan is still tight. The trainee cannot be expected to paint canonical faces, so the senior artist is the bottleneck. I would renegotiate one of three things: reduce the size to about 4 ft × 3 ft; extend the deadline to 35 days; or add a third experienced painter for flat colour only. I would not promise 6 ft × 4 ft in 25 days with two painters and no reduction in detail. Put any revised size, deadline or material change in a written variation signed by the client.