Announcing the Publication of Volume 1 of The GumCha Design Portfolio
A gift from the weavers of Bengal who have been creating the versatile, beautiful, and useful cloth, called a GumCha, since at least the 3rd Century BC.
A gift from the weavers of Bengal who have been creating the versatile, beautiful, and useful cloth, called a GumCha, since at least the 3rd Century BC.
We hope that American Weavers and Fabric Artists find inspiration in this archive of unique designs. Several more volumes of the GumCha Design Portfolio will soon be available providing hundreds of interesting patterns for study.
Each volume of the GumCha Design Portfolio PDF contains high resolution photos that allow enlargement up to 1600% so that the designs can be easily studied. While the portfolio can be easily viewed on a mobile phone (1st Way to Download), to thoroughly study the designs it might be easier to use a larger screen (2nd Way to Download).
Because of the high-resolution photographs, the PDF file is approximately 68 MB, so it may take a minute to download.
Each time the weaver loads her loom the design evolves a bit, and has for generations. Now, there must be over 10,000 different unique patterns and designs being produced.
The GumCha4Health Project has, for several years, collected GumCha from local weavers in preparation for exporting them to the West. During that time, the project has documented many of the various design motifs being produced. Now, we have a large collection of high resolution photographs that will be published in succeeding volumes making up the collective portfolio.
We hope that you, American weavers, fabric designers and artists, use this portfolio to inspire your work and help us save a tradition in handweaving and design that has provided much needed support to farming communities and families in our area for millennia.
The designs collected in the Gumcha Design Portfolio come from a remote rural area and have been developed over generations in relative isolation from the outside world. GumCha are a local product, produced for a local market, and have never been seen in the USA.
Each volume will be provided by the GumCha4Health Project for free for noncommercial use and you can share it with others.
Each family of weavers has between 6 and 10 designs they produce. Each time the weaver loads her loom the design evolves a bit, and has for generations. All together there must be over 10,000 different unique patterns and designs produced in our local area. This will result in at least hundreds, if not thousands, of designs documented for archival use and study. After downloading your first volume of the portfolio, you will be notified as each succeeding volume is published.
A GumCha is the original: cotton scarf, towel, hat, skirt, and air conditioner and are used by millions of hard-working people every day. The GumCha collected in this portfolio are handloomed by rural farming families in West Bengal, India, from 100% Indian cotton. GumCha are about 64”-69” long and from 25”-29” wide, yet only weigh about 4 ounces. There are over 10,000 distinct patterns and color combinations, and because they are handwoven, each GumCha is unique.
This project triples the income that farmer/weavers derive from weaving GumCha. This of course is an immense boon to farm family economies, and helps ensure the survival of a valuable artisan craft that is more than 2,000 years old.
Please share the GumCha story and our GumCha4Health website with your friends, family, colleagues and others in your social networks. By sharing our project with others, you will help the program and the people our project serves to grow and prosper.
The GumCha4Health project believes that we can make globalization work for small subsistence farmers/weavers. By opening up new markets in the West, many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of farming families who have depended on their skills as weaver artisans to hold households and farms together can return to self-sufficiency providing handloomed GumCha.
“I am so pleased to have received my order of GumCha scarves. I will be giving them as gifts to family and friends. I think your GumCha project is very imaginative, and a wonderful way to raise money for your program while helping to support local weavers.”
– SE, Washington DC
Send your questions, comments, reviews and GumCha stories and pictures to [email protected]. They are much appreciated.
GumCha4Health LLC,
1127 River Forest Road
Pittsboro, North Carolina, USA. 27312
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If you buy 2 or more GumCha from our catalog, we will send you one complementary GumCha as a gift. (We'll pick out a great design from the many we have in stock) Shipping is free (our standard shipping is through USPS and takes between 5 and 7 days), sales tax included, and your order will be much appreciated right now.
As an added bonus, each GumCha in your order will be accompanied by a card-sized 4-page brochure that introduces GumCha, the weavers, and the public health programs that the project supports. This is great for giving GumCha as a gift.
