Sunita Devi
Sunita Devi.
Block printer · Sanganer · 15 years at the press.
Sunita came to printing through her family, her mother and aunt are also printers in the same workshop, though both have moved into supervisory work as they've aged. Sunita continues to print every day, primarily on geometric and stripe motifs. Her work is in our Geometric collection and across our table linen.
Block printing in Rajasthan has long included women, though they're often less visible in the public-facing version of the craft. Sunita is one of the women printers in our Sanganer factory. Like many of them, she comes from a family of printers. The work moves between hands across the day, block, dye, stretch the cloth, press, lift, move, press again.
She is one of our fastest printers. Her press is light, fast, and consistent. She tends to do longer batches because of this, bolts of fabric where the rhythm of her work suits long, even runs.
When asked what she thinks about while printing, Sunita says, through her supervisor who also translated for us, that she mostly thinks about the work. The block, the dye, the next press. That's all.
“Mostly I think about the work. The block, the dye, the next press. That's all.”