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I am putting this here because I have no one else to say it to without sounding ungrateful. Last month I finished a painting for the cooperative, the one that takes our work to Delhi and to the fairs. Wedding scene, peacocks on both sides, natural colour. Fine line work, my eyes are not what they were, so it was slow. Three weeks nearly, with the teaching going on in the mornings. Account came: 1,850 rupees. Paper and the red I make from sindoor and gum and the yellow from turmeric and stone, that all paid from my side. So the real figure is lower than 1,850. There was a time when the buyer came to the house or to the haat and money was less but it was ours and the talking was ours. Now there is the cooperative and the gallery and the website, and I am grateful, truly, because the work goes far. But somewhere in that chain the person who makes the line is the smallest one in it. My son says I should put my own price on the paper when I send it. I am 56, I have been doing this since I was a girl of nine. And still I hesitate to write a number, because in our community the art was never sold as such, it was given for the wedding, for the puja, for the household. That thinking is inside me and I cannot remove it. Tomorrow I have to send two more to the same place. I will send. But something in the chest is sitting heavy.

Yesterday a visitor to the cooperative bought one of my smaller fish-and-lotus pieces for ₹1200. Three days of fine line work with the brush, the natural pigment, the handmade paper that I prepare myself. When I counted it out, it came to less than what a plumber charges for a single visit in Patna. I did not bargain. The price was fixed because the cooperative fixed it, and the cooperative fixes it low so that the foreign buyers and the art galleries keep coming back. My mother sold her best work for a sari and a sack of rice when I was a boy. So I should feel fortunate, no? But ji, here is the thing I cannot set aside. The same size piece, once a Delhi dealer resells it, goes for twenty times that and it hangs in a drawing room beside imported furniture. Nobody argues with that price. Only my hand is supposed to be cheap. I am not writing this to shame the young woman who bought it. She was kind and she chose my work. I am writing it because we do not speak of this enough. I have painted since I was eight years old. My fingers know these lines the way my mother's did. And some days I ask myself what my daughter's fingers will find worth doing, if this is the value of three days. I have been thinking of raising my own price for the pieces I sell directly, outside the cooperative. For a larger piece I want to ask ₹6000 and it frightens me to say it aloud. Have any of you fixed your own price after years of accepting what was given?

Today one gentleman came to our cooperative stall. He liked one painting, the one with the fish and the lotus, took maybe twenty minutes to decide. Then he said, "This is too much. For folk art? You people enjoy making it. Reduce by half." I reduced by ten percent only, because the colours I used, the handmade paper, the many hours. He was not satisfied but he paid. Then he asked, will I teach his daughter also. I said yes, I teach girls in my village, it is my work and my joy. He said, "Good. Then teach her also, no charge, since you enjoy it so much." As if my enjoyment is the payment. As if the art feeds us on appreciation alone. I said kindly, ji, the enjoyment I have is true, but the rice also must come from somewhere. He looked at me like I had said something rude. I am fifty-six years old and still explaining that my hands are labour and my traditions are worth something. Some days I am tired of teaching this lesson to grown men.

Namaste to all ji. I want to ask one thing which I keep thinking about. Myself Ramesh, Mithila painting from Madhubani, Bihar. My son made this account for me. Always I have sold through the cooperative here, and through people who come to our village for the work. Gallery matter is new for me. Some months back I carried three paintings rolled in cloth, took the bus to Patna, and simply walked into a gallery there and asked to show. The man was polite, he looked at everything, and then said email is better, send photos. Only. So I came home with the same three paintings in the same cloth. Now I am confused which way is correct. To walk in and let them see the actual work with their own eyes, or to send photo by email first like a formality. In our tradition the painting is to be seen with hands and eyes, not in a small phone picture. But maybe that thinking is old. So tell me honestly, how do you all do it. Email first, or just go and stand there. And which one has actually worked for you. Tell me I am wrong if walking in is a foolish thing now.

For two days my son has been photographing my paintings for the website. He has made a white cloth, two lamps borrowed from the neighbour, and he is very particular about the angle. Forty paintings he has done. It is good work and I am grateful, because before this we were only selling through the cooperative in Darbhanga and whatever the buyers who came to the house would take. But here is my difficulty. On the screen, my Kohbar and my Durga all look the same size. The line which I pulled for three days with a squirrel-hair brush looks thin like a hair, and the fish which I made the size of my palm looks small like nothing. A painting is not made to be looked at in a small box on a phone. It is made to be sat in front of. He is telling me this is how people buy now, they will not come to Madhubani to see. Maybe he is right. Still I am thinking we should put one photo where he has kept a matchbox beside the painting, just so the person knows. My mother never measured anything in her life and now I am measuring for a machine. If any of you are selling your work this way, kindly tell me one thing. Do you send the actual size, or the person will understand by themselves?

The buyer was from Patna, a gentleman who came to the house with his brother. He saw one Kohbar painting, the one with the bamboo grove and the lotus pond, and he liked it very much. I said 3,500 rupees. He paid without any bargain at all, which should have told me something. Then afterward I did the full sum on paper, because my wife asked me straight how many days it took. Eleven days. Not full days, mind, but mornings and evenings, and the paper and brushes and the natural colours also have cost. The black from soot, the yellow from turmeric, the red I make from kusum flower and it takes one full day just for that grinding. So when I put the paper cost and the colour making and eleven days together, it came to something like 180 rupees for one day of work. My wife said nothing. She only looked at me. That was worse than if she had said something. And still I am not able to raise the price, this is my difficulty. In my area people will say, why so much for a painting on paper, my cousin's daughter also does this. The cooperative also gives a fixed rate which is old rate only. And I am afraid if I say 6,000 then the gentleman will go quietly to somebody else and I will never know. Now I am thinking to keep one painting aside and not sell it, only to see what price it can get if I wait. Has anybody here done this waiting business successfully? For me patience is there but the house expenses are also there, both things are pulling.

Two months of roses hips on my studio windowsill, and every single one split or went soft before I could finish a study. Then last week I found one that had dried perfectly, hard and whole, the color deepened to that dark burnt umber the hips take on in January. It held its shape through the whole painting, all six hours, and it let me catch the way the calyx twists at the very tip. Small victory, but I've been chasing it since October. There is something satisfying about a specimen that cooperates. The paint is hard enough without the subject fighting you. Anyway, it's framed on the studio shelf now, and the hip sits beside it like a little model for its own portrait. I almost don't want to compost it.

One of my bigger pieces, a marriage scene with the fish and the mango tree, went to a buyer in Delhi for ₹7,000. That sounds respectable until you sit and count the days. Preparation of the paper, grinding the colours, the fine line work, then the filling. I worked maybe four hours each day for nine days. That is thirty-six hours. Seven thousand divided by thirty-six comes to about ₹194 an hour. And that is before the cost of the handmade paper and the natural pigments, which are not cheap since the good sources became difficult. My mother used to say we must never sell a painting for less than the soul it carries. But the soul does not pay for the grandson's school books. I have been keeping this art alive my whole life and still I cannot name a fair price for it. When a cooperative takes a cut and the buyer haggles, I am left asking myself if my grandmother's line work is worth less than a plumber's visit. I raised my price to ₹8,500 this month. I am scared to go higher because the buyers are not many. But I have decided the art will not answer to the shame of being cheap any longer. If it sells, good. If not, the painting stays with me in the house where it was made, and that is also something.

Myself Ramesh. I will tell you one thing that still makes me shake my head. Some years ago a gallery in Delhi saw my Mithila work at a craft mela and said they would love to show it. I was happy, very happy. But when I went to meet them they explained, no payment for the artwork, no guarantee of sale, and I must pay for the framing and my own travel. They said it is good for exposure, it will build my name. I asked them, can my family eat exposure? They did not like that question ji. I walked away. Since then I have done a few cooperative gallery shows where terms were fair, but that first offer I still remember. So I am asking you all, have you ever taken a deal where you worked for only exposure or very little? Was it worth it in the end or did you regret? I want to know your stories so younger artists can learn.

This morning I was mixing indigo from the neel we had dried since last winter. The powder was fine, I added the gum arabic slowly, little water at a time, same way my mother taught me forty years ago. But the colour came out thin. Washed out. Not that deep blue-black I need for Kali's hair. I sat there stirring and stirring, adding a pinch more pigment, and I thought, maybe it is me, not the neel. Maybe my hands are not feeling the consistency the same anymore. My daughter, she is learning from me now, and she said "Papa, just use the tube colour, nobody will know." But I would know. I ended up using that wash anyway. Thin layers, built up slowly. It took two hours more than it should have. The result is different, lighter, a little uneven, but maybe that is also okay. Not everything has to be the same as what my grandmother did. She also had days when the neel didn't cooperate, I am sure. Anyone else have materials that suddenly stop listening to you? Or is it just my old hands. 🙏

My first gallery, I did not go to them. They came to the village, a lady from Delhi who had seen our cooperative's exhibition photos. She sat on the floor with my mother and drank chai and asked about the fish motif. Three months later my paintings were in Delhi. I did not even know such a thing could happen. So I ask you all, from your own experience: did your first gallery come to you, or did you go to them? And whichever way it was, do you think that made a difference in how they treated you? For me I feel when they come to you, they value the work first. When you go to them, you are the one asking. Maybe I am wrong ji, tell me.

Myself Ramesh, Mithila painter from Madhubani. All my life I sold through the cooperative or when someone came to the house. Tourists sometimes, or people from the city who heard about the village where the painting women are. My son, he is in Patna for his job, he took photos of maybe eight of my pieces, a fish with the lotus, a Durga, two peacocks, some others. He put them on WhatsApp status and also in some groups he is in. I did not think much of it. Now in the last month I have sent six paintings by courier. To Delhi. To Bangalore. To one address in Dubai even, a man whose mother is from Darbhanga originally and he wanted something for his wall. These people never touched the paper, never saw the pigment. They saw a phone photo and they trusted it. This is strange to me. In my market, the buyer wants to see the line work up close, wants to know the colour is natural, wants to hold it. But my son says this is how it works now. I am grateful, truly, but also I am thinking, what if the photo does not show the real thing? I use geru and rice paste and lamp black, the photo cannot show that. But the buyers are happy when the parcel arrives. I do not understand this new way but I cannot argue with the orders. Anyone else selling traditional craft online and feeling this same confusion?🙂

I am teaching Mithila painting to a small group in my village, mostly girls, on Sunday mornings in the room where my mother used to sit with her colours. One of them, Sunita, she is fourteen, she has been coming since two years. Very quiet girl, hardly speaking, but her line work is steady, better than some who have been doing longer. Today a lady from Patna who buys from our cooperative took one of her paintings. A small one, two fish and a lotus, on handmade paper, done with the black from lamp soot and the red from kusum flower. Two hundred and fifty rupees. Sunita's mother came to my house in the evening to tell me. She was holding the money folded in her blouse. She did not say much. I also did not say much. The thing is, when I was that age nobody gave us money for this. We painted on the mud walls before the wedding, we painted for the ritual, and that was all. The wall got whitewashed every year and the work went away with it. For long I thought that was the whole of it, that our painting was for the wall and for God and not for selling. I don't know what to feel sometimes. Half of me is happy that the girl has earned something of her own at fourteen. Other half is thinking, will she now paint only the small ones that sell fast, the fish and the peacock, and never learn the whole story of the Kohbar or the wedding of Shiva and Parvati which takes many days. It is a real worry for me. The market wants the easy ones. Anyway. I have told her next month we start the Kohbar, slowly, small portion everyday before she does any selling work. Let us see.

Something I want to share with you all. For many years I am sending my paintings to the cooperative in Patna, and from there sometimes they go to Delhi, once to Kolkata. That much only. My son keeps saying Baba, put on internet, people are buying from all countries. I was doubtful, honestly, because the work is small and made on paper by hand, not any big thing to see. But last month a lady from Hamburg wrote to me. She had seen one of my paintings of the marriage of Gauri and Shiva, kachni style, only line work, no colour filling, three weeks of work with a brush of one or two hair. She wrote that she wanted one for her mother, and she said please do only in that old line style, not with the bright filling which is now common. I sat quiet for some time after reading that. Because this is what my mother used to do. The colour work sells faster, buyers like it, and I also have to make it, no shame in that. But the pure kachni line, that is the mother's hand, so to say. Nobody was asking for it since long. I had nearly stopped doing it except for puja time. So I did one. Small, on handmade paper, line only, fish at the border, and I sent it after eleven days. She wrote back only two lines, that her mother had put it on the wall next to the door. I do not know if this is a big win. The money was not much, and I spent more on the courier than I wanted. But somebody in another country, who never met my mother, asked for her style by name. That felt like something. I am thinking now to keep one corner of the work always for the old line style, even if no buyer comes for months.

Yesterday I was sitting in the shop of the paper supplier on Station Road, waiting for my order, and the young boy there, maybe nineteen years, was watching me sketch a peacock on the back of a bill. He asked, very innocently, why I do not just make one good design on computer and print many copies. Same time, same money, no strain on the eyes. I did not get angry. He is a boy, he has only seen printed things. But I sat there and I could not make him understand that the peacock I draw today is not the peacock I drew last Tuesday. My hand was not in the same mood. The line goes thin here, thick there, according to how the brush is feeling that morning. That is the whole thing. That is the only thing. Then I came home and thought, honestly, is he wrong? Because the cooperative gives me the same rate whether I take two days or six. My son says the buyers in Delhi cannot tell the difference on a phone screen anyway. So some days I also ask myself why I am doing this slowly, and I have no clean answer. I only know that when I copy my own design neatly, twice, I feel like a photocopy machine and I do not want to feel like that. Thirty eight years of this work and one boy in a paper shop has put the whole question in front of me in two minutes.

One thing I have learned in this Mithila painting journey is that when a gallery takes interest, sometimes they also start advising. "Make it smaller. Less detail. More modern. This border is too much." They think they are helping. Myself, I have refused more than once. Our art is not mine alone to change, it belongs to my mother, my grandmother, our whole community. The fine lines and the natural colours, that is the story. When I hold firm, sometimes they respect it. Sometimes they walk away. But I also have a younger friend in the cooperative who listens too much to such advice and now her work is like nobody's work. She is stuck in the middle. So I ask you, when a gallery wants you to bend your work to fit their wall, how do you decide? Where is the line between being practical and losing yourself? I am curious what others do.

My daughter, she studies in Patna now, came home for Diwali and saw me sitting with the brush and she said, Baba why are you not putting this on the phone. I told her I don't understand all this. So she took the phone, and she made one of those short videos, just my hand and the brush and the fish I was drawing, not even twenty seconds. She put some music on top which I found too loud, but I said nothing. In one week people came to my stall asking for the fish painting. A lady from Delhi bought two. A girl came and said she saw me on Instagram and wanted to learn. All this after I spent so many years doing exhibitions and cooperative meetings the proper way. I felt like such a fool ji, that the thing I ignored was the thing that worked. Now I am learning. My niece is teaching me to hold the phone steady while I paint. But I am also worried. The video showed the fish and the peacock, but nobody saw the ten years behind that line, the discipline, the ritual, the grandmother who taught my mother who taught me. I want the buyers but I also want them to know this is not decoration, this is our history. How do I put the history in a twenty second video without losing the people.

Myself Ramesh, from Madhubani. For me it was a small cooperative in Patna, this was maybe twenty years ago. The lady running it, she saw my work at a village mela and asked me to bring some pieces. I was so nervous I wrapped them in old newspaper. She took four paintings on the spot and sold two within the week. That small thing changed everything for me, someone outside the family seeing value in it. What about you ji? How did your first gallery happen? Was it a cold walk-in, someone saw you somewhere, or a connection? I want to hear the stories.🙏

One of the girls who comes to my house on Sundays to learn, Sunita, she is maybe seventeen. She has been coming since two years, very quiet, never asking anything, only watching my hand when I draw the line for the fish scales. Her lines were shaky for long, I will not lie. Last month there was a small exhibition at the block office in Madhubani, arranged by the cooperative. She sent two paintings without telling me. I came to know only when the secretary phoned me. Both were sold. One to a teacher from Darbhanga, one to a man who works in the bank there. She came on Sunday and put the money in her mother's hand, and her mother did not say anything for some time. I have seen many paintings go from my own house to the walls of people who will never know whose hands made them. But this is different. It is her own money from her own line work. I told her, now you must be regular in practice, this is only starting. But inside I was thinking of my mother, who taught me in the same way, sitting on the floor with the bamboo stick for the brush. Nothing has changed in that room since long. Only the names are new. She is asking me now whether she can learn to do the kohbar on cloth, not only paper. I said yes but cloth is costly and one mistake cannot be removed. Any of you have experience teaching a young student on cloth? I do not want to discourage her by being too careful also.

Ten years of photographing finished paintings under whatever light was convenient, and I only got it right this spring. The problem, as I now understand it, is that I had been lighting the work rather than letting it be lit. Two daylight bulbs on adjustable arms, a grey card, the whole apparatus. The photographs were bright and clear and wrong. Payne's grey kept going slightly blue, and the yellows in a foxglove study flattened into something closer to mustard. I told myself it was a monitor issue and did not look into it further, which is how one avoids learning things. What changed was a small job for a neighbour, a simple study of a hellebore, that I photographed on the north-facing porch at about eleven in the morning because I was late and could not be bothered to set up the lights. Overcast, no direct sun, pale wall behind. The photograph looked like the painting. Not better than the painting. Like it. I have since done every piece that way, and I now keep a note of the weather in the file name so I can reproduce it for a reprint. It is slower and it depends entirely on the sky cooperating, which offends the part of me that likes a controlled setup. But there is no arrangement of lamps I have found that does not lie about a green. The thing I keep turning over is how long I defended the equipment. I had spent real money on it and I think I needed it to have been the right purchase. Somebody in this channel said something similar about a daylight lamp recently and I found myself nodding at the screen before I had quite admitted it to myself.