In this fast-paced world of commercialisation, it is hard to come across artists who value expression over anything. Artists for whom art is more like a therapy than work. Artists for whom art is happiness in its rawest form. Given the 9-8 work culture we are trapped in at some level it is understandable why someone would hesitate to leave everything behind and focus just on art. But for those who manage to do it, it’s our duty to capture their tale so that we can keep the hope alive in others who are thinking of making a career shift. So, let us introduce you to Payal Bansal, a budding lippan artist for whom art was just an extension of her existence.
Table of Contents
Payal Bansal: Initial Journey & Struggles
Payal Bansal started her journey in the art realm at a very young age. And for that she has her big joint family to thank for. According to her, everyone in her family was always involved in some form of creativity or other. Hailing from a small town in Maharashtra Jalgaon, she never anticipated that you could actually do so much with social media in terms of starting a small business and being financially independent. Growing up in a small town there weren’t a lot of opportunities available back in the day when she went to get a college degree. Thus, instead of pursuing a degree in fine arts, she settled for a degree in engineering. But her creative spark never died.
From crochet to embroidery to clay work, Payal Bansal has tried her hands in every possible art form. Initially, it was just a fascination and love for art in general. Her creativity always managed to shine no matter what she was doing. Be it decorating the house for festivals or just making a simple rangoli her creativity always found a way to woo people.
The pandemic of 2020 that brought the entire world to a standstill was no different for Payal Bansal. Just like all of us, she waited at home uncertain about the future, and worrying about her loved ones. And it wasn’t easy given that some of her family members had to be rushed to the hospital. But when all doors close you look for a window and that’s exactly what lippan art was for Payal Bansal.
During the devastating time of COVID-19, Bansal stumbled upon a piece of lippan art at home. The origins of this art piece are still unknown but somehow it ended up at the right time and the right place for Bansal. Just like the curious cat that she is, she immediately tried different types of mud and tools to figure out how to master this art form. She did her fair bit of research to understand lippan art and took courses to get better at it. During this time she also fell in love with the lippan artwork by Maji Khan. For her, during this terrible time, lippan art was the only source of happiness and therapy that helped her sleep soundly at night and look out for the next day. And gradually from making lippan art for herself and people close to her she got the boost to make it bigger and put it on social media. But it wasn’t until her work got featured in the Sunday Midday that she got her breakthrough moment. And ever since then her popularity has never taken a dip.
Payal Bansal: Lessons Learnt
Being the first woman entrepreneur in her family and just running a business she never thought in her wildest dreams to start, comes with a lot of challenges. Initially, when she started off, the pressure of ensuring that the work was dispatched and received in the most perfect condition was a lot, especially for the door torans that were very delicate. Bansal narrated how it was so difficult to find a way to dispatch for this one customer who really loved her art piece but each time they sent it to her, she always received them broken. But by not giving up and continuing to try different techniques with each failure, Bansal ended up coming up with the ingenious idea of foldable torans that made it possible for her to make huge torans and dispatch them without any issue.
There was a time in her initial days when Bansal was running the whole creative art show herself. From taking the orders to conceptualising to making the schematics to drawing it on big panels to placing the last mirror, she did everything. But soon she had to undergo two major surgeries that put her in a depressive phase and she just wanted to give up. She even called up her customers whose lippan artwork orders were pending and offered to give them a refund as it would take her longer than expected to make their orders. But not a single customer accepted a penny back as they had a lot of faith in her and even waited patiently until she recovered and was in a better space to do her magic with lippan art. Because of all of this, she values her customers a lot and ensures that constant communication is maintained. According to her, communication is the key to establishing a good rapport with your customers and ensuring both you and they are happy at the end of the day.
Payal Bansal: Creative Process
Whenever Bansal starts on a lippan art piece, she gets so engrossed in it that she doesn’t need to rethink or re-check anything. But just like every other artist out there, it does happen that at times she gets stuck or experiences a creative block. Her go-to strategy involves trying again and again until she cracks it. Out of all her art pieces the one that is close to her heart is her first art piece for a wall that she made for her customer Yamini Sood.
A strong believer in giving back to society she also trains many young girls from low-income families to help them improve their skill set and earn more. They also help her out on her projects. By doing this, she not only ensures that many women of tomorrow have certain skills but also skills they can market and earn out of. Though she loves to teach she doesn’t host any online workshops as she is a strong believer in working with traditional mud and not the moldable clay you may find online. This just highlights her respect and love for the traditional lippan art form.
Afterword
As an artist, Payal Bansal has faced a fair share of dealing with people who copy her artwork but she never let it get to her. Focusing on just herself she tries to improve in every way she can. A small message that she has for young artists: “Put your heart and soul into what you’re doing, and then only you can truly create art that you love. Getting inspiration from others is fine but you need to find your own style to truly shine.”
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