Art & craft jobs: DIY

It was the desire to have a pair of burger ear rings that drove Shilpa Mitha to work with clay. And the amazing response she got inspired her to create other works of art. Today, the 28-year-old sound engineer is better known in the city for her figurines and dosa fridge magnets, all fashioned from clay.
"I was always interested in sound engineering and even worked with a studio for a while.But I didn't like it, so I quit," says Shilpa, who has a degree in electronics and communication and diploma in audio engineering. "I used to do paper quilling but found paper was not that versatile a medium and moved to clay." She sells her creations under the brand name Sueno Souvenir.
A growing number of young professionals, be it engineers or IT professionals, are opting to step out of their air-conditioned cabins to work with their hands ­ learning crafts such as quilling, wood work and metal work. While some have dared to take it up full-time, for others it is a hobby that con sumes most of their free time. And though most don't have their own store, they sell their creations through Facebook pages dedicated to their brands.
The city has a Chennai Crafters group on FB, started in 2012 to bring young crafters under one um brella. On March 28, some of them will get together to display their creations at the third edition of their exhibition ­ Urban Hands ­ at Luz House, Mylapore. 2 Showcasing her art would be Rohita Vee who discovered her love for making jewellery while doing engineering. "I always wanted to be in a creative field and thought of taking up architecture. When that didn't work out I opted for engineering but found that I didn't like it," she says. Though she finished the course, she realized that she wanted to turn her love for making jewellery into a career. So she headed to the London Jewellery School for a diploma and has since been focussing on making metal jewellery under the brand name Roia.
"I plan to soon house my products in few boutiques, and target the Chennai and Bangalore crowd," says the 24-year-old.
While Rohita's nose pins are a sell-out, it is Iswarya Venkat's quilled miniatures that are a hit with clients. "I make popular characters such as Iron Man, Batman, Popeye and The Powerpuff girls," says Iswarya, who has a day job as a consultant with an IT company and works at night on her miniatures which sell under the brand name Creo. "This is just another way of expressing my creativity." Since quilling is getting more common, Iswarya is now trying out needle felting, making little pendants that collegians can wear.
Unlike the others, Somasundaram Padmanabhan really doesn't market his works. The 37-year-old engineer discovered that he could get nifty with his hands while scouting for a centre table. "We liked one but the shop refused to customize it so I just got myself the tools, and with a little help from YouTube videos, made it myself," he says.
Since then he has made wall clocks, lamp shades, shoe racks, and inverter battery cabinets, usually for friends and family. "It is time-consuming, so I can't really take orders.
Also I don't have a proper workshop," says Somasundaram, who runs a blog http:www.woodooz.com. "I started it to showcase my work but people wanted to learn, so I began doing posts on how you can make things with a minimal set of tools."
Somasundaram does dream of taking it up in a bigger way but has yet to take that leap of faith. "I need to first secure myself financially," he says.