On a weekend evening in July, a Jammu café table filled up with air-dry clay, tiny mirrors, paint, and a lot of concentration. It was the debut workshop of कलाKARI, a new community art initiative in the city — and going by the crowded table, the packets of clay disappearing fast, and the conversation that kept spilling over from one seat to the next, it won't be the last.
कलाKARी was founded by Ishpreet Kour, Anushka Gupta and Banmeet Kour on a simple shared idea: a space "जहाँ कला, कहानियाँ और लोग मिलते हैं" — where art, stories and people meet. The three founders describe it as an effort to build a creative community in Jammu, one thoughtfully curated experience at a time, where people can connect, create and grow together instead of just spending another weekend on their phones.
Turning mirrors into keepsakes
The first session was a Clay Mirror Art workshop — participants used air-dry clay and decorative elements to turn plain mirrors into handcrafted pieces. No prior art experience was needed, which is exactly why the table looked the way it did: students, working professionals, and a few people who'd simply signed up on a whim, all shaping clay side by side. Every seat came with the full set of materials, a specially curated café menu to go with it, and by the end of the evening, a finished mirror to take home.
More than a craft session
What stood out wasn't just what people made — it was the room itself. Conversations moved easily between strangers, phones stayed mostly untouched, and every mirror that came off the table looked different from the one next to it. That was rather the point: a couple of hours to slow down, work with your hands, and enjoy the unglamorous, screen-free version of a weekend plan.
"We never wanted कलाKARI to be just another art workshop," the founders said. "We wanted it to become a community where people feel comfortable expressing themselves, meeting new people, and discovering the joy of creating together."
What's next
On the back of the response to this first edition, कलाKARI is already putting together its next workshop, with new themes and formats in the works. For a city where creative, community-driven hangouts are still rare outside the usual café-and-mall circuit, कलाKARी is betting that there's real appetite for exactly this — a reason to put the phone down, sit at a shared table, and make something with people you just met.
For updates on upcoming workshops and registrations, follow @theartofkalakari on Instagram.
Source: Details and photo shared directly by the कलाKARI team.
