wanderings

Labour of Love for Frida Kahlo

2011-12-04T22:11:00.001-08:00

I spent my sunday painting the face of Frida,
Thinking about her paintings, her life story.
Its not very original to paint from looking at photos but

I had helluva good time painting one of my favourite artists;

fearless, extraordinary and quite wild

Tolerance

2011-11-20T21:59:00.001-08:00

Transcript of the John Tusa Interview with the sculptor Anish Kapoor

2011-09-06T02:14:00.000-07:00

When talking about the work of the sculptor Anish Kapoor, you should beware of the adjectives. They can get very overheated. Implacable, yet whimsical. Hysterically sublime. Tactical and dreamlike. Those are just a few phrases to be going on with. Maybe it's a response to the intense colours he uses - cobalt blues, crimson reds, impenetrable blacks, all applied so that they seem to soak up the light, and soak up the action of the viewer's eye too. Now it may seem odd to be talking about colour in relation to a sculptor, though you can't talk about Kapoor's work without referring to it. The colours are at the service of the shapes - excavated holes in blocks of stone and rock, highly polished discs or bowls, like domes of heaven, said one critic. Kapoor's objects take on and disrupt the orderly space of galleries. Exuberant, irrational, vital forces thrusting through floors or walls - there go the adjectives again! Critics may have occasional reservations about his work, but they can't shrug it off with a throwaway phrase. It's definitely not that sort of work.

Anish Kapoor is rising fifty, and can look back at most of the art world's badges of honour. Venice Biennale, Turner Prize, Documenta, retrospectives in all the right places. More recently he has stormed the bastions of the most prestigious arts institutions, creating the vast installation Marsyas. There he filled the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern. And designing the settings for this year's Glyndebourne production of Mozart 's 'Idomeneo'. His work reveals a simple profundity, says one writer. It's a primal experience says another. Kapoor himself insists, 'I've nothing to say', which is where, here in his Camberwell studio, we begin.

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Why do you say that you have nothing to say?
Yes, mm, I feel that one of the great currents in the contemporary experience of art is that it seems to come out of the experience of the author. That is to say whether we're talking about the surrealist experience or any inclination to expression - all of that is, dwells so to speak in the author. It seems to me that there's another route in which the artist looks for a content that is on the face of it abstract, but at a deeper level symbolic, and that that content is necessarily philosophical and religious. I think it's attempting to dig away at - without wanting to sound too pompous - at the great mystery of being. And that, while it has a route through my psychobiography, isn't based in it.

So at least you are walking away from what I suppose is the romantic idea of the artist, that it is the life of the artist, the view of the artist, the experience of the artist which is absolutely central to the art, and you take the artist with the art bag and baggage.
I am. I think I'm saying that there is another position. And maybe it is my Indian roots that prompt me in that direction. Of course I see a connection thereby with the great art, the great minimal art of the sixties and seventies. The idea that the object in a sense has a language unto itself, and that its primary purpose in the world isn't interpretive, it is there as if sitting within its own world of meaning, as the so to speak next generation along. One wonders if that metaphoric language, or if one can turn that language into a metaphoric language, but not necessarily to do with how I see the world.

You make the distinction between subject matter - and one can certainly see that your pieces are not about subject matter - and content. Your sculptures are full of content, but just fill out that antithesis.
Yes I think the search. I mean Barnett Newman is an artist that I would cite very clearly in this conversation about a search for content. It is pushing aside subject matter. It is saying that there is, that a content arises out of certain seemingly formal considerations, considerations about form - about form, about material, about context - and that when that subject matter is sufficiently far away, something else occurs - maybe it's the role of the artist then, as I see it, to pursue, and that's something that one might call content.

And can that content at a certain stage even migrate into something that is more like subject matter without being explicitly a subject?
Yes I think it can. Let's just underline this by saying that artists don't make objects. Artists make mythologies. That when you buy a work or go and see a work by Picasso, because it's a very obvious example, what you look at is the mythological context in which Picasso worked. It's as if one's almost looking beyond the image, beyond the work as displayed, at this incredible man's ability to make art in so varied a series of ways, and declare life as a creative endeavour from beginning to end. What a great thing to do.

The moment you mention Barnett Newman I immediately think of his series 'The Stations of the Cross', which after all that is very very strong subject matter. So how does this distinction between content and subject matter work out in the case of a series like that?
I think the important thing there is to look at the work. On the face of it you are absolutely right. The moment that you are, as we all had the opportunity recently to be, at the Tate, in London, in front of those works, they seemingly have nothing to do with the Stations of the Cross. They are a series of black and white canvases with zips - these areas without colour, without painting, in a field of otherwise painted stuff. Nothing to do with the Stations of the Cross other than that he has very carefully made the title part of the content. It's as if the words then act as another form in the process of looking. So therefore one has to ask oneself the question about where this content arises. Is it about whether the content is resident in the viewer, or whether it's resident in the work? Now that's a subtle yet very clear manipulation of the act of looking.

If it wasn't in the work though, you can't always invest what you take to it can you? There has to be something imminent in the work.
Precisely. There's something imminent in the work but the circle is only completed by the viewer. Now that's a very different position from a work let us say with a subject matter, where the work itself, so to speak, has a complete circle of meaning and counterpoint.

It tells a story, you recognise that story, you tell it back, yes.
But here is an incomplete circle which says come and be involved. And without your involvement as a viewer there is no story. I believe that that's a complete kind of re-invention of the idea of art.

And is that what you hope and think people do with your art, because after all now, after twenty-five years or so, people come to an Anish Kapoor and they expect to see eternity don't they? So they arrive in the gallery and say I'm going to lose myself. Now is that a helpful thing for you?
Well this is, as I was trying to say earlier on, artists make mythologies, not objects, so perhaps this is one of those mythologies that's come to reside in and around my work.

Did you set out to make it?
Yes, and I could also say no, in that meaningful mythologies - after all things don't get to be even remotely mythological until they have some deeper resonance. I believe that one cannot set out to make a work that's spiritual. What does it mean? What is a contemporary iconography for the spiritual? Do we know? Is it some fuzzy space? Is that enough? I believe these things come to be because there are other resonances.

Are you aware that you have changed what you do because people suddenly started saying I go to a Kapoor and I see eternity and I lose myself etc? Has there been any sort of, you know, reflex back from viewers' reactions to you?
It must be there to some extent, but one doesn't make art for other people, even though I am very concerned with the viewer. It is in that abstract eye of the beholder that some circle, as I've been trying to talk, that I've been trying to talk about, is completed. I in the end make art for myself.

So if there were no commissions at all, what would you do in the morning?
Oh that's great, I love that.

Oh come on!
Come to the studio and do my thing. What one does in the studio in fact is to pose a series of problems to oneself. You can come in and say yes I have this funny notion that I want to make a big blob of gooey mass of ..... dimensions, of certain dimensions, that has a certain effect. And then I've got to look for, having made it I've got to look for some deeper meaning, for some reason for this thing to be in the world. There's enough stuff in the world…

But you can't invest it, you can't invest it with a meaning after you've made it.
Oh I think those processes are very complex. One can find a way to do precisely that. Naming is one of those ways. Context is another of those ways. What happens, having made this object, if I put it next to another object? How does that change its reason for being in the world, its effect on the body? One of the phenomena that I've worked with over many years is darkness. Darkness is an idea that we all know about, in a way an idea about the absence of light. Very simple. What interests me however is the sense of the darkness that we carry within us, the darkness that's akin to one of the principal subjects of the sublime - terror. A work will only have that deep resonance that I try to indicate is there if the kind of darkness that I can generate, let's say in a block of stone with a cavity in it that's very dark, if the resonance that's in that stone is something that is resident in you already. That's to say that you are completing that circle, but perhaps without knowingly you're completing that circle. It's not a verbal connection, but a bodily one. That's why sculpture occupies the same space as your body.

Do people ever say that they are frightened particularly by those bottomless black pits? Of course they're never pits, they're usually quite shallow, but that's the point. But do people say that they're frightened by them?
It has happened. I showed a work at Documenta in Kassel, in Germany, in '92, in which a work called 'Descent into Limbo', after Mantegna - Christ descending into the limbo of the nether world. A room, you entered a room about six metres cubed. In the floor a space, in fact a hole, but made in such a way that it was a space full of darkness, and read like a black carpet on the floor. You know you make a room, close the door of course, there's always a line, people stand outside and wait, and then they turn right, which in this case took about forty-five minutes. There were people who went into that room and were, you know hugged the walls and were terrified of the idea that this kind of homme phalos at the centre of this room would suck them in. There was also somebody else, which I think's rather amusing, who stood in line for forty-five minutes and went into the room, took his glasses off, he was so furious that you know he'd stood, he'd done a lot of things in the name of contemporary art but never stood in line to look at a black carpet. So he took his glasses off and threw them down. And of course then they disappeared into the void!

But your other colours, your blues, your reds in particular, I mean these are the most intense, sensuous, as I say, light-affirming colours as well. And actually - and I know these things couldn't be more subjective - I've never found your blacks that terrifying, and they are restful, the eyes just shut out. But your blues and your reds, I mean they couldn't be more about life could they?
Red is a colour I've felt very strongly about. Maybe red is a very Indian colour, maybe it's one of those things that I grew up with and recognise at some other level. Of course it's the colour of the interior of our bodies. In a way it's inside out, red. Brancusi's great adventure in form, it seems to me, is a proposition which is modern, which is about upwards, onwards, the rocket, the form that's phallic and forward. Donald Judd's great adventure in form, it seems to me, was to close form, was to enclose form.

Squares, rectangles..
Exactly.

Cubes.
Exactly. And to bring colour into space. I think, if I might be so bold as to dare to put myself in that lineage, I'm interested in the idea that form in a sense turns itself inside out, that the inside and the outside are equivalent to each other, that we don't just enclose. The form is continually in a warp, and continually turning itself inside out. Now I have a feeling that that's a very contemporary idea about form.

Mm, yes, might well be. I'm interested you mentioned phallic because I get the impression sometimes that when people look at your works, the one thing that they feel they can't quite mention in their English way is that of course they are womb-like. Womb-like is the easy bit. Vaginal and things like…
Anti-phallic, so the opposite of phallic, the opposite of Brancusi.

Yes, yes.
Inward.

Yes.
Downwards.

Downwards.
In a way if one took a platonic model of that one would say the back of the cave.

Yes.
The dark back of the cave.

But you actually penetrate to the back of the cave and penetrate is the word.
Rather than the front of the cave which is light and forward and out towards the open world.

Yes. We're talking about these in fairly complex terms, maybe because I'm making you, but which is not altogether…
Oh I love it!

Not altogether my intention, but the fact is that your shapes are very apparently simple, even when they are deceptive. So what I'm curious to know is that you have this intense and complex theoretical basis but when it comes to making things you're doing things with a deceptive simplicity, and that's a very interesting transfer isn't it?
It seems to me that, yes, the eye is a very very quick instrument, incredibly quick instrument - much quicker than the ear. The eye gets it immediately - seconds. And I'm interested I think in that moment of immediate recognition. An object lives in a space in a particular way, you walk into the space and then you say yes that's it, or that's not for me - whichever way it goes.

Yes, it's just a black carpet.
But it's an immediate translation. The theoretical stuff comes later, it's sort of irrelevant. I'm much more interested on the effect that the body has, or that the body receives if you like, from a work.

Let's talk practicalities for a moment. You said that you're a terrible carver - indeed you do very little at all - so what makes you a sculptor? Is it an instinctive three-dimensional urge?
I think I understand something about space. I think the job of a, so to speak, sculptor is spatial as much as it is to do with form. The idea that an artist has to make everything themselves is…

It lingers there doesn't it?
Well it lingers, it's certainly not true, it's certainly not necessary, and I doubt that it's ever been true, frankly. The problem with stone carving is that it takes months and months and months, and I have a very dedicated, wonderful team of young fellows who do a lot of the preparatory work for me. Roughing out a stone is just damned hard work.

But finishing it off you'll do?
Well I'll do some of it, where it's necessary.

Yes.
Much of what I make is geometric, and has a kind of almost mathematical logic to the form.

Yes. You're getting the proportions .......
The proportions of course is… So I go to my… I have a small stone yard in Battersea where I go every morning, so my first stop is at the stone yard in the morning, and then talk through the current projects with the stone carvers. They then do a day's work and I'll see it the following morning. And then of course, as we come to finishing something then I'll spend more and more time there trying to, trying to resolve.

You work both with organic materials and of course a lot with inorganic materials. Clearly I would say the appeal of the organic - the rock and the stone - is in no way greater than what you can get, the subtleties, the effects, with the inorganic. I mean that's not, that's not a barrier for you in any way.
No. No I mean I, you know I do like the idea that as artists nowadays all sorts of things are available. I've just shown you a work I've been making with smoke. That freedom that Picasso afforded himself, to be an artist in any of a huge number of ways, seems to me to be a huge psychological liberation. He worked incredibly hard to liberate himself. You know he was able, let's say, to fracture the world, and make cubism, and then to reconstruct the world and make these very whole organic kind of images, and then a very sexual things towards the end of his life, etc. etc. We can now I feel, if we can liberate ourselves enough, open the possibility. The art world is so much more open.

Yes, by comparison with that, the idea of, in the work you've just mentioned, pushing smoke into a room, then extracting it so powerfully that it turns into a column of smoke - the moment I say column of smoke then I think of course of the biblical references, fire, etc. etc - and I was wondering why isn't that a work of art, but only for a second, because I will remember that as much as many other…
Good.

…as any flat painting on a wall.
Let's think of, you know, Moses and the burning bush. So you know one can hardly make a move I think without immediately calling up a whole series of mythological references that are already in our cultural pot.

Well simply because you choose to have them in your cultural pot, and of course you are Indian and you are part Iraqi and you are part Jewish. Did you have a lot of this? Were you formally taught these things, were they formally or casually talked about in the family conversation?
Somewhat. My grandfather was the Cantor in a synagogue in Poona - a small town not far from Bombay - but my parents were fastidiously areligious. So while some of this was around in some way, it was not. It's much more that I feel that the symbolic world which I insist is the nub of a problem for an artist like me, seems therefore itself to insist on mythological realities. And that's the work, so…

But it does sound as if you have a great deal of this in your own cultural and personal bedrock.
I feel it's important, yes. Yes I expect it's there, yes. I mean one can hardly be Indian and not know that almost every accent, which hand you eat your food with, has some deeper symbolic truth, reality.

But quite a lot of the time, understandably, you wanted to avoid the Indian tag, and I must say I was rather shocked when I came across an article from 1998, not that long ago, which said you're the most successful Indian artist living in the West. Well nobody would say that now, so is that why in a way you can talk about the Indian influences much more openly, because you're not pigeonholed?
In the late seventies, early eighties, when I first started making work after being an art student and showing it and so on, I was making objects out of colour pigment. They were perhaps, on the face of it they looked more Indian than some of the things I'm doing now. What was interesting or problematic for me then was that they were referred to as exotic. Now that's the thing that I find difficult, and I've always found difficult. The exotic is a tag that seems to be akin to the touristic. It seems to be something to do with a rather peripheral, unknowledgeable view of something.

It's about decoration as well isn't it?
Precisely. And I've always felt that if one was going to take seriously this vocation as an artist, well you have to get beyond that seemingly decorative façade. So the exotic's always been a real problem for me. However I am Indian, that is part of… I mean and I'm proud of it. And Indian life is mythologically rich and powerful.

And incredibly rich in colours. I mean just because you use bright colours, which Western artists are frightened of using, why should you have the exotic label stuck on you?
(laughs) Well things have changed now. It's as if the exotic is now… The art world's changed, but maybe the way we have learned to look has changed in the last twenty-five years, and the exotic is much more acceptable. There are many artists now, younger artists, who work out of the exotic.

Chris Ofili. Extremely exotic.
Indeed.

And who could be more respectable than that at the moment?
Indeed.

What do you think of the idea though of cross-culturalism, when it is raised? Do you think that means anything, or does it mean anything to you?
If what we're saying is that we're building a kind of bridge, in Heideger's sense, between one bank of a certain cultural reality and another bank of a different cultural reality, then maybe there is some moment of crossing, there's some Mister Inbetween over there, which is powerful and new, different. If on the other hand there's a culture over there rather Madame Butterfly-like, from which one can - it comes back to the conversation about the exotics - from which one can extract those bits that are attractive, and have them reside in a resident culture, then it's cheap and trivial.

It's bells and whistles isn't it?
Yes precisely. So how we do that I think is difficult. Mister Inbetween, which I think I am in a way, a Mister Inbetween, I think has opened a whole host of possibilities which are tremendously exciting.

But it seems to me what you're not saying is I'll take a bit of English because I'm here, I'll take a bit of Indian because I'm there, and I should put in all the cultural references of which I'm a part because that acknowledges them all, doesn't reject any of them, and is fantastically politically correct. That is certainly not you.
Yes I mean but then you know one wouldn't be taken seriously as an artist if that's how it went.

There's quite a lot of talk about that sort of multiculturalism in the art world isn't there?
Yes and it's extremely trivial, and to be put to one side.

Which we'll happily do!
(laughs)

Coming back to when you come in to work - I think this is important - what do you feel, as you're coming in to work?
Either immense determination that on this day I am going to do so and so and so and so, or - which is equally interesting and much more difficult - I don't know what I'm going to do today.

Are you frightened by that?
No. I think having said what I've tried to say about uncovering a symbolic world, then it is precisely in those moments, I've learned over the years that it's precisely in those moments when I don't know what to do, boredom drives one to try - oh I'm going to try that out or I'm just going to, you know I've had this lurking in the back of my mind for so long, I don't know what to do, I'm going to try that today. And just trying it out. All of a sudden there's a host of possibilities, which one might pursue for weeks or months or days, or whatever it is, either get somewhere or not get anywhere.

Do the dead ends worry you?
No I think the dead ends are really interesting. I've taken to… I used to empty the studio out and throw stuff away. I now don't. What I find is that there will be a whole series of dead ends, constantly, that a year or two down the line I'll come back to, and think why didn't I go there before - it's so obvious. So I think in a sense re-investing in one's own little moments of insight is very important. It isn't a project, is what I'm trying to say. I'm trying to say one does not set out with the idea that I've just had a great idea and now I'm going to go and carry it out. Almost all art that's made like that doesn't go anywhere.

Except when you…
Even if it appears to at first.

When you did your huge PVC and metal figure for the Tate Modern, Marsyas - I mean that was a project.
That was a project that came out of a whole lot of other projects. So I started out in fact by making, two years before, a little model out of cardboard and tights - stockings.

Oh it's over there in the corner of the studio and it's twelve inches by six inches.
Exactly, which, you know proposed the idea of some kind of quasi-architectural space with this membrane stretched across it. Now I didn't realise when I was asked to take on the Turbine Hall that that's what I'd end up doing.

And you already had that in your mind?
Yeah, and including the model on which it sits, which is a proposal for a visitors' centre for the Salvation Army of all people, down by the South Bank.

And the interesting thing about that model is that while I think one could recognisably see it as being related to Marsyas, that what you then did was the twists and the turns in the membrane - that's what makes it different.
So what we're saying in a way is that work grows out of other work, and that there are very very few eureka moments of here is a completely new, unforeseen idea. Almost, well for me anyway, all ideas grew out of other ideas.

Mm. But you also say I think that you've got to be ready when you come to work to face emptiness. Is that worse than boredom or is that just a different way of expressing it?
I think it's more resolute than boredom. Boredom is that terrible time you know after you've had your sandwich at lunchtime when all those endeavours seem fruitless, but vital, vital to live through that seeming, you know day after day of oh God what am I going to do with myself feeling. The fear of the emptiness that it implies, the fear that is have I got something else to do, have I done what I have to do, and how can I encourage myself to keep on going. I'm not an artist who has entirely in any case an agenda that's set by the work. That is to say I haven't made a decision - unlike some very great artists of course - to make work out of steel, or to make work out of geometric forms in the way of a painting or… I mean I do all sorts of things, and hopefully tie them together by some emerging content. So they may be diverse in their form, but their content I hope.

And everything you say about the continuity, that has a rather reassuring sound to it, that is that there's always something around which you may not spot immediately. But are there moments when there really is the emptiness that you described when nothing seems worth doing and you don't know what you're going to do next anyway?
Well I haven't had one of those periods for a good long while. The last time that happened to me was rather interesting. It was in the early eighties. I'd just done a show in New York, the first time I'd ever made a show in New York, and at the time all the galleries were in SoHo and every time I'd go out of the little apartment I was staying in I'd meet people on the street and they'd tell me how wonderful I was. I was probably about twenty-five years old. And do you know what, I believed every single word of it. I loved it. So much so that, okay I made this show, you know as I look back on it, it was a good show but it wasn't the best show I've ever made. It sold within the first three minutes, and I came back believing all this stuff. Came back to the studio, which was empty, there was no-one to tell me how wonderful I was, and I spent the next two and a half years making almost nothing. In a way that deep lesson of not believing the mythology, was, I'm glad it happened so early, I'm thankful it happened so early.

And how did you get out of it?
By slowly getting back into the studio and you know making some new things. It took me two and a half years, which is a long time and not a long time. A long time if one has to live it every day, but in the bigger span of things perhaps not. And so what it's taught me is that one doesn't have… that one must not believe any of those mythologies about oneself as an artist.

And you really now, I mean if you get a bad review, or somebody says oh Marsyas is sort of big and heavy and clunking, etc. etc…
Which happened.

Which happened.
(laughs)

You take that in your stride. Actually it's more difficult is when people say this is the most amazing interpretation of eternity and so on. That must have been in a way much more difficult to handle.
There are very very few reviewers that I, I'm afraid, truly take seriously. The good ones are recently with Idomeneo, which in a way is not my field, opera, opera critics.

You can't run away from that, Anish.
No, no, okay I'm not going to run away from it, but what I do want to say is this, that we had two or three great reviews, and I think they got it as wrong as… but terrible, we had four or five terrible reviews, and I think they both got it wrong. My view is that it's a, yes very interesting but flawed work, which we'll get next, which we'll get truly right next time! (laughs)

But it would be difficult though if everybody was saying the whole time, over a period of, you know, a year or so, Kapoor's run out of steam, he's repeating himself, or whatever. Now that is something which may or may not happen in the future but can you imagine how you would keep your sense of self-belief and integrity under those circumstances?
Well one doesn't know those things until they occur, but… And you know these things happen. I remember William Feaver writing about my show at the, a drawing show that I did at the Tate, and said this is the worst show the Tate's ever done. Well, that flawed me for, for a little while, and then you kind of get on with it. I sort of think of it as column inches, let's have… (laughs) Little does it matter in a way.

It's said sometimes, and I think it's always interesting when people do say this, that oh Anish Kapoor's very ambitious. Now that can say more about the person who said it than about the person about whom it is being said, but still, how ambitious are you?
I am very ambitious.

To be what?
To challenge myself. To make art that I've not made before. As I was trying to say earlier, the modern world has a huge range of formal possibilities, whether one's talking about spaces to show in, or materials to make work with. I'm ambitious to try and occupy if you like as much of that territory as I can allow myself to. So what I see this as is, it's me battling against my own limitations. The image that I've conjured here of Picasso liberating himself in order to be able to go to a fractured world or a whole world is one, is a battle that he fought with himself. At least that's the way I see it. And I think there is something about opening one's heart to the possibilities that one doesn't even truly or readily know are there - emotional possibilities as much as anything else.

What are your limitations as a sculptor?
Oh they're manifold. I don't know. I don't know. Do you know, much of the work that I've made over many years now proposes the idea that for every form there is a kind, there is a kind of counterpoint in non-form. One of the things that I see myself battling with now is not the non-form, because in a way I feel I've done some of that, but the form. So what happens when there's form and no non-form? Where can I go with that? That's a battle I need to investigate, fight, whatever.

The phrase you used about Picasso, about integration and disintegration, now it strikes me what would be really interesting is what happens when you decide to explore disintegrated forms rather than the amazingly integrated forms, or is that what you've just been edging towards?
It may well be, it may well be. It's very hard to imagine what that looks like, a fractured… We live in a fractured world. I've always seen it as my role as an artist to, to, to attempt to make wholeness. Do I have the emotional wherewithal to be able to recognise the fractured nature of the world, and take on the death that that implies, rather than the rather resolved completeness of the death that is implied if you like by my background, which understands death as part of life. There is something else.

Is it almost a rediscovery of how say cubism might apply to your work, what happens if you apply those principles?
Quite, that's what's been hanging around in the background here. Yes, yes. I, I don't know if I'll go there.

You've observed that, there are at least three stages of an artist's life - the first ten years they say, oh that's very interesting, haven't seen that before; second year they say, oh we've seen that before, it's still quite interesting; and then you come to stage three. Now presumably you are at or in or near stage three where you are having to say, what am I going to do next? Do you feel that you're in that stage or do you think you're still in stage two?
Unfair question number seventy-five here. Let's see. I think, well I'm certainly not in stage one. It's very hard from, from my perspective, from, from within the story so to speak, to know whether one is in one's mid-career or whether… I mean I expect I am in my mid-career. And I think I do feel that, yes, that there is still everything to prove. Being an artist is a very very long game. It is not a ten-year game. I hope I'll be around making art when I'm eighty, and I think the idea that, that somehow one has done what one has to do and therefore you can kind of steadily carry on - well it's not something I recognise. I feel there's everything to do yet.

So you never think I wish I'd been an engineer, and how simple life would have been?
Not at all. What a… Wow, I feel this is an immense gift. And one does afford oneself in a certain way the luxury to be able to come into the studio and all day, every day, spend one's life making aesthetic propositions. And what an immense luxury, and one that I hope I will carry on doing.

I'm sure we all do. Anish Kapoor, thank you very much.
Thank you John.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/kapoor_transcript.shtml

Cold Afternoon

2011-08-19T03:40:00.001-07:00

Could've gotten better shot but its hung up!

Chennai, Take it and go :)

2011-08-19T03:31:00.001-07:00

The Lone Soldier Trudges On

2011-08-19T03:12:00.000-07:00

Sponge and Ink Forms on Paper

2011-07-06T04:05:00.000-07:00

Balimoon Art Diaries

2011-05-22T03:37:00.001-07:00

Whether you read this post or not, do look at all the paintings. I have written about how I felt when I saw them and would love to know what YOU think.

It's amazing when you come across great art when you least expect it. So, I was jumping with joy when I found that our honeymoon hotel in Bali had a gallery and the owner had superb taste in art. The place was gorgeous, with a great mix of traditional Balinese architecture and new age facilities. It won me over with large, lovely paintings from all over Asia. The lobby area was also used to put up a black and white photography exhibition. Balinese women danced, prayed and looked divine in the photographs. The serenity of the pictures is exactly what you will experience in Bali.

Some Art From The Hotel Gallery
The gallery introduced me to many new artists but most importantly Hendra. His paintings are very expressive and yet deep. His subjects, characters are very real. Hendra's men are heroic, scruffy, long haired, travelers, vagabonds. The women are content, they take care of their children. Their wavy hair is long and unkempt. They are voluptuous with painted lips. They sell their fish.

I later found out that Hendra Gunawan was born in Bali and was a prolific artist in Indonesia. He was a guerrilla fighter, and led a turbulent life. He had two wives (who according to me keep appearing in his paintings). I love the first painting below. The women sit under a tree, relaxed, as the young daughter questions her father when he returns after a long time. Maybe she scolds him in a childlike manner for his neglect towards them. The father smiles a little sheepishly as he eats his meal. The mother is reproachful as the other wife/ woman looks on patiently. I love the way he mixes colours in organic strokes. I was taken back to the lessons on reflected color in my Applied Art school. One of his characters always looks away from us to a thought floating in the air. It was wonderful meeting you Hendra!

There were two poignant paintings from an artist I couldn't identify. I was struck again by the symbolism of the paintings- the eyes, the lips, the body language hit the right spot. This one with a sullen looking young woman overly made up possibly preparing for a performance. The two men with her engrossed in putting on a ghastly painted mask. The train seems to pass by, leaving the woman more vulnerable and lonely. The ugliness of the men almost like skeletons is stark against the youthful innocence of the girl.

The other one made me smile. I have no idea what the girl's doing to the man, but the delight she takes as he winces is amusing.

And a few more :)

Search For My Balinese Art piece
We had planned an unplanned trip. We were in serious need to unwind and relax after a very hectic week of wedding celebrations. Ubud was a perfect place for it. We hired a bike and rode into the city. It was great idea, as we got to soak in to the street life. I read this somewhere- if you earn two pennies, buy bread with one and art with the other. Art is what you really live for. Ubud was a hub for all kinds of art- sculptures, wooden furniture and what I was truly interested in- paintings. I was drooling as I saw shop after shop of painted canvasses. I had to buy a piece of art from Bali and we set out on a hunt. The first few searches were disappointing with souvenir like art which turned up at every corner. There were tonnes of cheap Picasso imitations. Paddy fields and farmers and Balinese dancers seemed to be a favorites with the tourists and artists. There was a small street occupied by such artists in the busy market which sold everything from mementos, herbs, essential oils, lamps etc. Nothing inspiring there either.

Simon's Art Zoo
I was just about to give up when I met Simon in his Art Zoo, the funkiest studio ever. His colours and style seemed to be inspired by Matisse and Andy Warhol with the vivid colours and Lithographs. Nudes of Balinese men, sculptures, pop art and a very witty artist is what you will meet at the Art Zoo. You will find Simon sunk into his hammock. You can walk around his 2 storeyed studio under his lazy yet watchful gaze. His studio makes you want to settle in Bali and do exactly as he does. Simon has lived around the world and had been living in India for a some time and you will find an interesting conversation around the corner. It was a treat to see all this but somehow I couldn't find a painting that I felt like buying.

A bike ride later, we chanced upon a newly opened art gallery. Naka Contemporary Art Gallery is run by Hellen Sjuhada.- http://www.nakacontemporaryart.com/Default.asp. We chatted about in Bali and the challenges of running an art gallery in a tourist destination. There was an upcoming charity event for The Bali Dog's Shelter and we got a sneak preview of the paintings. Hellen's bulldog looked adorable and probably in love with his beautiful master. Here, I finally found my art piece. It is a pen and paint work by a young artist, Yosep. Helen told me that he is a puppeteer and depicts his characters on the canvas. Unfortunately, I couldn't find much about him on the web. Here's where I sign off. Majja maadi :)

My art piece by Yosep ♥

Balimoon

2011-04-26T02:19:00.000-07:00

Beginning the new year with new words and new feelings

2011-01-04T01:51:00.000-08:00

How do I paint you;
The pencil falters against the rough canvas.
The lines do not flow the way you do.
No matter how much blue I load on my brush,
Your serenity eludes me.

When I lay my cheek against the canvas,
It's not as cool as you feel.
I can smell the paint and glue and not a fragrant you.
There you stand lifeless, not willing to embrace,
When I wait for you to engulf me in your warmth.

i have eyes at the back of your head :)

2010-09-15T02:30:00.000-07:00

weird creature doodles

2010-09-14T05:50:00.000-07:00

kyoorius diary :)

2010-09-14T04:43:00.000-07:00

My Newest!

2010-05-02T00:03:00.000-07:00

V.A.R.U.N

2009-12-23T01:44:00.000-08:00

V.A.R.U.N

Lollipop & Life

2009-09-18T07:10:00.001-07:00

The colours look completely different in low res.
Anyways, hope you enjoy my recent most favourite paintings.
They are called Lollipop and Life.

With Love

2009-09-14T05:21:00.000-07:00

Take a look at this wonderful website on water,

http://waterlife.nfb.ca/

2009-06-17T00:24:00.000-07:00

Hi All,

Yes I finally decided to wake my sleepy blog. This post is about my final masters project. So after much contemplation, frustration and a lot of sleepless nights, I arrived at something that would hold my attention for at least a month. Let me tell you about my project. I started with this word 'sustainability' and drowned in the data that was thrown at me by the different medias. Its so easy to go off the track with such a subject. I am glad I could hold onto a little something.

Sustainability has become a brand name and is marketed like one. This is quite contrary to the Indian culture where our practices are sustainable without actually calling them so. Its a part of our life to save, conserve, reuse, live in harmony and respect nature. There are practices which might seem incredulous to the unknowing but are amazingly sustainable.

During my research period, I was looking at all the 'designed' products that are already in the market. There was a growing realisation that all were selling or buying something. I didn't want to be a part of that. I wanted to address the thought. This thought I found was there in our culture already. Our traditional practices kept popping their head in conversations. For instance, a friend told me an interesting story. In a village of Rajasthan called Padafoli a villager quickly puts a pebble into a pile of cow dung on the road immediately after the cow has done her job. The villagers claim the cow dung cakes in this manner. This way they could come and collect it later without somebody else claiming the dung. Nothing is wasted!

Many objects that we use are either biodegradable or long lasting. Some of them might be found only in India. They are wonderfully innovative and use elements of nature in a non wasteful manner. Take the banana leaf that is used for serving food for instance or the things that are made from coconut trees. I decided to highlight such practices in my project. The aim of the project slowly took shape. It was to inspire our own people about choosing a sustainable path as well as people from other cultures and countries. The instances that I chose to highlight in the project speak of the reasons certain old practices exist. This area was also very vast so I decided to choose one natural element and center the project around it. Since its pollution and scarcity is a huge topic of concern, I chose water.

Water is an integral part of our religion and lives which leads to water conservation, protection of animals related to water and also provision of water to everybody. The project looks at reasons behind beliefs related to water. The underlying theme is to look at water as not just a resource by re-looking at our traditional religious and cultural practices with respect to sustainablity.

The chose 12 instances after much research. They were supported with folk art like illustrations. Here are 3 examples

Ganga’s Descent

Bhageerath’s great efforts resulted
in Ganga’s descent. An important event
in the Hindu mythology, Ganga changed
Indian lives forever.

She came flowing down and fertilised the
lands that were earlier dependent on
irregular rainfall. She made our lands
sujalaam sufalaam. Her life giving quality
made her a mother goddess. From then on
Ganga’s water was used in all sanskaars from
birth to marriage to death.

Bishnois, the protectors

Amrita Devi and her three daughters were killed
by the men of Maharaja Abhay Singh and then
363 more killed as they embraced the Khejarli trees.
The trees were needed for the construction of a
Maharaja’s palace. The martyrs were Bishnois.
Jambho Ji, a visionary, founded this radical religion
based on protecting nature. The Bishnois live by
twenty nine commandments, out of which one instructs
against the felling of green trees.
They protect groves, which in turn bring rains.

Shravan, the monsoons

The rains drench the earth and bring with them
the holy month of Shravan. Believers abstain from
eating meat and fish during this period. The seas are
stormy and dangerous and the fishing activities
are halted. It is also the season for fish breeding.

After the monsoons the fishermen pray to appease
the sea-god, Varun. They pray for a calm sea so that
they can resume their fishing activities safely.
The Narali Purnima is celebrated to signify the end of
monsoons and the start of a new fishing season.

Frog Marriages

In Assam, frogs are married to bring rains. This belief
comes from the fact that frogs croak before the rains.
Their croaks are compared to the chanting of hymns.
The belief protects frogs from being killed.

The frogs having lain for a year, like Brahmins practising
a vow, have uttered forth their voice roused by Parjanya

When the heavenly waters came upon him lying like a dry
leather bag in a lake, then the sound of the frog unites like
the lowing of cows accompanied by calves.

Rigveda 7.103, 1 & 2

An Awareness Creating Space
The media of communication was an exhibition.
And why an exhibition?

The form of the exhibition was also very important.
The content was was about water, worship and traditional practices.
Hence the form....

The jury was not too happy with my project. One of them found it hard to understand what I had done. All I can say is, I explored very happily, sometimes painfully. The instances have been painstakingly found and compiled and I had a great time illustrating it. Most of all, I am very careful when it comes to using water.

Check how much water your flush tank uses. Don't keep the tap on while brushing. There's lots you can do in daily life. Check the time you spend in the shower or use just one bucket of water (even when you have a head bath- girls, its possible). Ask your maids to use water sparingly while washing utensils. There are many many more things you can do in your day to day lives that can help conserve water. The government will simply stop water supply if there's a shortage. A lot of urban areas in India are already facing only an hour of water supply daily. Then people install tanks in their homes to store water. Then water is dispensed by 1-2 taps connected with these tanks. Do we need the government to impose such restrictions on us before we learn our lesson. Do let me know what you think of the project.

2009-04-07T06:56:00.000-07:00

Try this exercise. Ask this question the whole day to yourself and to everybody around you. Find the answers for yourself.

Idea!

2009-03-18T11:31:00.001-07:00

Shared Questions

2009-03-16T12:07:00.000-07:00

We had Prof. Barry Vercoe of Media Arts & Sciences, MIT Media Lab visiting us at IDC. He presented some exciting projects which had taken place at MIT Media Lab. I was thoroughly impressed with the work he presented. But one thing he said stuck with me and needled me into posting this. He was talking about the 'One Laptop Per Child' and its benefits. OLPC takes robust, wireless enabled laptops to remote areas where it is used as tool for education and play.

He mentioned that 'the reason children take quickly to the laptop because it is 'their own laptop' and 'nobody else's'. Even the parents are expected to ask their child for permission to use the laptop. The child does not have to share it with any other child. Hence there is a feeling of ownership which leads to the child taking better care of the laptop.'
I am sure this is true and this strategy works. These laptops go into remote areas where resources are scarce.

Made me think of the Kalahari bushmen in 'The Gods Must Be Crazy' who start fighting over a cola bottle that did not exist in their lives before. That raised a question in my mind. Are we incapable of taking care or responsibility for what is not only ours but what is shared? It is scary to see this feeling of ownership getting ingrained at a tender age. My project on sustainability makes me question everything around me. What happens to our earth that is mine as well as ours? Who takes responsibility for it?

Harmless Holi

2009-03-08T09:04:00.000-07:00

Dear All,

We are all informed about toxic colours and water shortage, so I will not ramble on about it.

This will be my first eco-friendly holi and I am excited about it!

Check out these links and find out where you can buy the safe colours.

I am getting some myself :)

http://delhi-ncr.metromela.com/article/Eco-+friendly+Holi+in+Delhi/2589

http://www.rcdabolim.org/2009/non-toxic-and-eco-friendly-holi-natural-holi-colours/http://www.rcdabolim.org/2009/non-toxic-and-eco-friendly-holi-natural-holi-colours/

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Pune/Eco-friendly-colours-for-Holi/articleshow/4220708.cms

Holi enthusiasts can make the colours themselves.

Yellow: Mix turmeric (haldi) powder with chick pea flour (besan) /
Boil Marigold or Tesu flowers in water
Yellow liquid color: Soak peels of pomegranate (Anar) overnight.
Deep Pink: Slice a beetroot and soak in water
Orange - red paste: Henna leaves (mehendi) can be dried,

powdered and mixed with water.

Enjoy :)

Sustainabilty at Jawhar

2009-02-08T12:40:00.000-08:00

One of earlier posts talks about the village I visited during my mask research project. I spent a week living in the mask maker's house in Jawhar. When I planned the visit, I did not look for accommodation. Had to observe the mask making process and also the way this family lived. This was my first attempt at ethnography. I hadn't bothered to even check about the basic amenities. The word 'amenities' sounds funny when I look back. I reached the village with my driver, who from then on became an ally to the male dominated household of the
mask maker.

The wife got me water and asked if I wanted to use the loo. She took me to the backyard where there was a construction made with gunny sacks and wooden poles. One could have a bath and take a leak there.
The water would just seep into the ground. I was getting a little worried now. What about the longer job? Well, we just go uphill she said.
Now I was really unnerved. But hey, that wasn't important.

That's what Im talking bout!

They asked me to sit down and have lunch. The meal was cooked on a fire by burning wood. She served me nachani bhakaris (traditional Maharashtrian multi-grained bread) and potatao gravy. The children ate with me. My stomach which was not used to eating bhakaris got full pretty soon and there came a point when there was a lot left in my plate and couldn't eat another bite. The wife kept looking at my plate knowing that the food was about to be wasted. So I requested her to join me and eat from the same plate. To my relief she agreed and joined me.

Over the days my stomach kept revolting at the different food and water. Mostly, I was the one who wasted little things like pickle or a few pieces of the vegeatble and it was promptly picked up from my plate and finished. This happened a couple of times before I thought carefully before loading my plate. What I took for granted, made a big difference to them. After the meal, I washed my hands with water from a
steel vessel. I noticed that the dishes were washed with water stored in earthen ware. There were no leftovers and each one of them had wiped the dish clean. So these dishes were soaked in water for a while and the water was then thrown into the plants in the backyard. All this while, I remembered my tap at home with gushing water.

Later on I realised that there was no flour to make chapatis since the ration hadn't come for the month. So we planned to go to the grocery shop and get some essentials in the evening. I chatted with the mask maker in the day and went and got the neccesary. In the evening I realised the only things that consumed electricity were two bulbs and an extra plug point. As the sun set, a couple of children gathered at the mask maker's place. I was observing from a distance as the they settled down and the mask maker got out the dholak. He started singing an abhanga in his high pitched voice as the children repeated after him. They probably did not know what they were singing but as I sat outside at the steps, looking at the stars, the effect was very humbling. Here I was in a place which was so far removed from my everyday comfortable existence, and I had a great sense of uselessness.

The next day morning, I woke up thinking that I had to go uphill. But thankfully, the wife took me to the only constructed toilet in the area, the sarpanch's (village head) toilet! She was kind enough to carry a ghagar full of water for me all the way to the house. I was chuckling to myself as the kids and women watched intently as the newcomer was being led to the toilet. It was even more hilarious as the lady in the house invited me in warmly and asked me to come back everyday.

This trip was rich with experiences that I could have never had in a city like mine. It was shocking and unbelievable for me how this world existed right beside a city like Mumbai. I had taken a sleepin bag and some food, toileteries and a few clothe, but my luggage seemed to occupy so much of their otherwise bare space. Must admit that I wanted to run back to my room, but I will go back better equipped and prepared next time.

A Poem by me!

2009-01-31T03:35:00.000-08:00

Sleep
I am in deep slumber
And you yank me out of it.
Everytime.
But I just slept you wicked cruel Jinn.
I just slept.
I was just about to dream my sweet dreams.
When you poked me and yelled at me.
I woke with a start.
My eyes wide and burning.
You just laughed.
How cruel, you wicked Jinn.
I had just slept.
Now you tie me with a rope and drag me with you.
My head spins, my walk is slow.
I wonder whether you haven't slept a sweet sleep ever.
A sleep that goes on and on till you want it to.
Haven't you had that sleep Jinn?
I know you haven't.
Your eyes are burning too.

Experiment 1

2009-01-26T10:29:00.000-08:00

Concept for an installation made with plastic bottles

It all started with this drawing I think. A few days later Techfest happened. At 11.30 on 24th Jan, I had a sudden brainwave. Lets collect all the plastic bottles strewn all over IIT! Techfest brought in hordes of students to our lovely IIT campus. All of them thirsty and of course all the packaged colas and drinking water were easily available. This had the whole of IITB looking like a garbage bin. Now this was a last minute unplanned decision and if it weren't for Soumya, Polly, Dhuri, Divya and Nisu, I would have dropped the plan completely. Within no time large cardboard boxes were found and the collection drive started. Believe me, we were covering only the Open Air Theatre and within 10minutes our large boxes were full. Got them to IDC. We were all brainstorming on a installation. At IDC our seniors joined in.

IDC's Sweethearts

After that, all the work happened it true IDC spirit. My idea was to show volume through the installation. We thought of a couple of ideas. First was a structure with four walls where people passing by would throw in more empty bottles. But the bottles were falling short.

A walk through a spiraling chain

Cubicle structure to throw in bottles

We thought of some fancier ideas also but decided that we did not want a beautiful installation. Also, time was extremely short. The installation had to go up in the morning as it was the last day at Techfest. IIT gets such a large number of crowds only at fests. Lets string them together, we thought. This chain would form a long path and would give the feeling of endlessness. There were more than 350 bottles. The best way was to pass an aluminum wire through all of them.

Nisu aka Bongo got the drilling machine and then it looked like an assembly line. He was drilling through the bottles and Juny keeping the flow of bottles steady. Polly and Biju held the wire roll as me, Som, Divya, Manoj strung the bottles. Many of these bottles were filled with leftover sticky sweet drinks and it was quite gross at times. We were super fast but by the time t'was over, it was 3.30 and everybody was exhausted. We went back to our hostels to sleep. I was very excited in the morning. I thought of a message to go with the installation and came up with a few variations. Took printouts, Polly filled a couple of pet bottles with mud and inserted the printed flags into them.

The most fun part was to drag the chain of bottles from IDC. Just as I was about to set out on this task, Pushki came down from Pune. So we were off with the bottles dragging behind us :). We grabbed a lot of attention as a long queue of students gaped and passed comments. We had to pass through the queue to get to the LT lawn installation was to be displayed. As we set these bottles down, we realised that we had to slightly change our strategy and give a little structure and shape to the chain.

The area of the lawn would have made the line look a lot smaller. So it was a last minute decision to bring a chair and hang the chains from it. Here Chetan's chair with large nails on the seat (an installation) came in handy. The chains were like rays forming a semicircular structure. The flags with the message were at different ends. The installation was a real crowd puller and we soaked in the attention it was getting. But soon I realised that the message was too subtle for the crowd. Some thought it was some event or competition to collect the maximum number of bottles. So we decided to put another message on the chair- 'The World is Choking'.

Message:
10 mins, 7 students, 350 bottles (outside bins),
collected from SAC, 25th Jan

The whole day people came and saw the installation and read the message. A lot of them posed with the installation and clicked pictures. The sweetest thing was when two kids came with a few empty bottles in hand and handed it over to Polly. There were many kids around the installation since it was on a lawn and we overheard them asking their parents a lot of questions. The reactions were quite interesting. One parent explained the meaning of the installation and then asked the child whether he would litter when he grows up and the child said no. Another child said the world would be beautiful and neat without plastic :)

It was a quick job and that showed. Yet the reactions and the excitement it generated was amazing. I could call this an attempt or a scratch installation. Just got to know what draws crowds and this learning is essential when one wants to get a message across.

2009-01-18T02:36:00.000-08:00

Starting with buying this bag, I am all set to save the earth. Its a terrifying thought you know, saving the world. Seems like such a humongous task. So many obstacles and so many cynics. When I start with one thing, ten new problems crop up. Everything is inter-related. How do I deal with these inter-relationships?

Saving the earth has everything to do with moving your arse and actually doing something. Can't be lazy. I did something non lazy once when I was a part of a student run NGO. We rescued a couple of Ganesha idols all set to pollute the Mula Mutha river in Pune. The POP idols were sent back to idol makers for them to repaint and resell. Before the Ganesh festival we also painted and touched up a few of these idols.

Well, this was when I knew nothing of 'Design'. Now I am a Visual Communicator and know the power it holds. So how will I go about saving earth with my new found knowledge? Now that is a serious question and I am working on it. I live in a heaven in Mumbai called IIT. Here people are well informed and fairly conscious about the environment. The campus is very green and shady, though there has been a ot of cutting down of trees recently. So I held a brainstorming session with my fellow students with four questions.

1. What do you do in your daily lives that is Eco- friendly?
2. What would you like to do if you had a amazing will power and the inclination?
3. What changes will you make in IITB to make it more Eco-friendly?
4. Think of the craziest thing that will save the earth or make our living Eco-friendly.

The answers to the fourth one are very interesting and I promise to post them tomorrow. Lets see how this goes. Please feel free to contribute your ideas about saving the earth. This project is very important to me.

Sorry about the late posting. Had gone into hibernation for a while.
So here's the crazy ideas that came up in the brainstorming session.

1. Go back in time and live primitively
(I have a strong feeling that this will happen)
2. Farm your own food (some people already do that)
3. Live in a tree (that would be nice)
4. Learn to fly (no traffic pollution, i don't know about traffic
jams though
5. Settle on another planet (and screw it up too)
6. Operate on people to breathe out oxygen (now that's a crazy one)
7. Start a new religion which makes you do Eco-friendly things
in the name of God
8. Earth where gravity does not apply on non Eco-friendly things.

Man without Masks

2009-01-16T01:49:00.000-08:00

This picture was taken in the village of Jawhar. Jawhar celebrates Bohada (Jagdamba Devi festival) during the month of June. The masks are of gods, goddesses, demons, local deities and other objects of worship. Each family in the village is given one mask to worship and wear during the festival. The festival is a fast disappearing event due to alcoholism and miscreants. The village is extremely poor and the people equally warm. All the people in this small inhabitation came to see me with their masks or rather, without them.

Read this book

2009-01-09T05:25:00.000-08:00

Aidssutra

Must admit that I was drawn to the book due to the names. A power packed book with sixteen established contemporary Indian authors writing about the HIV infected population in India. Some of the essays are heart breaking. Especially that of Sonia Falerio about the male sex workers in Mumbai who are relentlessly and inhumanly tormented by the police. The details are graphic and left me deeply shaken. There are some which don't go the gruesome lane also. Particularly loved a poem by Vikram Seth. The last verse goes like this

'Stay by my steel ward bed
And hold me where I lie.
Love me when I am dead
And do not let me die.'

The writings are extremely powerful with staggering statistics. If not anything else it is certain to change a few conservative minds on the topic of transgenders, male sex workers and gays. An essay by Rushdie speaks about the presence of transgenders in ancient sculptures and questions their outcasting by the society.

The book is about marginalised groups which are further marginalised due to the disease. The truth is shoved in your face and it leaves you shaken and changed. I interacted with HIV infected children at their shelter and I realised that all they wanted was to be hugged, cuddled and loved. The least we an do is be human.

I have a mind that flies

2008-12-27T01:50:00.000-08:00

Transformation

2008-12-27T01:33:00.000-08:00

A transformation of a rabbit to a Devnagri letterform done in the first semester in IDC. Its interesting to see what comes out of connecting two completely unrelated forms.

Random Thoughts

2008-11-02T01:11:00.000-07:00

After holding a calligraphy workshop for a crowd of almost 200 IITians, some interesting thoughts came to me. I have learned calligraphy under Achyut Palav and I love his spontaneous style.
One is left spellbound by his seemingly effortless way of producing one beautiful stroke after the other. He has been a huge influence for
me and a lot of my initial calligraphic work reflects that. So, I tried breaking away from that style of calligraphy. I came up with a little more cautious and 'thought out' type of work.