Cross roads

Its been 2 months now since I entered the blogging world and I must say, I am thoroughly enjoying myself :-) ! Addicted to posting and checking others blogs - do a daily round -up of a bunch of blogs for updates and have great thrill in doing this sneakily at office hours :)) Ok, all those from Goldman here, please put your hands up NOW!

The blog in the meantime seems to have taken a life of its own. Yet another lesson in the futility of grandiose mission statements :-) Didn't plan for this to be an "arty farty blog" of sorts when I started, promise! However, here I am, caught in a loop of actively painting every free minute and excitedly posting thereafter. The original intention of starting the blog has however gotten lost in the midst of my little colorful world. Separately, over the past few weeks, inkognito's identity has been revealed: partly self inflicted and partly unintended.

So, have decide to split paths now. Henceforth, this blog will be a focused play ie only about the paintings, in an attempt to avoid clutter with the travelogue, poetry, opinions, other random blogs and also to hopefully keep this side alive. I am starting a new blog to keep the journey going.......new blog to be under the cover of anonymity again, yes, plain cowardice at one level and too much familiarity of the space interfering with a feeling of being free at another....

Muchos gracias to all my lovely visitors here for all the wonderful encouraging comments....truly kept me going.

Tra la la......here's to a new road...a new song....

Boulders

Twilight

Its that time of the day I am not the most fond of and have tried to paint the way I feel at this time: mostly gloomy, a sense of endings and the lowest ebb of energy and exuberance. I am very much a night person, I love the mystery, the blankness, the limitless possibilities of the dark.

Still life #3 (Pomegranates)

Suprabhatam (Auspicious Dawn)

MS Subhalakshmi's melodious voice was ringing in my ears when I painted this.....

Still life #2 (Pineapple)

Didn't use brushes for this still life ...only a knife...loved the rough texture of the pineapple skin.

View from the parachute

..from a parasailing attempt! This is the view while almost landing..its pretty much the vast expanse of the sea beneath and a faint pair of hands waving :)

Still life #1 (Two pots and a candlestand)

A still life of 2 pots and a candle stand on an Ikea table in my house.....

Moonlight

My most romantic memories...lying by the sea under the moonlight, listening to the sound of the waves....

Here's an attempt to relive the magic of those moments of the night......the long midnight walks..the endless chatter..the deep silences....the voices in the dark..

Here's to old times. To precious times.

Peasant girl with basket...

An older one...done during idyllic days on IIMA campus...

yay!

After 3 months of inactivity, finally managed to start painting again :))

Now normally, each painting takes about a couple of months for me to complete.....redoing parts a zillion times until almost satisfied (have hardly ever reached a fully satisfied stage for any painting, except perhaps one). Have decided from now on to attempt a new style : rough cut, semi finished versions but done very quickly, leaving detail aside.

Heres the first one of the series :)) : a bouquet of white and pink pretty roses that caught my attention on the way home ..............done in an hour..yipee!! :))

Leda and the Swan

The first painting by Cy Twombly (displayed in the MoMa, NY) was the beginning of my fascination with abstract art. Leda and the Swan was a common theme with many Renaissance and Baroque artists, however I had not seen one in abstract art before. Just as a contrast, I have put up another version from renaissance, a copy of a Leonardo painting (the orginal, unfortunately did not survive).

I felt the sentiment in Twombly's work was more close to Yeats' rather daring take of the Greek mythology in his controversial poem below. I loved the way in which Twombly has expressed this. Simple lines, complete absence of form, yet so full of raw emotions .................helplessness, pain, roughness, devastation......

Leda and the Swan
-W.B. Yeats

Sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By his dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
How can anybody, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
A shudder in the loins, engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

Sunstone

This is one of the most powerful poems I have read, recommended by Dad, a post modernist poet and editor (sadly none of those genes got passed on :-( ).

To the inevitable loneliness of human beings and yet, the constant search for union with others ............... here's my favorite translation of Piedra de Sol (Sunstone) by Nobel laureate for literature, Mexican poet Octavio Paz.

Sun Stone

willow of crystal, a poplar of water,
a pillar of fountain by the wind drawn over,
tree that is firmly rooted and that dances,
turning course of a river that goes curving,
advances and retreats, goes roundabout,
arriving forever:
the calm course of a star
or the spring, appearing without urgency,
water behind a stillness of closed eyelids
flowing all night and pouring out prophecies,
a single presence in the procession of waves
wave over wave until all is overlapped,
in a green sovereignty without decline
a bright hallucination of many wings
when they all open at the height of the sky,

course of a journey among the densities
of the days of the future and the fateful
brilliance of misery shining like a bird
that petrifies the forest with its singing
and the annunciations of happiness
among the branches which go disappearing,
hours of light even now pecked away by the birds,
omens which even now fly out of my hand,

an actual presence like a burst of singing,
like the song of the wind in a burning building,
a long look holding the whole world suspended,
the world with all its seas and all its mountains,
body of light as it is filtered through agate,
the thighs of light, the belly of light, the bays,
the solar rock and the cloud-colored body,
color of day that goes racing and leaping,
the hour glitters and assumes its body,
now the world stands, visible through your body,
and is transparent through your transparency,

I go a journey in galleries of sound,
I flow among the resonant presences
going, a blind man passing transparencies,
one mirror cancels me, I rise from another,
forest whose trees are the pillars of magic,
under the arches of light I go among
the corridors of a dissolving autumn,

I go among your body as among the world,
your belly the sunlit center of the city,
your breasts two churches where are celebrated
the great parallel mysteries of the blood,
the looks of my eyes cover you like ivy,
you are a city by the sea assaulted,
you are a rampart by the light divided
into two halves, distinct, color of peaches,
and you are saltiness, you are rocks and birds
beneath the edict of concentrated noon

and dressed in the coloring of my desires
you go as naked as my thoughts go naked,
I go among your eyes as I swim water,
the tigers come to these eyes to drink their dreams,
the hummingbird is burning among these flames,
I go upon your forehead as on the moon,
like cloud I go among your imagining
journey your belly as I journey your dream,

your loins are harvest, a field of waves and singing,
your loins are crystal and your loins are water,
your lips, your hair, the looks you give me, they
all night shower down like rain, and all day long
you open up my breast with your fingers of water,
you close my eyelids with your mouth of water,
raining upon my bones, and in my breast
the roots of water drive deep a liquid tree,

I travel through your waist as through a river,
I voyage your body as through a grove going,
as by a footpath going up a mountain
and suddenly coming upon a steep ravine
I go the straitened way of your keen thoughts
break through to daylight upon your white forehead
and there my spirit flings itself down, is shattered
now I collect my fragments one by one
and go on, bodiless, searching, in the dark....

you take on the likeness of a tree, a cloud,
you are all birds and now you are a star,
now you resemble the sharp edge of a sword
and now the executioner's bowl of blood,
the encroaching ivy that over grows and then
roots out the soul and divides it from itself,

writing of fire on the slab of jade,
the cleft in the rock, serpent-goddess and queen,
pillar of cloud, and fountain struck from the stone,
the nest of eagles, the circle of the moon,
the seed of anise, mortal and smallest thorn
that has the power to give immortal pain,
shepherd of valleys underneath the sea
and guardian of the valley of the dead,
liana that hangs at the pitch of vertigo,
climber and bindweed and the venomous plant,
flower of resurrection and grape of life,
lady of the flute and of the lightning-flash,
terrace of jasmine, and salt rubbed in the wound,
a branch of roses for the man shot down,
snowstorm in August, moon of the harrowing,
the writing of the sea cut in basalt,
the writing of the wind upon the desert,
testament of the sun, pomegranate, wheat-ear....

life and death
are reconciled in thee, lady of midnight,
tower of clarity, empress of daybreak,
moon virgin, mother of all mother liquids,
body and flesh of the world, the house of death,
I have been endlessly falling since my birth,
I fall in my own self, never touch my depth,
gather me in your eyes, at last bring together
my scattered dust, make peace among my ashes,
bind the dismemberment of my bones, and breathe
upon my being, bring me to earth in your earth,
your silence of peace to the intellectual act
against itself aroused;
open now your hand
lady of the seeds of life, seeds that are days,
day is an immortality, it rises, it grows,
is done with being born and never is done,
every day is a birth, and every daybreak
another birthplace and I am the break of day,
we all dawn on the day, the sun dawns and
daybreak is the face of the sun....

gate of our being, awaken me, bring dawn,
grant that I see the face of the living day,
grant that I see the face of this live night,
everything speaks now, everything is transformed,
O arch of blood, bridge of our pulse beating,
carry me through to the far side of this night....

gateway of being: open your being, awaken,
learn then to be, begin to carve your face,
develop your elements, and keep your vision
keen to look at my face, as I at yours,
keen to look full at life right through to death,
faces of sea, of bread, of rock, of fountain,
the spring of origin which will dissolve our faces
in the nameless face, existence without face
the inexpressible presence of presences...

I want to go on, to go beyond; I cannot;
the moment scatters itself in many things,
I have slept the dreams of the stone that never dreams
and deep among the dreams of years like stones
have heard the singing of my imprisoned blood,
with a premonition of light the sea sang,
and one by one the barriers give way,
all of the gates have fallen to decay,
the sun has forced an entrance through my forehead,
has opened my eyelids at last that were kept closed,
unfastened my being of its swaddling clothes,
has rooted me out of my self, and separated
me from my animal sleep centuries of stone
and the magic of reflections resurrects
willow of crystal, a poplar of water,
a pillar of fountain by the wind drawn over,
tree that is firmly rooted and that dances,
turning course of a river that goes curving,
advances and retreats, goes roundabout,
arriving forever:

- Octavio Paz

Wah! Wah! Wales!

So last weekend, I decided to explore a bit of the western part of the UK countryside, and the obvious stop was Wales. Now, apart from a few cities (Cardiff, the capital and Swansea, the next biggest and more beautiful city; and by city I mean a small little town), most of Wales is one big country …big beautiful mountains running along the western coastline of UK. Lots of places where one could do ten or fifteen day walks, treks or just cycle. A quick peruse of the UK lonely planet guide revealed that most places are inaccessible by public transport and the best way to explore was to drive down and then walk/ trek/ cycle. Gaah! Made mental note to buy car and more importantly to learn to drive properly and get a UK license (and most definitely not in the super fraud manner in which Indian driving license was obtained!). Until then, choices were restricted to the following:
· Pembrokeshire Coast along South West Wales
· Snowdonia in North West Wales
· Breacon Becons in South West Wales
· Swansea and Gower Peninsula, also in South Wales

All of the above have the lovely combination of long stretches of huge green beautiful mountains rushing out into the endless coastline. Lonely planet recommended a minimum stay of a week for the first 3 places, especially Pembrokeshire and Snowdonia; where the most satisfying journeys are apparently the ten to fifteen day walks along the coasts through the mountains. Given the limited time at disposal of a weekend, I decided to head to Swansea, Neath and the Gower Peninsula and do the other parts later.

There is a wonderful excitement in traveling alone: a sense of true adventure combined with niggling safety related fears. Many times, one has very interesting conversations with the most unexpected people. Most people are extremely warm and friendly and go out of their way to help . I have had complete strangers walk with me for good distances to help figure out very obvious places. (Don’t even get into my brilliant sense of direction! Between absent-mindedness and complete inability to distinguish north from south, it’s a mighty lost cause. It is only through His mercy and my parents’ fervent prayers that I haven’t walked into a volcano or some such. An ex from my early growing up years, once completely exasperated in trying to figure out our way to my house tried to explain it all: it’s very simple, you just have to fix one direction, and then use your hands to figure out the rest. Hullo, how does one go about figuring the first one?!) Hence, there is a great sense of accomplishment, when one has sorted out (at least parts of) the transport links, street maps etc :)

Googling in the midst of office related panic threw up Neath as a good place to stay, so decided to spend the night at Neath and then do day trips to Swansea and Gower Peninsula. Definitely wasn’t the best choice of a place, reached Swansea to see beautiful hotels right there in front of the sea.

Swansea is a pretty little city, the whole town revolves around a high street shopping arena. The rest of it is really one long coastline, along a road very aptly named “the Mumbles”. The Mumbles has the coast on one side and little green hills on the other. A walk from the Mumbles along the coast for another fifteen miles leads to the Three Cliffs Bay in Gower Peninsula, a stretch of dramatic rock combinations rushing into the sea. Truly beautiful!

A very strange and unsettling experience was a surprise brush with a mallu family! Here I was, right in the middle of nowhere, walking through one of the quaint villages, blissfully enjoying my anonymity and suddenly I hear this very familiar accent....A whole mallu clan right from the heartland of Kerala who were visiting their daughter working as a nurse in one of the Swansea hospitals and her husband. Unsettling because of a sense of discomfort in the midst of the peace and tranquility. Questions on identity refused to leave my mind for a good sometime afterwards (and form the topic of the next post).

The houses in Swansea and Neath are done in cool pastel shades…rows and rows of pretty little homes done in pastel light greens, blues, creams, pinks…just like the ones R and I used to draw with chalk colors in our A4 TK paper filled drawing books back in school. The other interesting observation was the mind-boggling variety of plants, flowers and trees at every little nook and corner of the city. Trees with exotically shaped leaves, bright flowers adding color to the overall paleness of the town…. summer is truly the best time to visit here.

Traditional Welsh food, like the rest of European food is largely meat based including a whole variety of steaks and also the fish and chips routine. Experimented with Cawl, a country soup made of meat and veggies cooked together in a large couldron and the laver bread (a South Wales Swansea speciality). But attempts to turn vegetarian restricted remaining food choices to the conventional.

Day 2 was a complete wash out (literally) as I learnt a not so cool bit about Wales: the very unpredictable nature of the weather. Apparently the rains are most unpredictable and even during summer, it showers incessantly. Next time, will make sure to check forecasts before attempting another journey. Anyways, was dying to finish a Marquez, so happily hopped into the next train back home.

Overall, it was the beginning of a new adventure into the beautiful UK countryside. Have planned to go next weekend to either Breacon Beacons or Snowdonia, even if it means its a quick snapshot.

When in Rome............

Some pictures of the Colosseum and the view from St Peter's Basilica when I visited Rome a couple of months back with S and R.

St Peter’s Basilica is one of the largest churches in the world. It stands at one corner of a large square (piazza) and it is from here that the Pope addresses a congregation every other week. Inside the basilica, the sheer scale of art is overwhelming. Massive, intricate sculptures and paintings adorn every inch of available space on the walls and ceilings. A little prayer hall is located at one corner of the basilica. As one enters the prayer hall, one is gripped by a powerful energy, a deep silence, an absolute blankness of the mind and heart. I could not contain myself and completely broke down…an exquisite experience and to me, the most special part of my trip to Rome.

Rome has a very old city feel to it, full of monuments and sculptures leaping out of every little piazza when one is least expecting it. My favorite is the Fontana di Trevi, which we ended up visiting twice, once in daylight and then again at night. It is the most spectacular sight at night - gleaming white sculptures set off against the blackish blue water. What is it about water and me!??! I am irresistibly drawn to it in all its various forms - rivers, the sea, rain, even the water flowing of a glass wall in my office in a not-so-successful attempt to create a river like effect! Perhaps it is the continuous movement or rather it's undercurrent that is engaging, almost as if to mock the insignificance of man and our limited thoughts. But at other times, I look for the stillness to calm, soothe. I guess I am just a water person and should leave it at that. Like some others I know who love the mountains, some who have a great affinity for snow, some the sand, some green fields. I have often wondered why this is the case - what makes different individuals drawn to different elements - is it simply the memories of a past experience or is it some strain of ingrained personality reaching out?

An evening I really enjoyed was at the Piazza Novona. It is a huge square filled with three magnificent sets of sculptures with fountains and surrounded by little restaurants all around. Inside the piazza, there are rows of artists selling their collections mostly on the Roman architecture. I bought paintings of the Trevi in water and almost bought another in oil. The one in oil was really expensive and done with sharp powerful strokes and thick coats of paint - had a strange urge to bite the paint off the canvas...kaaachhhhhh. Also, it smelt amazing. I love the smell of paint, especially oil paint and everything that goes into the making of an oil - painting - the turpentine, linseed oil, kerosene - it’s a heady mix. Its one of my quirks :-) (the other one being buying stationery. I have the most orgasmic expressions inside a stationery store :-) Hmm ...new idea just occurred - should start a stationery retail chain someday and be in permanent orgasmic state!)

Rome truly is a center for art; one can feel the renaissance all over in the air. Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Raphael, they are omnipresent. In fact, the Vatican museum has some lovely collections of Raphael. The professional artists in Rome receive a tremendous amount of patronage. Made my heart ache for all our wonderfully talented artists back home, languishing for lack of sponsors. Made a mental scribble of another item on To Do when back home - market making for Indian not so established painters.

An interesting observation was the food - the pizzas in Italy are made of an extremely thin base and eaten as one whole dish, quite a difference from the regular fare offered by the western fast food chains.

Italy has so much to offer - art, food, fashion, spectacular natural beauty, the pope, football, above all, the most wonderful, fun loving people…..a country truly rich in culture. Hope to visit Venice, Florence and Pisa during the next trip.

Addendum

This is a post I have been wanting to write since I started this blog, perhaps it should have formed a part of my first post, but staying true to randomness of things, here goes…

As with many blogs, this blog is largely cathartic. It is an anonymous blog; it just felt right this way, almost as if it were my own private little world, far away from the insanity I conduct myself within on a regular day. I wanted to seclude myself here from everyday reality, fill it with my thoughts, things/ experiences that have given me lasting joy …yet, hoping alongside that somewhere serendipitously some unknown lone wanderer might drift past through happenstance and this space would strike a chord.

I wanted to run away from the ‘gang’, my own wonderful people who I have lived such a large part of life with, who have seen me through the various tides, hoping that I stayed afloat, cheering when I did….people who sung my songs, cried my tears, fought my battles, prayed to my Gods…. people who now watch silently, concerned, as I drift through, resolving yet one more of those turbulent times…people so near, yet so far.

I wanted to run away from anything that sounded remotely like investment banking, MBA, business, money, trading, startup, blah … to keep this place sacred :)

It has been truly exciting so far, I am glad I started this. It’s a different kind of excitement to throw random thoughts into a vast blank space….something about the vastness of the space is comforting in itself, yet not knowing who it might reach and not giving up hope that it might is even more rousing………on that note, post for the week (based on last weekend’s travel to Swansea in Wales) coming up soon....