The phone call

She sits beside the dead phone. Not actually dead though. She knows when she puts the receiver to her ear its heartbeat comes alive. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. A dead kind of heartbeat. Like a shiver. A beat without the pound. Of blood pumping. Gushing. She puts the receiver back down. Gently. It turns back into a dead toad. A dead plastic amphibian. Its heart smothered inside a hard plastic stone. The silence. Curling through its coiling wire. Emerging out from its squatting behind. Streaking across the wall. Through the hole drilled on top of the door. Escaping out of her reach. Out of her sight. How long she’s been sitting there. By the dead phone. She doesn’t know. She’s lost track of time. Time that trickles. In little dribbles of droplets. From the leaking tap. She must call the plumber. She tells herself again. The washer must be replaced. The drip drip drip falls like hammer blows in her head. She tries to gag it with a piece of rag. But it soon soaks through. And begins again. Drip drip drip. The silence. The stillness. The deadness. And the drip drip drip. She reaches again. For the grey receiver. It’s dead plastic skin stings her. She withdraws her hand. Sharply. The morning crawls. On hands and knees. The sky gapes through the window. The trees wait. Unmoving. The crows and mynahs and pigeons are busy in the branches. Squawking.  Cawing. Quarreling. Grumbling. Flapping and flying. Back and forth. Fetching twigs and bits of rags. Building their nests. The female heavy with unborn eggs. Her hand reaches once again. For the phone. She puts it to her ear again. Ignoring its dead brrrrrrrrr. She begins tapping. The number slowly. The number. Branded on her skin. With the hot iron of remembering. 6..8..7… The phone waits. For her to finish the number. Uninquiring. Almost amused. At her diffidence. At her cloying timidity. Listening to her pulse. Beating back in dull thuds. Waiting. Without interest. For her to finish the number. For it to make the connection. Her finger hovers. Over the next number…3… And falters. Time ticks. A brief second. Lasting an age. The phone gives up. Intoning impatiently…beep..beep..beep… In her ear. She drops it. Startled by the bite of the plastic beast. She stares at it. It stares back. A frog waiting for a fly. To pass by. To swoop its sticky tongue out. Snatch it. And crunch it into digestive juice. She is mesmerized. Without volition. She touches its clammy skin again. She puts it again to her ear. And taps. Quickly. Without pausing. Without hesitating. The full number right through all its digits. The plastic beast makes the connection. She hears the brr..brr..brr..brr… At the other end. The pulse at the base of her neck. Throbbing. Time hangs like a snake in the branches. Waiting for the kill. Then she hears it. The phone being picked up. At the other end. Hello.. Says the plastic beast. She holds her breath. She clamps the beast’s mouth with her free hand. Her pulse beats. Hello… It says again. With an electronic voice. And again… Hello..Who is this?… It demands in her ear. Then one last time…Hello-o-o! Then click…. The plastic beast goes dead in her ear.

-by Rita Putatunda

The Night Was Filled With Screams And Blood

The topmost one is of course Edvard Munch's famous painting The Scream.. the second one is my take, or version, of it. And I'll tell you why I did it. First of all, one learns enormously, not only about painting techniques, but also of art history, when one tries to paint the paintings of great artists.. but apart from that, there is another reason why I needed to paint this one.. do read on...

"I was walking down the road with two friends when the sun set; suddenly, the sky turned as red as blood. I stopped and leaned against the fence, feeling unspeakably tired. Tongues of fire and blood stretched over the bluish black fjord. My friends went on walking, while I lagged behind, shivering with fear. Then I heard the enormous infinite scream of nature." That's what Edvard Munch wrote in his diary about his painting The Scream.

While many people, art experts, have attributed it largely to Evard Munch's struggle with not only his own insanity, but also that of his sister's, who was in fact hospitalized when Munch painted it, in 1893, I really dislike reducing a great art work like this, and a great artist, such as Munch and Van Gogh, to merely symptoms of insanity. If you have felt that inexplicable anxiety that sometimes strikes one out of nowhere, if you have ever felt the pangs of existentialism, or even the pain of a heart break... you will understand what Munch has tried to express in his The Scream.. and his own note, quoted above, explains it the best.

Now, coming to my version, of Edvard Munch's The Scream - mine is named The Night Was Filled With Screams And Blood  - yes, it's a long name and I'll explain why. When news of Nirbhaya broke - the mindless brutality of the rape, and later her death, just benumbed me. Every time I tried to visualise what she must have undergone, the only image that would swim across my mind's eye was Edvard Munch's painting The Scream. As I thought about it more, I conjured up this imagery that I have painted.

The screaming woman in my painting is Nirbhaya, yes, but she is more.. she is also all those other women who have been raped..and are being raped or brutalised or being treated badly even as I write this. She is also all of us women who live and survive in a patriarchal system that belittles us, objectifies us, treats us as inconsequential - from our religious teachings to retrograde social mores to popular depictions of us in cinema and other media. My painting is a scream of protest and a statement that says "enough".. "stop"... "change". And, yes, it is a feminist statement.

As for the bus - it's the bus in which Nirbhaya was trapped and brutalised - I've personified it by giving it a face - a rapist's face. At first, when I began ideating about it, I had thought of making it a monster face. But, it turned into this terrifying clown. And I decided it was actually more apt than the face of a monster. Nirbhaya's rapists.. and probably other rapists too.. were out to have an evening of fun.. their "fun" was what happened to Nirbhaya.

Nirbhaya's hair in my painting becoming a part of the blood streaked sky symbolizes the depressing fact that no God.. nobody.. came to her rescue. And yet, she probably prayed devoutly to some God. The four bare, gaunt trees depict antediluvian social attitudes and thinking about gender, especially the female gender. The new grass and the flowering tree on the other side depict new thought, new ways, new beginnings, change in mindset, and so on.

Well, I've decided to post the semi-abstract floral, after all... Though I really prefer my fully abstract one. I just let my subconscious take over, so it's quite fascinating what I've come up with.. I hate revealing the imagery, or the source of the imagery, that was foremost in my mind, because I think then the mystery is lost to the viewer.. and I like to keep the mystery.. In any case, I think abstract art is fertile with various interpretations, even for the artist who creates it. Though I did have an object in mind, it has taken on a life of itself and has become a vague representation of it. So, while the original object does not evoke any special feelings in me, the painting, which is based on it, certainly does. Every time I look at it, I try to fathom it.. which is a lovely feeling. I think, as it usually is, this too needs a big canvas. Abstracts, more than any other type of painting, except I suppose landscapes, are the best on big canvases.

As for the floral, I like the depth I've managed to create..also the colours.. I think this one too will look great on a big canvas..

implacable stillness

but the rains

that sprayed verdant beads

have left marks -

dried furrows gouged

in once green fields – now arid

where dry winds

blow sour breaths

and sear the scars

-- unhealed --

and eyes that once

saw the moon even through

the glare of neon lights

are now blinded -- stranded

like a child’s discarded toys

lost in the dust

of implacable stillness

-by Rita Putatunda

What is the point

So my fun with acrylics continues. The painting I made yesterday is not much of a painting – a pretty picture of a scattering of small flowers. I’m practicing creating textures, blending and trying out the paint itself. The more one paints, the more one understands the nature of the medium. I have a few small canvas boards lying around, so am using them up now for my practice paintings. I've decided I will not post my practice paintings on my blog.. will post only the ones that I find meaningful and express a deeper part of myself... or find special in some nebulous way..

I’m also trying to loosen up my painting as much as I can. So, while I categorise the flower painting as a semi abstract, it is another little step towards that direction. I find the world of abstraction completely fascinating. While I do admire and enjoy realistic or representational art, for they too are all about composition, shapes, colours, textures and so on, it is the freedom and mysteriousness of abstract that always draws me to it, keeps me enthralled. Having said that, what is really realistic or abstract? In whatever way an artist applies her/his colours, whatever she/he creates on canvas, it’s all an illusion, after all. Which is another fascinating aspect of the similarity between art and Nature. I mean, is the tree or the flower one sees really as they appear to us? Under the microscope one discovers them as completely different from what they appear outside. Or why not go in deeper, into their atomic world, again completely different from both their molecular structure and their apparent realistic structure.

I remember how I used to love my biology books back in school, not particularly because of the lessons in them, but because of the fascinating pictures of the cross sections of leaves and flowers, the microscopic structures of cells. Even as early as that, though I was drawing and painting realistic leaves and flowers in my drawing books, I was naturally attracted to abstracts, which I realized much later. So I used to love my bio homework wherein I had to draw those diagrams, and do them diligently, while I neglected my other homework, and my bio teachers always thought I had a special interest in bio as a subject :) - Anyway, getting back to where I was - Look at the sky through a telescope – when I see the pictures of galaxies and nebulae, all I can comprehend is that Nature, Creation, is just one great abstract artist. Abstract art is all around us, the colour patterns of a butterfly’s wings, the shape and structure of a lowly amoeba, the magnificent billowing of thunderclouds, the night sky strewn with stars and moonlight..  

While I was painting the pretty little picture yesterday, that old conundrum of mine kept nibbling at my insides – is this really what I want to paint, am I finding it fulfilling? What do I really want to paint? What am I trying to express? Why am I trying to express anything at all? What is the point of expressing deeper parts of myself? Does it make any difference to me, to anyone, to anything? And even while these questions bubble in my brain, I’m struck by how similar they are to the questions I ask about Life, Creation, itself.  What is the point of my existence? What is the point of it all? Does it make any difference for Creation to be or not to be? What is the point?

I was just passing by your street

I was just passing
By your street
Drinking my wine
Licking sunshine
Whistling a tune

Drinking red wine
Licking sunshine
Whistling my tune

Why do you now cry
That I caught your eye!

I was merely walking
By your side
Dreaming about clouds
Flying like birds
In the blue skies

Thinking of clouds
Flying like birds
In blue blue skies

Why do you now groan
That you stubbed your toe!

I was only curled
Under the warm sun
Dreaming about thick cream
Licking whipped dreams
Bubbling frothy bubbles

Dreaming of thick cream
Lapping whipped dreams
Bubbling frothy bubbles

Why do you now sigh
O my heart! O my toes! O me! O my!

-by Rita Putatunda

Two Versions of "Lilies and Koi"

My first acrylic painting! And I loved it, loved the experience of using this paint. I don't know why I resisted it for so long, but so many of my artist friends have moaned and groaned about it, particularly its fast drying property, which does keep you on tenterhooks, compared to the sense of leisurely time you have with oils, that I just didn't want to bother with it. I was happy with my lovely, sensuous oils. I never did enjoy water colours, because I don't want the medium of my painting be my master, I want to be the one in control - yep, a control freak, that's me :)- So I naturally assumed that acrylics, being water-based would be the same, or at least similar. So, can you imagine my surprise when I discovered how fun acrylics is.

First, let me talk about the feel of painting with acrylics. Unlike water colours, you can work from either light to dark, or dark to light, which is great. For that meant that I could go back over parts  didn't like and put in other values, as I felt like. Water colour is rather rigid in that aspect, which I dislike. I dislike rigidity in all matters, such as rigidity in thinking, in attitude, in ways. I find it stultifying, and when I find it in the mental make up of people, I invariably end up distancing myself, usually after a disagreement about some matter wherein the person behaves rigidly. And this aspect - non-rigidity - applies to practically everythingI do, particularly my art.

But, I'm digressing. As for its fast drying, though I had thought it would bother me, it actually didn't. In fact, I found that this aspect actually enabled me to re-work stuff immediately, without my having to scrape paint off or wait for it to dry, as it is in oils. I had also thought that the fast drying would hamper blending colours, but since acrylics are opaque paints, I found I could work on a previous layer and achieve similar blending to oils. Though I do get more subtle effects in oils, but I think with practice, blending in acrylics will become as subtle as in oils. Actually, I find acrylics is ideal for that impressionist look, which I find quite hard to achieve in oils, because I have a tendency to over blend - again, my controlling nature being the culprit.

As for the painting itself, ever since I saw Monet's lily pond paintings, I've been hankering to try it out. I guess every artist does a version of Monet's lily pond some time in their lives - it's like a pilgrimage or a homage to that great artist. What subtleties he created with mere blobs and dashes of paint seemingly randomly applied, and his were huge. Mine is nowhere close to Monet, of course, but I love it anyway. I painted this on a piece of odd shaped plywood  had lying around, and again enjoyed painting on this surface. In the past, before the advent of canvas, artists usually painted on wood panels. Now, wooden panels, masonite boards, plywood and the like are gettng popular again. My artist friends say plywood is longer lasting, hence a better support base for paintings, but I must say I have canvases I have painted on that are over 30 years old, of which I haven't taken much care, but with a bit of a wash with a detergent, and they are as good as new, practically.

Another thing about plywood is, that one has to prime them, since you don't get primed ones, as you do canvases. Personally, I don't have a problem with that, because I find I rather enjoy the process of sandpapering, applying the primer, the gesso.. and so on. Of course, just buying and paintng on a pre-stretched, pre-primed canvas is easier and more convenient. I remember how in the past one had to buy raw, unprimed canvases, stretch and prime them oneself - I always gave the job to the carpenter - so, I suppose in time as the demand for primed plywood for artists grows, it will come into art supply shops. Of course, many artists still do stretch and prime their own canvases, especially when they want to achieve particular effects, or want special sizes.

Coming back to this painting, as usual, I felt it needed more work. I felt the water was too flat in the first version so I added lighter values to liven it up, make it more dynamic. But now I can't decide which one I like more. The more I see them, the more I like the first version. In fact, come to think of it, I think the second version looks too flat now. So I think I shall rework it and get it back to closer to the original version. And I'll make the kois prominent again. Thanks to acrylic paints, I can go back and make the changes - would have been impossible with water colour, though I could have done the changes in oils too.