Working on two pieces

Well, I'm working on two paintings..struggling a bit with both, though happier with the effects I'm managing to get with the sunflowers. Acrylics is both fun and liberating, as well as damned frustrating.. as I keep saying, it just dries up too fast, and the lower layers seem to absorb the pigments I put on subsequent layers, dulling and darkening them. But the big plus point is, it's so forgiving.. so I shall persist. I love that I don't have to deal with the fumes of turpentine, and that I don't have to worry about things getting muddied as I work almost immediately on layers.

The beginning stages of paintings are always scary..one really doesn't know how it will end up.. a disaster or a success..

Ahhh, Pune..!

Ahhh, Pune..! I don't quite know what it is about this place, but I just feel I belong. There is deep peace.. I really don't know how to describe it.. My soul is smiling quietly.. is the best way I can put it :)

I and two crows and various tiny birds that flitted into the little trays of water I keep for them in the garden (they love wiggling into them to bathe) and two cats, one named Big-Grey, the other, Fluff-Grey.. all of us spent quality time in the garden early yesterday morning. Me doing yoga first, then sipping my pudina chai after, sitting crosslegged, very Buddha-like. Big-Grey and Fluff-Grey are not my pets, they just hang around the place since I toss them some fish when I'm here. Though they seem quite able to take care of themselves because they look in pretty good shape despite my long absence from here. I'm wary of Big-Grey (a male) who has almost sliced my fingers off occasionally if my hand strays too close to his face when I toss fish, plus he bullies Fluff-Grey (a female) to grab all the fish. Fluff-Grey is wary of me, obviously doesn't trust us humans.. very intelligent.

I checked out all my plants, watered and looked after by Hira-bai, my maid, in my absence. She doesn't much care for the cats though.. always complains bitterly about the cats I always seem to collect. I don't know why, but cats seem to gravitate to me.. I must have been a cat in some past life, perhaps they know that.. Cats know everything! You can tell by gazing into their knowing eyes.. Big-Grey's eyes are green like new leaves when the sun shines through them. Fluff-Grey's are brown, like a muddy lake.

There's a slight chill in the early morning air, harbinger of the winter, though the rest of the day was beautifully warm and sun-filled. I spent most of it in the garden, pottering about amongst my plant pots. Also started a new painting, sunflowers in a vase, which I will probably finish later today, after I go and do my bit at the polling booth.

And now, for a hot cup of pudina chai, and then, after the sky lightens a little, my yoga in the garden.

I am in peace and joy :)

Feeling fulfilled

My life now is totally about sipping endless cups of tea, allowing it to go tepid, then cold, while I paint and paint and paint.. to my heart's content. Just finished an abstract-ish bunch of purple and white flowers in a flower pot, and I'm feeling as content as a cat that has lapped a bellyful of milk and  then stretches out in the sun and yawns herself into a blissful nap. Only difference is, my mind is so energised that sleep is eluding me. So, instead, I begin ruminating, as usual, about this mysterious effect painting has on me.. I guess on all artists, whatever their field.

Why do I do it.. paint..? It's not that I need the paintings I do.. it's not that I sell my stuff (except for one or two).. I haven't even bothered to start trying to sell them. Like most artists, I'm totally not clued into the commercial aspects of life, especially about my artwork. So here I am, painting off and on over the years, my canvases, papers, pieces of wood on which I do them collecting in cupboards, on cupboards, under the bed, leaning on walls, on every spare surface I can find to keep them. Why, what is this need that drives me to do something that seems so useless, purposeless?

The answer, I think, is the great need I have to create. Painting is like magic for me.. to watch formless paint turn into a flower, a mountain, a tree on a flat featureless surface is sheer magic. Plus, painting, creating these forms, or just abstract forms using colours and brush strokes to create mystery, is a challenge.. and I love challenges. The challenge of mastering an intricate rose, for example.. or a landscape.. keeps me interested in life.. keeps my child-like sense of wonder at watching, examining the creation all around me alive. When I am in painting mode, my senses are constantly alive.. when I see a sunset, I wonder what colours I would need to capture the beauty.. every leaf, stone, puddle of water is about shape, form, shades, colours that exist in my paintbox, and the end of my paintbrush with which I recreate them on my canvas.. What can be more fulfilling than that?

There's no wifi here, so though I've clicked them on my iPad, I can't post the pictures of my paintings yet here. Tried my camera, but something's wrong with the battery... I need to buy a new one... I also need to buy a phone which could be the means of posting my pics... which I just don't have the time for.. So until I get a wifi connection, or a new battery, or a new phone, I guess I'll just talk about my paintings.

"Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine."

I usually don't post other's poems here..but my poetic mind has gone into deep freeze.. Despair, hopelessness, don't bring out the poet in me.. Joy, happiness, hope do.. So, read Mary Oliver instead..

WILD GEESE

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

My birthday pics at the brewery

Nandini Layout, where my bro's old flat in Bangalore is, is and always has been a conservative Kannadiga sort of area. So, the Orion Mall and District 6 Brewery in it, is quite out of character in this area. Anyway, I love the brewery, especially for the great beer.. so, decided to celebrate my birthday there with my bro. The beer is made by brewmaster, Paul Hoffman, whose pic is here too.. a lovely genial guy with a cute sense of humour. The last two pics were taken on another day when we had gone shopping at the mall, and stopped off at Starsbuck for some coffee.

Well, this year marks the end of my 50s decade, from the next year I step into my 60s.. I don't feel any older than in my teens..seriously..it comes as a bit of a shock and feels strange that I am considered a "senior citizen" now..

My best birthday gift

Neil, my six year old nephew, a natural abstract artist, painted this for me. When he called me up on the morning of the 21st, he said he was on his deck (we call it balcony here of course) with his paints and paper, thinking of what to paint for me. So I suggested why not paint the lake which his deck overlooks. He said, yeah, great idea, Rita (he sounds so grown up these days) and painted this beautiful picture for me. I've told Nondi, my sister and his mother, to get him into a weekend art class, so that his natural talent is nurtured - just look at the imagination he has, the colours of the sky! 

Passionate despair

I am in passionate despair
Depression is the perfume I wear
It seems Life has ordained wretchedness
For me, so when happiness does finally arrive
If it ever does, I will appreciate it better.
Ever since that night - so many nights ago -
When I'd dreamt that he loved me
I have been sleepless, dreamless
Sitting around waiting
Dabbling into my woes
Plunging into seas of attempted prose
Which I pass off as poetry
Floundering in the throes of my heartbreak
Trying to master this dense disaster
Penning my misery deep into the night
My sleep deprived eyes
Getting puffier by the minute
Hoping for a glimmer of hope
From the other side
Where my slumberous love resides
In resplendent uncaring oblivion

Yeah, even in despair, I can be funny
And god knows I am in despair
But what difference does it make
My love, he will not awake!