Art…& Me…

I spent a large part of my day yesterday at work, reading about artists, movements and their work…finding images, making notes, picking up interesting trivia…and imagine this was officially ‘work’!!
Doing a session with older kids around realism and impressionism in art…I spent so many happy hours…and I feel so inadequate…I know so little…so many incredible artists to read about…so many paintings to look at…so many associations to make between their life and their work…comparisons to their contemporaries…oh so much…overwhelmed…got to understand and learn more…gonna pick an artist for every week and grasp as much as I can about their paintings…lets see how that goes…

I’ve always been drawn to art…more than any other activity…more than sport (I was too careful a child to let myself get hurt…and not competitive…) more than writing (I wrote too much from the heart and not everyone could deal with that…my english teacher in school killed it to some extent…) more than drama (in an all girl’s school, I got only the male roles and I don’t think I could get into their head then and I sure as hell can’t now…) more than elocution (while I could come up with interesting pieces to write about, I’m terribly shy about talking out) and now that I make this list, art seems to have happened by default!!

Yes, art has always been my sanctuary… it could never hurt me physically…I never felt the need to compete…I was never judged, or rather never cared about what my art teacher had to say…I could do it in a room full of people or by the swings in the playground…it was just perfect…
Art has been with me as long as I can remember…and I’ve got my ma to thank for that…I always had a steady supply of crayons, paper, paints and the latest ones and the most expensive ones…and I guarded them with my life…using them carefully…having a separate set for careless friends…bugged if the paper on my oil pastels was torn the wrong way…particular about the way my brushes were washed and kept to dry…they were like sacred objects of worship that need to be looked after…and yet when I use them, I use them without any hesitation…

Art has influenced me in many way…influenced the way I see the world…influenced the way I feel…influenced who I am…and I’m a better person cos I got art…I’m so fortunate…art is a constant process of discovery…
When I was really little, it was discovering how crayons feel…and make me feel…to feel them become smaller as I used the creamy pastels was fascinating…more fascinating than the traces they were leaving behind…a littler older and I discovered that art can help me get attention real easy! Everyone wanted to see my latest work and really they were quite terrible…older and I saw how much art could help me in getting projects and drawings done in a unique manner…still older and I discovered that I was aping artists that I loved…B prabha’s women used to haunt my dreams and without doing it consciously, I was drawing just like her…I discovered the outdoors and how much I liked to sketch and through that I can see everything around me in more details…my mind breaks them up everything into lines and curves…I see more clearly and I see everything…still older and i discovered what oil paints were like and my life changed…I got my first easel and I felt like an artist…to feel buttery paint submit to your lightest touch on the rough white texture of a canvas gave me a high that nothing else could…the smell turpentine mixed with linseed oil goes straight to my head and is a mix more potent than any alcohol…to see a canvas transform is an exhilarating experience…like bringing life into the world…like catching a moment and freezing it forever…like…oh I could do this forever…

My work is on a permanent exhibit…in my parent’s home…every wall…every corner…has my touch…from my senseless doodles to my most recent intricate trees…they’re all there…my life is on display…my emotions…my memories…and no place can be safer than home…no place as non judgemental…no curator as loving as my mother…no owner as proud as my father…no critic as lovable as my brother…no other place or combination of people can make them look so beautiful…no place can just let them be…

they just let me be…