The beauty of art

I’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions — tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on — and the fact that lots of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I communicate those basic human emotions… The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them. And if you, as you say, are moved only by their color relationships, then you miss the point!”

From http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2014/02/19/mark-rothko-on-art-selden-rodman/

Awesome commencement address for artists and views on success

What It Really Takes to Be an Artist: MacArthur Genius Teresita Fernández’s Magnificent Commencement Address

Posted: 28 Dec 2014 09:10 PM PST

“Being an artist is not just about what happens when you are in the studio. The way you live, the people you choose to love and the way you love them, the way you vote, the words that come out of your mouth… will also become the raw material for the art you make.”
In 2005, artist Teresita Fernández — one of the most original and visionary sculptors of our time, whose work appears in the bewitching monograph Blind Landscape (public library) — received one of those legendary phone calls from the MacArthur Foundation. The mysterious caller informed her that the foundation’s secret committee had awarded the coveted MacArthur Fellowship — a generous $500,000 grant, with no strings attached, given solely so that the recipient can continue pursuing her or his creative work.
In May of 2013, two years after her appointment to President Barack Obama’s Commission of Fine Arts, Fernández delivered a spectacular keynote address to the graduating class at her alma mater, Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of the Arts. Titled “On Amnesia, Broken Pottery, and the Inside of a Form,” the speech is a fine addition to the greatest commencement addresses of all time and a masterwork of the “connected irrelevance” that characterizes MacArthur “geniuses.” It is also an invaluable trove of hard-earned wisdom on the creative life, with great resonance for all stages of life. Annotated highlights below.
On the usefulness of “useless” knowledge, how we really learn about life, and the true seed of creative work:

For some inexplicable reason, we seem to believe most strongly not in the actual formal lessons, but rather in those details that get into our heads without our knowing exactly how they got there. Those pivotal lessons in our lives continue to work on us in subtle, subterranean ways.
This kind of amnesia is life’s built-in way of making sure you filter out what’s not very important. You graduate today after years of hard work, immersive years of learning, absorbing, processing, accumulating, cramming, finishing, focusing. There are no more reasons, really, to even make art unless you really truly want to. Of all you learned you probably don’t need to remember most of the technical or theoretical information, as that’s all easily accessible with a quick search. And what you will remember will have less to do with the past and more to do with how it triggers reactions for you in the present. Oddly enough, what we involuntarily do retain is meant to help us move forward. This forthcoming amnesia that awaits you is just another kind of graduation, another step in a lifetime of many graduations.
You are about to enter the much more difficult phase of unlearning everything you have learned in college, of questioning it, redefining it, challenging it, and reinventing it to call it your own. More than in any other vocation, being an artist means always starting from nothing. Our work as artists is courageous and scary. There is no brief that comes along with it, no problem solving that’s given as a task… An artist’s work is almost entirely inquiry based and self-regulated. It is a fragile process of teaching oneself to work alone, and focusing on how to hone your quirky creative obsessions so that they eventually become so oddly specific that they can only be your own.

Teresita Fernández: 'Fire,' 2005

She recounts being fascinated by an ancient Greek ostracon at the Metropolitan Museum of Art — a piece of broken pottery or stone, engraved with a message, often used as a voting ballot — and how it reveals the fragmentary nature of creativity:

I was enamored with the idea of how what seemed broken, discarded, useless was transformed into a meaningful gesture… We are conditioned to think that what is broken is lost, or useless or a setback, and so when we set out with big ambitions we don’t necessarily recognize what the next graduation is supposed to look like. Unlearning everything you learned in college is just an exercise in learning to recognize how the fragments and small bits lead to something that is much more than the sum of its parts.

Echoing Nietzsche’s magnificent case for the value of difficulty, Fernández offers a wonderfully fresh perspective on failure amid a culture mired in “fail forward” clichés:

In Japan there is a kind of reverence for the art of mending. In the context of the tea ceremony there is no such thing as failure or success in the way we are accustomed to using those words. A broken bowl would be valued precisely because of the exquisite nature of how it was repaired, a distinctly Japanese tradition of kintsugi, meaning to “to patch with gold”. Often, we try to repair broken things in such a way as to conceal the repair and make it “good as new.” But the tea masters understood that by repairing the broken bowl with the distinct beauty of radiant gold, they could create an alternative to “good as new” and instead employ a “better than new” aesthetic. They understood that a conspicuous, artful repair actually adds value. Because after mending, the bowl’s unique fault lines were transformed into little rivers of gold that post repair were even more special because the bowl could then resemble nothing but itself. Here lies that radical physical transformation from useless to priceless, from failure to success. All of the fumbling and awkward moments you will go through, all of the failed attempts, all of the near misses, all of the spontaneous curiosity will eventually start to steer you in exactly the right direction.

Fernández extends gentle assurance that art, like science, is driven by “thoroughly conscious ignorance”:

In those moments when you feel discouraged or lost in the studio, or when you experience rejection, rest completely assured that what you don’t know about something is also a form of knowledge, though much harder to understand. In many ways, making art is like blindly trying to see the shape of what you don’t yet know. Whenever you catch a little a glimpse of that blind spot, of your ignorance, of your vulnerability, of that unknown, don’t be afraid or embarrassed to stare at it. Instead, try to relish in its profound mystery. Art is about taking the risk of engaging in something somewhat ridiculous and irrational simply because you need to get a closer look at it, you simply need to break it open to see what’s inside.

With a bow to Georgia O’Keeffe’s undying wisdom on what it really means to be an artist — “Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant—there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.” — Fernández echoes Thoreau and exhorts us to break the tyranny of external definitions of success:

We live in a meritocratic society, where accomplishments are constantly being measured externally, where forms are always read from the outside, where comfort and lifestyle are often mistaken for success, or even happiness. Don’t be fooled. Our ideas regarding success should be our own, and I urge you to pursue it simultaneously from both the inside and the outside… As artists, it will be especially difficult to measure these ideas of what success may be because you have chosen a practice that is entirely dependent on being willing to possibly fail, over and over again regardless of any successes that do come your way.

In a sentiment that calls to mind John Steinbeck’s unforgettable moment of choosing creative integrity over outward success — “I beat poverty for a good many years and I’ll be damned if I’ll go down at the first little whiff of success.” — Fernández adds:

Success is just another form, with both an inside and outside.
For the most part people are aware of what the outside of success looks like… Outside success always seems to look terribly glamorous, and every once in a while it can be. But it still never means all that much, and it still never makes the work of the work any easier — if anything, it makes it a little harder because the stakes get higher; the possible humble failures become less private and more visible and more cruelly judged.

With assuring vulnerability, she reflects on her own experience of befriending that frightening moment after the completion of a major project, which she likens to a kind of creative hangover:

A kind of panic sets in the very next day, an urge to get into the studio because you know you have to start all over again, building something from nothing, seeking the company of those trusted beneficial failures, waiting for those absurd internal dialogues with your own gang of voices. It’s not a very glamorous scenario. But this is precisely what internal success looks like. It is visible only to yourself and while you can trick the rest of the world into thinking you are a good artist, you can never really convince yourself, which is why you keep trying. If you’re lucky and motivated enough to keep making art, life is quiet, you get to work at what you love doing, happily chipping away at something, constructing something, adjusting to a cycle of highs and lows and in betweens, and it doesn’t matter if you’ve been doing it for two years or 50 years, the patterns remain exactly the same. The anxiety continues to set in, the doubts creep in, the baby steps towards mending fragments starts all over again, the cautious urge to peek between the cracks is there. When you find yourself in that place, that’s when you’ll know that the inside is driving the outside.
[…]
That hunger, that desire for success is nothing more than a fear of failure… And the odd thing is that when you are actually succeeding, it tends to be quiet and comes always quite unannounced and without a lot of fanfare. You will, in fact, be the only person who ever really grasps or recognizes the internal successes. The work of the work is visible only to yourself.

Work from Teresita Fernández's 2014 MASS MoCA solo show, 'As Above So Below'

At the end, Fernández offers graduates ten practical tips on being an artist that have been helpful on her own creative journey — but they double as an ennobling moral compass for being a decent human being in any walk of life:

1. Art requires time — there’s a reason it’s called a studio practice. Contrary to popular belief, moving to Bushwick, Brooklyn, this summer does not make you an artist. If in order to do this you have to share a space with five roommates and wait on tables, you will probably not make much art. What worked for me was spending five years building a body of work in a city where it was cheapest for me to live, and that allowed me the precious time and space I needed after grad school.
2. Learn to write well and get into the habit of systematically applying for every grant you can find. If you don’t get it, keep applying. I lived from grant money for four years when I first graduated.
3. Nobody reads artist’s statements. Learn to tell an interesting story about your work that people can relate to on a personal level.
4. Not every project will survive. Purge regularly, destroying is intimately connected to creating. This will save you time.
5. Edit privately. As much as I believe in stumbling, I also think nobody else needs to watch you do it.
6. When people say your work is good do two things. First, don’t believe them. Second, ask them, “Why”? If they can convince you of why they think your work is good, accept the compliment. If they can’t convince you (and most people can’t) dismiss it as superficial and recognize that most bad consensus is made by people simply repeating that they “like” something.
7. Don’t ever feel like you have to give anything up in order to be an artist. I had babies and made art and traveled and still have a million things I’d like to do.
8. You don’t need a lot of friends or curators or patrons or a huge following, just a few that really believe in you.
9. Remind yourself to be gracious to everyone, whether they can help you or not. It will draw people to you over and over again and help build trust in professional relationships.
10. And lastly, when other things in life get tough, when you’re going through family troubles, when you’re heartbroken, when you’re frustrated with money problems, focus on your work. It has saved me through every single difficult thing I have ever had to do, like a scaffolding that goes far beyond any traditional notions of a career.

Indeed, Fernández’s parting point is also her most poignant — a reminder that being human is the wider circle within which being an artist resides, and that our art is always the combinatorial product of the fragments of who we are, of our combinatorial character:

Being an artist is not just about what happens when you are in the studio. The way you live, the people you choose to love and the way you love them, the way you vote, the words that come out of your mouth, the size of the world you make for yourselves, your ability to influence the things you believe in, your obsessions, your failures — all of these components will also become the raw material for the art you make.

Complement with Debbie Millman’s fantastic commencement address on courage and the creative life and Jeanette Winterson on how art creates a sanctified space for the human spirit.
Thanks, Denise

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I feel that a real living form is the result of the individual’s effort to create the living thing out of the adventure of his spirit into the unknown—where it has experienced something—felt something—it has not understood—and from that experience comes the desire to make the unknown—known. By unknown—I mean the thing that means so much to the person that wants to put it down—clarify something he feels but does not clearly understand—sometimes he partially knows why—sometimes he doesn’t—sometimes it is all working in the dark—but a working that must be done—Making the unknown—known—in terms of one’s medium is all-absorbing—if you stop to think of the form—as form you are lost—The artist’s form must be inevitable—You mustn’t even think you won’t succeed—Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant—there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing—and keeping the unknown always beyond you—catching crystallizing your simpler clearer version of life—only to see it turn stale compared to what you vaguely feel ahead—that you must always keep working to grasp—the form must take care of its self if you can keep your vision clear.

The eternal spring

Shan Re’s latest exhibition, The Eternal Spring, is meant to convey a sense of rebirth, renewal, and transformation

When Shan Re experiences an irresistible urge to paint, her brain works fast. “I follow my instinct and the creative energy flows through me without conscious effort,” says the artist, whose new paintings are her melodies.

Shan calls these melodies The Eternal Spring, a belief that life is an opportunity to create meaning. “To me life is an empty canvas and I have an irresistible desire to make it colourful. I always stay in touch with my inner rhythm. When I remain open, energies from unseen sources flow naturally and point me in the right direction, leading me into the process,” she says, adding, “Everything stems from fragmented thoughts and subconscious forces. I’m like a sponge absorbing the right energy all the time and I always try to bring that raw energy into my art. As a person every thought and action of mine is well balanced and controlled, but as an artist my impulse dominates me; nothing is in my control. My work is a reminder of how positive energy brings joy and hope to the challenges of our human experience.”

This positive energy, The Eternal Spring is meant to convey a sense of rebirth, renewal, opportunity, hope and transformation. “An eternal optimist like me is a human personification of spring,” says Shan, adding, “Life is a flow of events where storms are inevitable. Every storm touches you somewhere, making you stronger. I’m always open to the gifts, possibilities and messages of nature and make the effort to gain insight and rejuvenate myself with fresh energy. I enjoy and treasure my inner harmony remaining unaffected in the face of both success and failure; love and hatred; pain and pleasure. This is the essence of what I continuously strive to portray in my work.”

Shan acknowledges that her works as emotive eruptions of herself. From within herself, she finds her muse. “My inner fire is my driving force. My confidence is my strength. The empty canvas is my valued friend, muse and trusted companion where all my subconscious thoughts, feelings, fantasies, memories and hopes escape into pure colour, providing me with on-going guidance that keeps me in the flow,” she says.

Like an unrestrained child with big dreams, Shan’s heart has an unfailing appetite, which says: ‘what next?’ Melodies of the Eternal Spring beckon.

The Eternal Spring will be on view at the Ritz Carlton till September 10.

Courtesy: http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/society/the-inner-fire/article6388516.ece?homepage=true

A very different take on art and museums

"Our museums conjure up for us a Greece that never existed". - How does it sound? Read further.


In museum circles, the director of the Guggenheim Foundation Thomas Krens has a controverisial reputation. He has challenged the definitions of high art with exhibits such as "The art of the motorcycle" (1998), rewritten the book on how to run a museum, and transformed the Guggenheim into a global brand, with currently five museums (NY, Venice, Las Vegas, Berlin and the Frank Gehry Bilbao museum) and one to be added in Abu Dhabi.
He picks 27 more-or-less random images that demonstrate that beauty is truth: an Egyptian sculpture, a Chinese bronze, Michelangelo, paintings by Leonardo, Rubens, Picasso, Matisse, Vermeer, Warhol, sculptures by Beecroft, Richard Serra, and more. All these are objects of beauty: how do you tie them together? How do we experience art, truth and beauty? How do we consume culture? How do we contain/communicate the richness of our culture? Truth and beauty don’t reside in the objects themselves, but in the nature of the communication between the object and the viewer. The public art museum is an 18th century idea, the idea of an encyclopedia, presented in a 19th century box, an extended palace, that more or less fulfils its structural destiny sometime toward the end of the 20th century. André Malraux (1952): "Our museums conjure up for us a Greece that never existed". So the museum was an artificial space. Moreover, until recently most art museums have focused only on European and American art. Museums have to understand that all institutions change. Cultural narrative are infinite and endless. There is also a political dimension: museums need to become cultural agitators, while keeping being curators of collections. Plus: audience matters; art is for the masses. We need to make sure that the objects can tell a story and that story can be communicated. At the Guggenheim we think of museums as platforms and networks of exchange. Our buildings are based on the idea that 1+1=3. (Krens also talks about the Guggenheim projects for new museums that weren’t built). The current Guggenheim proposition: bridges to the Middle East, with the Abu Dhabi project. AD is mostly desert, but unlike Dubai is made of many islands, and the local government is planning to develop one with a big cultural district "that will become one of the biggest concentrations of culture in the world". There will be a Guggenheim, a Louvre, a performing art center, various other museums, a Yale University campus, a Biennale platform, etc built by star architects (Gehry, Zaha Hadid, Jean Nouvel etc). There are also plans to extend the concept of the museum out into the desert.

Excerpted from: http://blog.ted.com/2008/02/28/ted2008_what_is_2/

Is art sneaking its way into our lives discreetly? A revival of art?

When I grew up, I had no friends or family pursuing art, because we are TamBrahms. No one in my community did that. I didn't know what art was. I didn't know that music or movies or literature was art.

I was definitely enamoured by these things but did not know it was art. Today, after reading tons of articles by Maria Popova, I kinda know what art is. I have understood in my own special way what art is, and what an artists does. She has collected tons of definitions from artists here http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/06/22/what-is-art/ and each definition is as unique as the artist themselves. It reminds me of my visit to Bistro Claytopia. They display hundreds of glazed articles painted by different people. You cannot hold one and say its superior to another. All are beautiful in a different sense. Each one depicts the artist just like each one of us is a unique feature of god. Each of us is divinity. We may not be externally beautiful but we all have aspects that are unique to us.. that are beautiful in unconventional ways...it's wrong to perceive one as above another or one profession as better or nobler than another. 

All art is autobiographical; the pearl is the oyster’s autobiography.

To me, an artist or a creative person is someone who experiences so much joy in his/her work - someone who is attuned to divinity, who is passionate, who is insane in his love for art, who goes sleepless, who goes hungry - all to express his art.

Today, unknown to us, art is creeping into our lives in many secret ways.. through secret doors...as secretly as this guy, who's there in every pic.

http://www.viralnova.com/this-mans-ability-to-blend-in-will-blow-your-mind-and-maybe-scare-you-a-little/

Through social media, people promote art! We promote pictures and photographs.. we promote bird watching.. we tell stories.. we share links to art.. we share food photographs...we share recipes....
To me, most of what we're doing this way, is art!

Digressing a bit here:
Does anyone promote their code here? (Some people promote and market themselves, which is a different thing) Do you write about your thesis hereon twitter or FB? Do you think it so beautiful enough to share? Or you think it is beautiful but it will bore other people?
(Sure, I have seen some code which is real art. Some algorithms which are just beautiful. I have felt poetic seeing it and have been filled with gratitude for the coder).
But, the way we are made to follow deadlines and other unproductive tasks, we are unable to express our love for these things...

Most artists have the luxury of enjoying the process of making their work (Except bookwriters or film makers probably). That time...luxury of time, by itself helps one enjoy things more. If you're always working for deadlines, your work will be more dead, than alive...we need alivelines so that on the other side of the line, we are alive.. not dead..

Original meaning of deadline:  line drawn within or around a prison that a prisoner passes at the risk of being shot.

People wanted you to cross it so that they could shoot you. This word could have only be coined by a sadistic person, not by a happy person. Why would I want you dead?
Deadlines mostly cause "dead" work and "dead" workers.

How about alive-line?or alive circle? A circle in which you are alive and thriving.. and outside which also you're not just alive but ecstatic!

I personally have wanted to touch, feel and enjoy my work...and have never had that luxury for long. As long as I was in the rat race, I did not understand this basic instinct. I thought I was a mismatch and slow worker, hence I was always feeling inferior.

Whereas this was a part of me being suppressed, in order to survive...to fit in..Now, I know that I'm woven from a different thread. I like relaxed work..and today's pace of work, can hardly be called relaxed...We pass through lives like bullet trains. We have no idea whether we're passing through tunnels or rocks or buildings or mountains.. then, we spend 5 lacs on a 5 day Swiss holiday to see the mountains, whereas every day we were passing by mountains :-) We don't need expensive food or travel or clothes to keep us joyful. Most businesses want us to believe the opposite though. But, the truth is happiness is there around, not in the wades of cash we carry or in the diamond studded phones we use.

Quoting J.Krishnamurti here:
http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=48&chid=56794&w=&

If your eyes are blinded with your worries, you cannot see the beauty of the sunset. Most of us have lost touch with nature. Civilization is tending more and more towards large cities; we are becoming more and more an urban people, living in crowded apartments and having very little space even to look at the sky of an evening and morning, and therefore we are losing touch with a great deal of beauty. I don't know if you have noticed how few of us look at a sunrise or a sunset or the moonlight or the reflection of light on water.

Having lost touch with nature we naturally tend to develop intellectual capacities. We read a great many books, go to a great many museums and concerts, watch television and have many other entertainments. We quote endlessly from other people's ideas and think and talk a great deal about art. Why is it that we depend so much upon art? Is it a form of escape, of stimulation? If you are directly in contact with nature; if you watch the movement of a bird on the wing, see the beauty of every movement of the sky, watch the shadows on the hills or the beauty on the face of another, do you think you will want to go to any museum to look at any picture? Perhaps it is because you do not know how to look at all the things about you that you resort to some form of drug to stimulate you to see better.


So, back to art:
Children's books, sand art, watercolors, photography, architecture, travel, food, literature, the tattoos, the rangolis - everywhere there is art.. Where there is art, there is joy. There is the feminine..(the last one is my bit)

As someone rightly said - We live for art, everything else.. is just to pay the bills.
We remember art and artists beyond their mortality. We don't remember our bosses, or we'd rather not remember them even while they're alive. That's the power of art.

And Joy is Everywhere;
It is in the Earth’s green covering of grass;
In the blue serenity of the Sky;
In the reckless exuberance of Spring;
In the severe abstinence of gray Winter;
In the Living flesh that animates our bodily frame;
In the perfect poise of the Human figure, noble and upright;
In Living;
In the exercise of all our powers;
In the acquisition of Knowledge;
in fighting evils…
Joy is there Everywhere.

- Rabindranath Tagore, 1861-1941
Nobel Prize in Literature, 1913

“If you want to really hurt you parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”
- A Man without a country

http://www.dailygood.org/more.php?n=4985

http://www.viralnova.com/beach-art/

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/09/10/nurse-lugtons-curtain-virginia-woolf-julie-vivas/

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/08/29/henry-hikes-to-fitchburg-d-b-johnson/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/parisbreakfast/sets/72057594114774269/

http://www.whatsforlunchhoney.net/2010/03/rosewater-and-raspberry-macarons.html

http://www.whatsforlunchhoney.net/2013/07/Venice.html

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=647000608664265&set=a.647000595330933.1073741825.100000629964344&type=3&theater

http://www.buzzfeed.com/tjb2/44-amazing-places-you-wish-you-could-nap-right-now-7kc6

Amuse me!

Even when you are personally discontent, the things in the world can't stop amusing you, can they?

So, the 2 things that amused me today were:

Eric Carle Museum:

The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art inspires families, art aficionados, and book lovers with rotating galleries of picture book art from around the world.

 A museum for picture books, how cool is that?

The Bloomsbury Festival:

A free celebration that draws 50,000 people to London’s most inspiring cultural quarter.

With a theme of vitality, this year’s festival is a journey of discovery for mind, body and imagination.


Over six days 200 free events will showcase an eclectic programme of pioneering art, music, dance and literature, while also giving a voice and new skills to diverse young, older and disabled people.
Bloomsbury is a national storehouse of the learning of all ages and the arts of all humankind. With more libraries, and museums than any part of London. An extraordinary line-up of the world’s most influential thinkers, from Mahatma Gandhi to Virginia Woolf to Charles Darwin, have lived and worked in the area.

Following in their footsteps, the Bloomsbury Festival empowers the extraordinary people that live and work here today – and shows what neighbours, no longer strangers, can achieve together.

And one more good read from y'day.
http://www.thehindu.com/books/books-authors/the-storyteller/article5109323.ece
(Thanks to Priyanka Bhaskar)

 

 

Man loves to fly!

Some artists are that talented!

Take a look at Jan Von Holleben !

 

The avocado lesson and children

Hiran told me "Good news! Did you see the avocado? It's growing well. The first leaves have come. Unless we do something harsh or stupid, it will bear fruit in 15 years".

Then, he says.. see this is how children also are. Just give them a little good atmosphere and they will turn into great people. Don't stifle them.

A seed has the entire intelligence to grow into a beautiful plant. It needs minimal external help. So is the case with humans. The embryo has the capability to grow the brain, heart and other organs.. from a single cell...why can't it perform more miracles? Wrong parenting and stifling schools aside, a child will learn.. in his own way, the things that interest him...that fascinate him. A little water and encouragement is all that's needed. We may grow into different individuals.. We express ourselves differently.Each of us is beautiful. What each of us loves, is art to us.
Yday we went to Bistro claytopia to paint something. There were so many artifacts displayed. You can't slot them as beautiful. Each artifact is the art and mind and soul of one person.. each looks as different as we are...I learnt to appreciate that and not judge things...it was wonderful.

 "To the young child, adults seem excessively large, extraordinarily efficient and magically capable. The child's courage alone keeps him from giving up entirely in the face of these impressions.What a wonderful thing a young child's courage is! " - Rudolf Dreikurs.


Being with a child filled with wonder - the magic rubs off on you. Just like J.K Rowling said.."All of us have magic".

Around the same time, one mom has written a beautiful article:
http://www.mycity4kids.com/parentingstop/Lean-Mean-Efficient/article/rules-of-nurture

The eye craves pleasant things.. beautiful things..

S.Ilayaraja Paintings Collections

 http://alraja.blogspot.in/2011/04/ilayaraja-paintings-collections.html

Captures rural tamil women in artistic splendour and natural settings. The way light falls on their hair, the shine of the silk zari, the folds of the saree - no wonder the paintings are better than photography. Photography requires less skill than this.

This one takes the cake...Paris breakfasts.
Paris captured through the plate of the eating artist. The vintage tea sets, macarons, coffee, fruits..pretty pretty!!
I wish I could draw this well.. Maybe I'd just be with the colors all my life...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/parisbreakfast/sets/72057594114774269/


Krsna Mehta's works also caught me eye:
http://indiacircus.com/tamara-lotus-rani-blended-fabric-cushion-cover.html

House of Tara
http://www.limeroad.com/brand/the-house-of-tara-270?f_ref=vip#brand[]=The+House+of+Tara&sort[]=scoreBucket5_f%2Bdesc&stock[]=1&pOverlay=none

Ambbii collections:
http://www.limeroad.com/brand/ambbi-collections-343?f_ref=vip#brand[]=Ambbi+Collections&sort[]=scoreBucket5_f%2Bdesc&stock[]=1

and Pip studio.
http://www.pipstudio.com/en/porcelain/floral/coffee-tea/pip-cup-and-saucer-cappuccino

Make good art

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/05/14/make-good-art-neil-gaiman-chip-kidd/

When things get tough, this is what you should do: Make good art. I’m serious. Husband runs off with a politician — make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by a mutated boa constrictor — make good art. IRS on your trail — make good art. Cat exploded — make good art. Someone on the Internet thinks what you’re doing is stupid or evil or it’s all been done before — make good art. Probably things will work out somehow, eventually time will take the sting away, and that doesn’t even matter. Do what only you can do best: Make good art. Make it on the bad days, make it on the good days, too.