Friday, May 04, 2007

Okay, so I've been playing hookie AGAIN



These two pictures were what I took THIS AFTERNOON, in my sister's beautiful home in Sayre, PA. The photograph looks like some kind of optical illusion but it's just two separate photographs taken from the same angle, of the mirror across the room from where I'm standing. The second picture is a zoomed version of the same situation, but taken in such a way that it looks as if the frame of mirror is the frame of the photograph (but isn't. You can see the lower edge of the mirror in the bigger pic, and match it to the lower edge of the mirror in the previous image)

The thing behind me is a large oil-painting I did seven years ago, which my sister bought last year and installed in my niece's home-bedroom (which doubles as the guest bedroom) and I can't get over HOW NICE it looks in this warm, gorgeously pink and tangerine room. It's like the painting has come to life in this setting -- and for all five years of its existence before this period, it lived in my mother's house in Madras, completely unnoticed (despite its size) in the small spare room at the back of the house.

I took these photos so that I could send them to a long-time cyber-buddy (Pauline) but then I was so pleased with the way the painting looked that I decided to share it here, with my extended network of bods and buds on the net ...

In other news, I find that Sharanya Mannivanan has tagged this blog for a THINKING BLOGGER award -- you'll need to go to her blog (link above) to see what this means, since I don't see myself doing whatever it is I need to do in order to acknowledge the tag correctly -- but it was very kind of her, esp considering how lazy I've been for the past several weeks (months). I don't know why that link isn't showing up the right way, but it isn't and I'm too full of pizza just now to fix it. Mebbe tomorrow. *

Much to talk about -- but (see excuse above for reason why I won't just now) not tonight, Josephine.

*umpteen days later, I have finally fixed it. Maybe. But the link-thingie STILL isn't working properly. I hate having to type in the "href=" stuff manually. I always leave out something or the other and get strings of error messages before the thing falls into place. I suppose I'm not getting a job as a programmer anytime soon.

9 comments:

30in2005 said...

I want that painting. It is stunning!!!!

Unknown said...

*grin* Thanks so much for saying that! I freely confess that I rather like it too! It's about double the size of what appears in the photograph -- the frame is square, i.e. -- so it dominates the room.

Every time I look at it, I plot and scheme to paint more of its kind. Big oil canvases were my thing for a while, but they are so difficult to store and to move around with that I had to stop. But they're what I reallyreally want to do and it's been a bit sad that I just CAN'T (imagine the hassle of travelling across the planet with ten big fellas! Or being a guest who occupies your guest bedroom and immediately begins to stink it up with super-smelly oil paints and giant canvases). Still. I am planning to get back into gear later this year, in Delhirium.

Thanks again!

arvindh said...

This painting is definitely stunning and warm. What was the inspiration for this piece? You should definitely do more like this. Also, what are the dimensions of this work?
If possible could you post your other large oils in this blog (or let me know if they are available online elsewhere)?
My dream is to paint in canvases that are taller than I am! But I don't think I will have the patience to do that in oils. Maybe acrylic will come to my rescue.

Unknown said...

Thanks! I don't have jpegs of my big paintings -- and I am currently far from most* of them, so I can't just take pix of them, like I did with this one. There wasn't any particular inspiration for this one, it's one of a series of loosely similar paintings, in oils. The dimensions of this one are: 5'x5' -- i.e., five foot square. *-- though there are two more in this house! My sister is a collector. If I'm feeling energetic I'll take pix of the other two and post them here.

Unknown said...

miss mp - i have a query viz this famous painting - are you cer10 that,as u st8, this painting is only 7 years old? the reason y i ask is becasue i am sure i have seen it lying on its side - and that cud only have been in bombay (yah when it was called that) but that wud have been 3 decades ago or possibly that 1 eve a few years ago that i sat amongst the wintry boxes in ur delhi home ladling soup???? & o! gr8 that u can bring in videos/ photos in2 ur blogging. u r becoming quite a cybernetic! gt

Unknown said...

darn! i am practically hallucin8ing that i am sure i saw the painting in ss's room at tifr! cud it be? am i really going off the deep end? much obliged 4 ur response to rectify situation as cortex feels confused. gt

Unknown said...

Hmmmm ... hallucinations, I'm afraid! This painting really is only 7 years old. However, you're seeing only half of it, since it's square (and the remaining half is a continuation of this half, if you see what I mean) -- maybe if you saw the whole thing it would cease to look familiar?

In my room in B'bay, you would have seen a similar-sized but very differently coloured painting of leaves. The mood/colours were rather different though. And as for SS's room, I DON'T think he ever had a large painting of mine in his room. A small poster or two MAYBE (my work didn't meet his exacting standards -- after all, the other posters in his room were Da Vinci and R. Tagor! -- so in fact I don't think he had any of my work actually decorating his room).

Odd! Also, I would expect that the painting you would most associate with the B'bay room was the one I call CAT AMONGST THE PIGEONS. Do you remember it? It filled one wall and was 10'x5' -- the dominant colour was blue-gray and it showed a big flock of pigeons in flight (and a lurking cat).

Unknown said...

hmmm. ok will rewire cortical connections.anyway - my dad still keeps and cherishes the mini mondrianesque painting that you made and gifted. bet u don't remember! and 4 historical prosperity - ss's room did house a few of ur canvasses at least twice - once because u were moving from cough parade to church's g8 and once when u had a monsoon catastrophy and needed the place rearchitectured (again - hallucinations?) best gt

Unknown said...

I remember the mini-Mondrian but not the monsoon catastrophagus! Hmmm. Much rewiring of cortexes (cortices?) will need to be done it seems ... We could always ask SS, but I suspect that would only result in yet another twist to the tale ...

But anyway, whichever painting you saw, it wasn't THIS one!