They are in reverse-order to that in which I drew them, which (if Blogger doesn't re-align them) will reveal that the most complex-looking one (Subway) was actually done last, and took all of 2 hours to draw (the tones, of course, took MUCH LONGER. But that had more to do with the mechanical problems of blocking some areas, leaving it in the acid for a "bite", taking the plate out again and blocking more areas ... i.e., The Tedium, The Tedium, rather than The Work, The Work).
They're all small -- about 4"x6" -- impressions made from zinc plate. I guess it must be obvious I really enjoyed producing them? I had an excellent guide and master-printer in collaboration with me, so it's no surprise the results are what they are. Amongst the things I like about prints is that the artist can unashamedly admire the results -- the fact that the plates are put through a press makes it seem as if all the hard work was actually done by the machine, rather than the artist.
Subway
Seda
Dancer
Veil
27 comments:
Your font size is too small. Completely unreadable.
Hi -- sorry about the font-size -- but from what I understand, that's something to do with the way different users have configured their computers. I've had this complaint before and I've changed the font-size before but it doesn't seem to make a great difference. I'll try again right now ... but don't feel very hopeful!
marvelous stuff! my favourite here is seda. whats the origin of the name? a check on internet gave several options including irrelevants such as "savannah economic development association" and "safety equipment distribution association". maybe it should be titled as "cat as trophy"? best wishes gt
I think some adjustment (in font size or elsewhere) at your end is needed 'cause I get to read other blogs and even the comments posted in your blog at normal size. If I change the font size these will look blown out of proportion, won't they?
I know nothing about technology. And even less about stuff arty. I wonder who or what is 'seda'. To me it looked like a cat that's just been run over by a road roller. In 'subway' (once there was a rock band called subway in my hometown. I thought it was pretty neat until my sis-in-law from delhi said, "What will they thin of next? Tube?")all I see is a lady who's taken off her clothes and holds an umbrella with a handle shaped like a question mark. Guess she's asking "D'ya like these trendy looks of mine?"
And the third one - I'm sure its not a self-portrait -reminds me of a good poem I had read a good 20 years ago. It's theme was a painting etched on the metalic inner surface of one of those space crafts we had launched to prowl the universe, with the hope of contacting extra terrestrial life in the foreseeable future, which showed a man and a woman holding hands. (The graphics was reproduced in one page and the poem in the opposite page. It went something like this:
"...on the right was a man, with no clothes on, and with apologetic genitals, and no pubic hair...holding the hand of a woman of shorter build, also with no clothes on and with no pubic hair..."
It was one of the nice poems I have read. Well, in this case, at least, the pubic hair is in place!
Well, eyefry, I changed the font-size on my edit screen -- but at least as far as my monitor goes, there's no visible difference. This has happened before and may have something to do with the operating system on my 'puter -- but we are refusing to upgrade in this house and so it's quite possible that we're being left behind in the cyber race. If so, for the time being, there's nothing to be done.
gt, glad you liked 'em! The name "SEDA" refers to the real-life kitty whose portrait this is -- sort of! She does not look like a carpet and would of course take great exception to being stepped upon. However, she is a very elegant American Short Hair -- a retired showcat who is now the pet of the lady in whose house I was a guest, while I was working on these prints. Her original name was SEDONA (for the American scenic site) but her current owner shortened it to SEDA. So that explains that, I hope!
Paul, your interpretations are most entertaining! I believe each viewer is free to interpret as he/she wishes. So if you what you is see is a road-rollered cat and a rather meaningless subway scene -- so be it! That's what it is.
I know the graphic you're talking about, incised into the plaque that was sent out to wander through space -- and I think I recall reading that poem too. Interestingly, most people who have reacted to that print have remarked upon the pubic hair.
And ... ummm ... no: none of the figures is meant to be a self-portrait.
There are some people who get amused by everything beautiful in this creation. You are one amongst them. I liked all those artifacts created by you. They have a mystically crazy attractive nature.
Some people in this world get amused with everything beautiful in this creation. You are one amongst them. The works you have created are really beautiful. Funny thing is that they have a crazy mystical attracting power....
Let me be less entertaining and more serious now. Guernica and Persistence of Memory do not mean much to me either. But I choose to believe these are great works of art and that there is depth in them I haven’t fathomed.
And I’ll believe the same thing about you.
sire paul's comments and thine coincidentally synchronised with some clip i just saw which is quite relevant 2 how we process and store in4m@ion in our brains -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWTJRxNNUS0&feature=PlayList&p=30D9CEFBB905624D&index=0
& thought u folks might be interested in checking it out because it addresses something very deep - about how our brains handle incoming information (in a very simplified way)---- & u r in2 neurons & all th@.... best gt
The you tube search threw up a " 0 results found" response to the link, gt.
I think the 'Death of the Author' theory also means something similar. Once the book is written, the author has no say over what it means and what it doesn't. It is left to the individual reader to decide exactly what he deciphers from the text. And all those infinite number of images stored in your conscious, sub-conscious and unconscious mind right from the time you where in your mother's womb, probably has a bearing on your interpretation of what you read / hear / see.
Well that's very flattering Paul! I don't often get to share attention-space with Picasso and Dali ...
At the risk of sounding pedantic and/or falsely modest however, I'd like to say I don't think my work is great art (whereas I do think Guernica and Persistence... are). I CAN say why though I may not succeed in expressing myself in a brief statement. Greatness in art must (in my opinion) involve a quality that goes beyond the physical painting, the artist's ability, the individual viewer's response -- it should reach beyond the time and place of its creation to make it more than just the image on its canvas or object made of bronze, marble, what-have-you. In short, for a piece of art to be considered "great" (once more, just my opinion) its meaning needs to be multiplied through other people, through its consequence to those who see it and are affected by it.
Picasso and Dali, both in their very different ways (you happened to choose two Spaniards), worked in a very public arena, both consciously and by the coincidence of their location in time and history. By contrast my work is almost entirely private and its meanings, such as they are, touch only a small circle of people.
I could expand on this subject at tedious length -- but it isn't my intention to write a thesis here in comments (or elsewhere!). Your comment set off a train of thought and I felt it might be interesting to share a portion of it. Thanks for writing in.
gt, my computer's backwardness extends to not displaying YouTube video except with arthritic pauses every five seconds. So I didn't watch, but the subject sounds very interesting. I might chase after the article in Discovery Mag.
hmm. the more comments i am seeing here the more convinced i am that you will thoroughly enjoy and like the video. here what you might try - get to that video - and start to "watch it" but keep the volume off - as it goes through its irrit8ting hiccups - just ignore it..... whats happening is that your computer needs to download a buffer of the info it wants to display to you in its "memory" - and since the video files are very large, your computer is not fast enough to enough so segments of info streams in a bit - starts showing you what its got and in parallel tries to load more stuff of the next segment. now in your computers case - it needs to pause because its not finished "buffering" the next segment. however - once its downloaded and reaches the end of the show the entire video has now been downloaded in the transient memory of the computer so now use the play button to restart from begining. this might work. (un42n8ly the discover magazine write up merely directs you back to the u tube video.) gt
the gr8 hungarian biochemist once described scientific research as :
“Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought”
starting with the the earliest astrophysists - those stargazers tending their herds in asia or the middle east and noting the movements of the planetary bodies - till kepler turned those paths into elegant equation 2 2days thoughtful intellectual scientific/technological dadas; perhaps we can also accomod8 picasso, dali and soon one day ((:-)) manjula in the same categories through this gyorgian description of the creative process - seeing what everyone sees but st8ing it in a way no one has ever said it b4?? gt
paul: if you want to search the you tube site (www.youtube.com/) for the video please type in "The Ups and Downs of Forgetting" - thats the name of the video and you can watch it after it is located. Altern8ively you can actually not go to the you tube site but in your computer - in the region where the web address is written (it usually is a rectangle where you see http:blah blah) you can replace that entire address with exactly as a continuous string of the following characters -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWTJRxNNUS0&feature=PlayList&p=30D9CEFBB905624D&index=0
this is the link on your computer which will take you directly to the web site on you tube with the required video. instead of typing it letter for letter (as it must be exact) you can either highlight the string, and "copy and paste" it to the place where the web address is to be typed
or,
you can press "ctrl" on your key board as then as you simultaneously place your cursor anywhere over the region where this link of characters is written and click you might directly reach the required video.
gt
-- tx gt! I've been posting your comments to this site without following up. I find it enormously annoying to wait while video-data downloads so I usually follow an alternative course -- i.e., I download links that I might find interesting, and link to them when I have access to a faster computer(in my sister's house in Madras, f'rinstance). Which could be next week ... so I'll probably wait. Tx again.
Watched the video gt. My comp too had this problem of "arthritic pauses" so I downloaded the clip in "real player", waited till the downloading was complete, and watched it without a hitch. I guess one must be able to download a video clip in winamp or windows media player in pretty much the same manner, and avoid these buffering hiccups. Am I right?
(otherwise what would all those hapless souls,without sisters in Madras with faster comps, do?)(Consider a smiley inserted. I don't know how to do it in a blog comment. Talk of being computer illiterate!)
gt, are you in the scientific line? Neurology? Behavioral Science? Psychology?
"marvelous stuff", "beautiful", "mystically crazy and attractive" are some of the adjectives used to describe Manjula's paintings. I guess I'll need to familiarize myself better with art to understand what these mean. The fact that I haven't been able to grasp their meanings fully, only shows a lack of sensibility on my part, it isn't a criticism of the works themselves.
Paul, I'm not so sure you need to know anything more about art. I find that many people have been adversely affected by the Modern Art movement (of the early 20th Century) because they have been made to feel that it is in some way "wrong" to express a negative opinion about art. You hear very few people (other than art critics) who say, "I don't like that piece of garbage on the wall!"
From what I've seen, most people who say they don't "understand" a piece of art or art in general are signalling their disappointment with it. I consider it entirely valid to be unimpressed, turned off or otherwise disappointed with art (including mine, of course). I sometimes wish I could teach a course in art appreciation as a way of allowing people to express their true opinions about art without feeling a need to apologize for disliking it but ... I'd need another life-time or two!
Oh and re gt (who may or may not answer for himself)? Not bad for guesses, Paul! gt has done his share of ” ...thinking what nobody has thought” too. And not just in the way of professional life ... *grin*
I waited for gt to respond. Now that he seems to take his own time, let me just say though your art hasn't left me all that mystified your statement that "gt has done his share of thinking what nobody else has..,and not just by way of professional life.." indeed has left me totally mystified!
*smiling* Ahhh ... it's no great mystery, Paul! A minor dig at gt, in reference to the years when he and a whole gang of buddies were young PhD students in Bombay.
now now. my degree (or, as zappa would say "debris") is indeed in neurobiology and my lust is still in understanding "understanding". .... and i am indeed involved in many different projects involving biotechnology, or (believe it or not) image processing by the visual system - which has tangentially led me into the forays of the business world with anti counterfeiting platforms! so probably all this dilly dallying leaves me somewhat of a misfit in any obvious classification scheme. but un42n8ly my professional life falls in the boring realm of science and technology. to quote something i read and liked - "science is we, art is i" and i guess what its trying to imply is that the truth in scientific experiments lie in their universality whereas art really is a unique product of the individual.... and that is actually why someone like manjula is a real jewel........however you - sire paul? what makes you tick? gt
I'm in the teaching line, gt. Not that it provides me a raison d’etre. It provides me with a pay check at the end of the month. And that matters. As to whether it helps in any other way, I can not tell for sure. Most of us in the college tend to take the view that the children score decent grades not because of us, but in spite of us. (Remember Pink Floyd? “We don’t need no education”?)
Woody Allen once remarked "the only cultural advantage of being in Los Angeles is that you can take a free left at a red light". If I adopt a similar view (there's been times I really identified myself with him –well, at least until his affair with Mia Farrow's daughter), I should say the advantage of being a college prof. is that nobody breathes down your neck all the time, unlike in the case of an executive in a private enterprise like, say, Hindusthan Lever.
I tried to seek a truer meaning in life, but everything I tried till now seems to have failed. There’s this King Crimson number I keep humming to myself time and again which goes "Confusion…will be my epitaph.." Or, in other words, my website is www.clueless.com (smiley inserted)
sire paul: though clueless.com kept me clueless - true 2 its name i s'ppose - i wonder if u have ever read "all about h hatter" by gv desani. do check it out - & u might get insights from a brethren, similarly inclined as thee (or even me) who has wandered and wondered about many questions th@ all of us quest about. ...& if u have had the pleasure of traveling in india, u will be often twittering through the remarkable punning and funning that desani performs with the language........ a true classic by any standards...... & even educational - in the school of life (2 quote a bit from him). gt
ps woody allens "the brain is my second most favorite organ" is 1 of his best lines!
That was from the Readers' Digest, gt. "Elderly man, alone and looking lost, in an airport launch wearing a t-shirt with the graffiti "www.clueless.com". Sorry if that set you out on a wild goose chase. I'll check out the book by desani. Sachin Chavan, once technical analyst of stocks and shares whose client I was (that was the brief period when I had thought having a lot of money would mean a villa in the Riviera, Ms. Universe for your spouse, happiness, peace,..) had once suggested that I read "Who moved my cheese?" I found it didn't move me. Sachin is no more an analyst. The last I heard from him, he was honing his skills in motivational training (the Shiv Khera line, you know?). However, I tend to take the view that notwithstanding the tons of reels spent for the purpose, not a single book, nor any training programme has permanently changed the basic nature of an individual. But there’s a large, and still growing market out there.
p.s. I liked woody allen best on the psycho-analysts couch.
looked at sachin on google and propose that he should be the prima dona for the www.clueless site....stocks.ha! gambling is what it is even though they try 2 cloak it as financial investments.... even the gr8 yudhishtar was bamboozled because of that trait. as i recall - desani has a chapter that deals with gambling 2 - do check the book out.
& ms. universe, moolah, happiness, peace? all in 1 sentence? theres a plurality of oxymorons 4 sure! 1 of the dalai lamas had once said "happiness does not come ready made. it comes from your actions." gt
I remember my English teacher who introduced 'oxymoron' to the undergrad class with a classic statement " ...an oxymoron, you may tend to conclude, is a moron who looks a bit like an ox, but is anything but that." (smile).
So you don't buy the theory that investing in stocks is financial management? To you it is not any different from gambling? Well, to speak the truth, you are absolutely right!
sire paul - the polish poet stanislaus lee wrote "is it progress if a cannibal uses knife and fork?" that encapsul8 wh@ i feel about financial investments and stocks (is it financial investment if u place bets on a company's economic per4mance?). also in fairness 2 our favourite hostess {with the mostess :-)} i propose th@ this b our last correspondence on this blog section....... lets hook up in 1 of her l8r posts. best wishes. gt
Good suggestion, gt! See y'all further up then? I'll provide the usual webside refreshments -- cookies, of course!!
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