An Orkut Story

I have suddenly become severely addicted to Orkut. Initially it was a twice-a-day fix but over time, the frequency of my addiction has drastically increased. Now I need it on an hourly basis. It is the natural fallout of being holed at home in a predictable routine with minimal links to the outside world. One discovers a small release that gives a definite high and before long, one is hooked.

Before anyone from a different geological timescale reads this and jumps to any preposterous conclusions, let me assure you that Orkut, although it sounds like over the counter medication, is no Central Nervous System Depressant or Dopamine. It is a networking site where you get to keep in touch with your pals from all over the world and also get to make new ones through this existing web of friends. The best part is that you get to track down pals you haven't seen in years by simply doing a search for them on the site. If they are registered, and the probability of that is high, considering that the site has over 3.4 million users, it is happy reunion time. I am hooked like a fish on a bait!

My husband is a computer games enthusiast and weekends are the only time that he gets to indulge in the number one passion of his existence. That's where I come in like a royal spanner in the works. When he goes off on a bathroom break, I pounce onto the computer, click the Exit button on his game in one slick move and log onto Orkut and see which friend has "scrapped" me or in other words, sent me a message. If there is enough time in the one minute that it takes for the man to finish up and return, I will have scrapped a friend or two too. Before he's back, I will have restored his game and left the screen looking like it did. With a slight difference. I would have forgotten to click on the "Save" button of his game and he will be left back on square one after having painstakingly plodded through several impossible levels like the Norse God of Games that he is. So, weekends are quite painful for my husband with my Orkut addiction looming large.

16 years back, while in exile in India during the Gulf War, I made it to the finals of the Kerala State Youth Festival Art competition. There, I was introduced to the art prodigy of our generation, Kavitha Balakrishnan. She of course, won first place and I was placed fourth, I think. Over the years, both of us were featured in the media quite often: she was the art prodigy and I was the writing prodigy. Kavitha Balakrishnan and Oormila Vijayakrishnan. Nice alliteration. We never met after that competition. Till two days back. On Orkut.

Then there was my friend and chief competitor, Vidya Nagarajan, back in school who beat you out of the gold medal by a mark and a half. I tracked her down after 16 years on Orkut too. And a long lost pal in the U.S. And another one in Sweden. So, Orkut for me has become one large fishing net where I find old contacts. Where I get to be some kind of modern day Hercule Poirot, tracking people down...

The site's a great space for the most part. But like the rest of the Net, it can also be a funny place to be, at times. Like the weird scraps you get from people you have never met before whose idea of showing interest is sending you scraps like "I want to friendship you" or " I interesting in friendshipping you" or some other ingenious grammatical usage of the sort. So even when you look forward to meeting genuine people with honest intentions of friendship, your antennae are always up and buzzing to filter out the trolls and weirdos who might message and be potential harassers.

I had the most ridiculous experience the day before. A journalist I have never met, messaged with an offer of friendship. I went to his profile, read what he had to say about himself and made a sketchy judgement. On Orkut, the "scraps" that you send people are public and you can eavesdrop on the conversations they are having with others. That's also a way to ascertain what kind of people they could be and if they are worth adding to your network. So this particular person seemed to have serious concerns in life and after deciding that I had second guessed enough, gave him the green signal and added him to my friends. We sent each other a few scraps about art. Then he sent me a message in my mail comparing Nebulae ( a topic I had chosen for a canvas) to bunches of grapes and then, some clusters called Cassia Fistula.

As I said before, on Orkut, there are dirty people lurking around who show their perverse sides once then obtain your trust. I freaked out. Fistula! Disgusting! How awful! What kind of pass was he trying to make? Talking about "grape clusters" and fistula, obvious references to hemorrhoids and creepy diseases of the urino-genital system! I was frothing, foaming and fuming. Unfortunately I have always lived my life by the rule of the jungle: Kill first, then think and was contemplating sending the man a scathing mail when my husband suggested that we do a google search for Cassia Fistula before lynching the guy.

The search result had us silent for a moment and then in splits. Turned out that Cassia Fistula is the botanical name for a deciduous tree that is famous for its "golden shower" flowers or in other words, flower clusters that look like Nebulae! And in a dramatic twist, also found an article that talked about the Divine Ratio and the Golden Mean. And how bunches of grapes were another of natural examples for extra terrestrial phenomena like Nebulae. So the poor journalist was just stating some facts and very academic and interesting ones at that!

That had me thinking about trust and faith in the milk of human kindness. The Net has become our only access to the outside world. A world in which many people you meet are people you don't know at all. I have become the Queen of Second Guessing as I progressively become a Net addict. Of course, that gets me into idiotic situations like this where I look like a crowned ass. I wiped the sweat of foolishess off my forehead and sent the journalist a thank you scarp for his academic and intelligent evaluation of my work. And smiled a ridiculous smile of relief that no one is going to know about my paranoid interpretation! :-D

Art and Blinders

Being a self taught artist, I've worked in various styles over the years as a teenager. In the past ten years or so, I have slowly evolved my own language and my own sense of style.

I hate to define my work in terms of -isms but I suppose the world views it that way and it is important to finally have an Artist's Statement that says what you and your work is all about. In precise professional terms. So, if I have to fit my work in an -ism, I would grudgingly say that I am an Oscillating Impressionist-Expressionist. Sometimes, I am concerned with the visual beauty of things and that is where my light, airy interpretation of things comes in and I go full swing, simply and harmonically to being an Impressionist. And when I decide to create from the subconscious and my subject matter is an emotional response, I become an Expressionist. Looks like I have coined my own art term there. Spoofs apart, I gravitate more towards being an Expressionist. My work uses colour and composition as tools of emoting. Over the years, I further narrowed down my work to what really calls me. More than the pure aesthetically pleasing impression of a subject, I am concerned with the feelings and emotional reactions the piece elicits.

A question that I have addressed over the years without satisfactory answers is why does an Artist, when he turns professional and is aiming for commercial success, have to stick to one style? By Artist, I am using a broad term- one could be a musician, painter or writer. But let's stick to artists here for the time being. Wouldn't a work in screaming green, blue and yellow by Da Vinci seem a little jarring, now that we have type cast him as one who produces brooding, evocative work in sepias and browns? Could it be possible that Dali felt like making something other than Surrealistic nightmares and felt like painting a simple rose for Gala, without symbolism, myth and metaphor?

A friend told me that an artist ceases to be an artist the day he turns "professional". I thought the statement was presumptuous. And powerfully true. I don't like to paint sceneries unless I have an expressionist take on them. But a realistic rendition? No sir, not my style, I say. I do portraits but again, the strokes are Expressionist. I love Figurative art and all the works I produce are Expressionist. When I go to the houses of friends who have the work I did as a teenager, up on their walls, I cringe. Because it was an experimental phase when I dabbled in all forms and all styles and was a free spirit. And now that I have what I call "my own language" and "my signature style", I can't identify with that unfettered past anymore. I don't know if it is a good or bad thing. That is what puzzles me.

I know of a famous artist ( not mentioning names here!) who put up a painting in a public space. A piece that was completely different from the body of work he normally produces. He smartly took the money and did not sign the work. Simply because he was someone with "name and reputation" and had his "signature style" out there by now. And this commission, which was done purely for money, would have had critics and art hawks questioning why this piece was not in accord with his "blue phase" or "orange phase" or whichever portion of the colour wheel he was on at that point in time. This, I would think, is a prime example of how commercial success really kills the artist. He no longer paints from the heart. The creative process suddenly becomes a very "aware" one, limited by expectations, results and reputation.

Which leaves me with the question I started with- does commercial success kill the artist in the sense that it puts blinders on his creative self and all his subsequent work is then a process that is streamlined in one direction?

Mirrors and Headlamps

I was in the changing room of a store pulling up a pair of corduroys when I noticed a big cellulite ridden bum sagging away in the mirror in front of me. Whose terrible behind was that, I thought out loud? Can't that stupid woman close the door and then take her pants off? That's when it struck me that the bum was mine, reflected in one of those weird angled mirrors that lets you stare ahead at your own back view. I sat down for a moment, corduroy pants at my knees. How in blazes did that part of me get to looking that bumpy and amorphous?

By the time I recovered from the shock of being the owner of the bulging bean-bag bum, I thought I would do a little more snooping. Turned around and had a look at other bits of me. Everyone looked like they had headed a little south from where I had seen them last. Back muscles, neck muscles, arms, the twins. Everybody! A friend had told me that childbirth does that to you. The ageing process is suddenly accelerated. Skin loses its elasticity from the weight fluctuations, the stomach looks like an estuary photographed from above and the behind looks like a detailed road map of Manhattan. The visual tour was a little too much for me. I quickly pulled on my pants and left the store in a state of blissful denial. This is the problem with changing rooms in big, plush stores, I told myself. They have too many lights, too fine carpeting, fancy fans, sexy background music and and standing in there, contrasted against all that finery makes you look like a sorry excuse of Nature. There was nothing wrong with me. I am sure if I looked at my behind in the soothing light of the lampshade at home, it would look as burnished as a baby's bottom. So there.

It struck me with a sense of panic that I had slowly begun the descent into the Geriatric state.

At a beauty store last week, I was looking at some shampoos when a sales girl, a young thing in her early twenties, sweetly asked me " Anything else ma'am? Foundation, Eye-shadow, Blusher? Maybe some Wrinkle-lift cream?". My smile dropped two floors and splotched in an ugly mess like a rotten mango. Wrinkle-cream? What did she think I was, 87 that I needed Wrinkle Cream?!? "I don't use any such fancy things", I said coldly. She was quite thick I guess, not detecting the thick displeasure in my voice and swinging the magnifying mirror towards me ( another irritating invention like the headlamps they put in changing rooms), said " After 30, ma'am, we get crow's feet and laugh lines and the start of wrinkles. See for yourself". I was horrified at her brashness. If that wasn't bad enough, what stared back at me from the mirror was even more alarming. Forget crow's feet, the stuff around my eyes looked like some disgusting cellular-webbing straight out of a B-grade Hollywood Creature-movie. There was something like Satan's pitchfork running across my forehead, the sunspots looked like utility ditches and the surface of the skin was like a grapefruit peel. I grabbed my shampoo and ran.

Back home, I got onto the Net. And clicked on the first of 29,700,000 results for "Ageing". None of it was pleasant. There were attempts to make the process easier for people by calling it "an ascent to wisdom" and "lines of maturity" and "respectable state" and what not. Then there were the cold, clinical articles that talked about immobility, instability, incontinence, imapired intellect and many such intimidating "i" worded things. There was an article on Adult Diapers, Walking Sticks and Wheelchairs.

The better part of my morning was spent on reading what other women did in their sword fight against age. Plastic surgery, Botox, Yoga. I read that Sophia Loren's statistics are virtually unchanged to this day. It amazed me to see the queries that women sent to experts to ask questions about hanging onto their good looks. It struck me that if Ponce De Leon had been alive today, there would have been many a rich matron who would have funded his expeditions in search of the Fountain of Youth.

When my husband came home, I asked him a few casual questions about the computer. What did this icon and that key do? How did google work as a site? Finally steered the conversation around to what I REALLY wanted to know- "how to delete the History" from the computer. God alone knows what the man thought ( perhaps the bored housewife was surfing porn or flirting with some online boys?) but being too trusting and inherently decent, simply told me how to do it. The last thing I wanted anyone to find out was that I was looking at " Stop the Ageing Process", "Everlasting Youth" or some such fantastic rubbish. I was just another woman who had picked up a nice sturdy straw-sword in my crusade against Ageing.

Pssst. Don't tell anyone but I went snooping back to the store with that young-thing sales girl and got something called Recova. Supposed to keep the wrinkles at bay. Heh heh. Shall post some before and after pictures in a while. You tell me how it has worked...

Landmark

Yesterday,I had the privilege of attending the Landmark Education 2006 graduate event "Living Powerfully, a life that defies the predictable".

I am a graduate of the Landmark Educatiob Forum and in 2003, did all three courses of their Curriculm for Living programs. It has been one of the most powerful experiences of my life.

The event was for all graduates of the program. It was awesome sitting with 4000 plus graduates of the Landmark education Forum in a huge stadium listening to the motivating words of the speakers. I came away feeling transformed and radiant as I always do when I attend their programs, with some powerful insights about how I can live my life with greater control and produce tangible results. Of the many many points I noted down during the event, here's one that really called me-

One thing I realised was that you will always have what is called your "current circumstances". It may be one set of scenarios today and another set tomorrow. Today you may be a student with family obligations who is low on funds wondering how you will pay for higher education. At another point in life you may be a wife and mother wondering how you will keep alive your intellect and interests while caring for your family. But no matter what, you will always have "current circumstances". So, citing "current circumstances" as an excuse for not doing something is not empowering. The time to do anything is NOW. The concept of "sometime, someday" gets you nowhere. There will be no point in life when all is favourable and conducive.

At Landmark, I did not hear a single thing that I had not heard before. Everything that is spoken there has been said for ages. But then, what is it about Landmark that produces powerful changes in people and gets them to do the unimaginable? Make ground breaking results happen?

It is the "technology" that is imparted there that helps one "sustain" the results prouced. And that is something that has to be experienced and just cannot be said in words!

( You can read more about Landmark Education Forum and what the foundation is all about at www.landmarkeducation.com)

Up close and personal- The Christ Series

An artist is a tortured soul, to quote a cliche. If the mood-swings and the confused thoughts are not bad enough, there are the critics to face and their incredibly ingenious interpretations. I am slowly working on cultivating a thicker skin. Here are what some had to say about my work on Christ.

In the Wilderness

This was the first of the three paintings. My Satan was initially a very glamorous guy with a heart shaped face and bat's wings. Then, I got some inputs from friends who said that he wasn't "scary" enough. His wings looked like Chrysanthamum petals and with his theatre mask face, he looked comical, almost foolish. I started sweating bullets. Here was Christ, all noble and exuding divinity. And Satan looked straight out of Cartoon Network. No wonder Christ never got tempted by this buffoon. It was too much of a contrast and just would not work within this painting. So, I got to work on Satan. I cut off his wings, gave him a morphed face with some smokey effects and put some black behind him so as to make him more sinister. Then, I "tested" him out on people. On a scale of 1 to 10, they rated him an 8 in terms of scary, mean guy and tempter. That was great in my books. My initial Satan was no more sinister than Mickey Mouse. People would have liked to make friends with him. To the smart aleck who asked me what the "platter" behind Christ's head is, let's talk after you have checked out some Classical representations of Christ.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit

I got to hear lots of interesting things on this painting. There was one guy who wanted to know why God was represented as a "nuclear explosion". Another person was not happy with the bird. Were the gray shades on the Dove supposed to represent Sin or the fact that life aint all black and white (wow, this guy could give critics a complex, I say). Why did Christ look like a Super Hero? I had some lame answer or the other for all the lame queries. The best question was " Why is Christ looking that-a-way and not this-a-way?". I rested my case on that one.

Sermon on the Mount

According to my research, there was no mountain, just a group of hills in the area where Christ gave the sermon on the mount. One person was damn mean and asked me if he had borrowed Mother Mary's shawl that day because Mother Mary is the one who is portrayed with the blue black shawl. I had kittens on this one too but thankfully,I discovered that Da Vinci has represented Christ with a blue shawl. So if Florentine masters can do it, so can Banaswadi upstarts. To the person who asked me if the guy with the closed eyes is sleeping through Christ's sermon, duh, he is not. Sometimes you close your eyes when you are touched and are imbibing something with respect and devotion. That's what that guy is doing, ok. Somehow, this painting has not photographed well at all. And no amount of messing around on Photoshop is approximating it to what it looks like in real life. So hope you people will go to Goa and check it out on the gallery wall :-)

Artists at Work, Samarra and Moi

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

These got sent off to St.Francis Xavier's Cathedral in Goa late last night. It was a very emotional moment for me. My first big break in India. My first big promotion from street side artist to two-bit Michelangelo. Now I can die knowing that I did get to put up my work in a significant place!

This series was done at break neck speed. It was all providential, how I got this offer, really. I was reading, I swear, Sarah Hall's 2004 Booker Prize nominated "The Electric Michelangelo" when I got a call from a wax sculptor friend, late at night. He is Shreeji Bhaskaran, India's first wax sculptor and he had been commissioned by the Cathedral to make the Last Supper for the new Gallery of Contemporary Christian Art that was opening at the Cathedral on the eve of the feast. He put in a word for me, the kind soul that he is and asked me if I had any work on Jesus. I couldn't believe my ears! I said I did not have any canvasses on Christ but I sure could make a few! This is the biggest Cathedral, arguably, in India which gets at least a 1000 visitors a day and what an honour it was to be asked to paint a series on Christ.

I want to acknowledge the wonderful people in my life who made this dream possible for me- my doll girl Samarra for being the Zen angel that she is. She was zero trouble as always and I could concentrate on my work without having to bother about bawling and tantrums. My better half, Vivek, who is willing to run around for me even in the middle of the night if it means getting an outlet for my interests. My mom-in-law, Aruna, for all the encouragement, strength, support and love she gives me unconditionally and for her slogan of "Go Women!". She's a true feminist. My folks in Kuwait, for their mails and calls that kept me going when I thought I could not meet the deadline and despaired. My bro, Munna, my aunt Susheela for all the gooides they kept pampering me with. My friends and critics ( even the slightly jealous ones who kept nit-picking) who gave me inputs and suggestions. All the wonderful people who came on the day of the preview party at home and were a part of my happiness. Most all, thanks to Shreeji and his family for being so magnanimous, going out of the way to get me this chance and making all arrangements for transporting my art work to Goa. God bless everyone!

I'll be putting up each work seperately once Blogger stops acting manic-depressive and I am able to post again.

Technical Problemo

Blogger has been a pain in my A*** the entire day! Haven't been able to upload a single picture of my paintings! Am tearing my hair in frustration. Well, not all of it. I'll be 30 next year and post 30,I read, hair really starts to thin out. So, these days, I tear hair judiciously. I'm trying nails for a change. They grow back, though slightly slower, at any age...

Christ in the making

I haven't been able to post regularly because I have been up to my eyes in paint. I am working feverishly on my series on the life of Christ for St.Francis Xavier's Cathedral in Goa. I'm doing a set of three works that depict the Temptation in the Wilderness, The Sermon on the Mount and a symbolic representation of The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit. It has been gruelling and so extremely fulfilling at the same time!

I am sending these off on the 15th. It used to be very painful in the past, parting with my work. But now, I have become a seasoned mother, seeing my children fly the nest every once in a while. I keep photos of them. I look at them regularly, wonder how they are faring in their new homes and if they are "happy". These are going to a Catherdral, so they are certainly going to be well looked after and contented...

Poor Satan. What a fate to be maligned and bitched about for ever and ever more,Amen. I sympathize with Satan, you know. He was just an Equal Rights kind of guy, a Champion of Democracy. And for that he got pummeled and shoveled out of Heaven. In today's context, how would he have been any different from Nelson Mandela or an Aung San Su Kyi? They also fought against dictatorship of different kinds, didn't they?

Oooh, this is controversial territory. I remember Dr. Subbu teaching us Paradise Lost back in college and how the class was divided about who the true hero of Paradise Lost is. What a free for all that was! There were some of us who maligned "God" of the Old Testament for being a cruel God, saying that one who could create a place like Hell for people who did not worship him and accept his authority without question was indeed Fidel Castro's second cousin. Then there were those who got apoplexy listening to that and were convinced that we would soon be joining Satan in Hell for our audacity. Personally, I was blurred about the existing definitions of God and Hell and Heaven and Satan and all the stock words in coinage since kingdom come. It is difficult to analyze without prejudice. But, I gravitated towards Satan's side, I must confess. My take was that if he was indeed out of line, maybe God could have hired some heavenly bouncers and given him a thrashing to discipline him. Nah, I take that back, even that sounds terrible! But frying the poor guy and his friends in fire and brimstone and changing his appearance, boarding and lodging permanently was just not done. It was a gross violation of human rights.

Jokes and academic debates apart, I have absolutely no questions about the purity of Christ. It's been my privilege to make this work on the Lord. So, please, I don't want to see any protestors on my lawn brandishing "Burn in Hell" placards!

My paintings will be up here by 15th morning, so watch this space!

Horoscopic Temptations

I have been toying with the idea of taking a look at my horoscope. One part of me is dying to know what has been predicted for me by the unique planetary alignment at the time of my birth. Will some rich relative on the verge of kicking the bucket decide to make me his heir after miraculously forgiving my abominable sin of wearing low-rise jeans that flaunt the butt-crack? Will some Hollywood Director chance upon my blog during coffee break and ask me to write the screenplay for the movie of the millennium? And also send me tickets to California? By First Class? With Penthouse accommodation and car on arrival? Caviar and Champagne later? (And so the dream unfolds infinitely on...).

My rational half, which staunchly believes in free will, protests against such a weakness as wanting to know the future. It boasts the courage to take each day as it comes with the sublime and the stinking. Besides, there is also the clammy fear of finding something scary in your future- stock market bunglings, brain tumors, psychotic lovers. Even more scary than finding something scary is to find nothing great at all. Imagine being told that you will spend the rest of your life in stalemate, swatting flies and that the biggest achievement you will ever have is the 49% you scored in a Math paper, ten years ago? Thus, better to stay in hallucinatory dreams and hopes of imagined greatness than to have them confirmed or negated. Let sleeping dogs lie, in my opinion.

Most people would laugh at me. Because I would be one of the few people in my community who have not had a look at this "sacred piece of information" by now. The first thing that is written on the birth of a child is his natal chart. It will have a detailed account of the main events in his life, with comprehensive interpretations of his choices, actions, decisions and their consequences. Many of my relatives are firm believers in the horoscope and many an astrogloger makes a fat buck off them on a regular basis, reading their natal charts and predicting such things as when to build a house, when to change jobs, what to wear to the next job interview and what sort of transportation to take to the venue. Wonder of all wonders, it will even tell you whom to marry!

I am not refuting that astrology is a science. Crudely put, we are all made up of matter and the planets do have some kind of pull or push on us depending on the variations in our chemical compostions. From what I have read on the subject, there is some serious gravitation, levitation and manipulation involved. I am just against slavishly living my life according to what is predicted for my future. Take for example, this uncle of mine who does not go out on Tuesdays as he is just not a Tuesday-guy as per his horoscope. He wears a fat onyx on his index finger and yellow on Wednesdays and eats lentils cooked in clarified butter for good luck. He also does not operate machinery or have anything to do with dogs as both augur trouble for him, according to his horoscope. It is a pain when he visits. He will fidget in the car since it is "machinery" and during every car ride, he is covinced it will crash. As for dogs, he freaks out so much around them that even the most docile mutt will get agitated and will contemplate taking a swipe at his butt.

A few years back, I heard this true story. A man went to his astrologer to have a look at his natal chart before taking some important decision. The astrologer went ashen faced; he saw a terrible disaster in the man's immediate future. He said that the man would be involved in a car accident and would sustain terrible injuries. His wife almost got a cardiac arrest hearing this ( wonder if that was predicted for her). She would not let him out of the house and every minute of every hour of every day, they bit nails and tore hairs together about this Godawful thing that was foretold for him. He took leave from work and stayed at home in this wonderful state of paranoid hysteria for about six months. Then one day, he fell down the stairs and broke bones and injured his spine.

So where is the car and the crash as was predicted? Here's the creepy climax- he had stepped on his son's toy car at the top of the stairs and that was what had brought him whizzing down to his doom...

So there is truth to astrology after all and in the hands of a skilled astrologer, the predictions can be amazingly accurate. Which brings me back to the point I made- ignorance is bliss in these matters for sure.

I pity relatives who are so cramped that they have to consult the horoscope for the tiniest of tiny matters. But if there is anyone I detest, it is the relatives who go to astrologers with YOUR birth details to find out what YOU have in store. Then, they snoop around you with raised eyebrows and knowing looks. Most of the time, you cannot even say if it is awe or fear. Perhaps they have found out that you are bi-sexual or that you used to have a whiff of pot once in a while? These damned horoscopes can also tell your past! Of late, two or three people in my family have been fidgeting around me and have been dropping broad hints about my horoscope and about "the time having come" or something as enigmatic and irritating as that. Thankfully, they are smiling, so I know they haven't seen that I shall shed blood or do time.

My aunt let slip that it has to do with "writing" and "being read by many all over the world". As much as I want to believe it is about a Best Seller in the making that will be gunning for the Booker a few years from now, I have a weird feeling it could be my humble blog. Well, I am "writing", so the first part is true. And since it is on the Internet, I am sure three people in Zimbabwe, two in Australia, ten in Bangalore and six in the U.S can be considered a world wide reader base. Three plus two plus ten plus six equals many people. So there is part two of the prediction.

Actually, there is a way of knowing for sure if the prediction is about my blog or some serious contribution to Literature that lurks in my brain at the moment, waiting for the right time to be born. You see, I have my horoscope which was written at the time of my birth, sitting in my locker. It has been lying there for the past 29 years.

I have never read it.

"Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak." -Matthew 26:41

First Face

Finished a few faces in the new series I have begun in charcoal. Shot one and here it is.I have tried to blend realism with a faint touch of Modiglani-esque distortion. I am crazy about Modigliani. There is something dizzy about the ways he skews some of his portraits.

My faces, for a change, are not portraits of any people I know. I am simply putting blunt end of charcoal to paper and experimenting with what emerges. So, resemblance to anyone dead or alive is purely coincidental. However, if you think any of my work resembles you or maybe your girlfriend and would like to have it up on your or her wall, well, you know what to do. Leave a comment and I'll get back to you with the price, heh heh...