SALT OF MY MIND

                                                                                                                      Rue Transnoniuan, 1834                                One of his few realistic works, showing the massacre by the French Government                                                              (Source - The British Museum) Every once in a rare while we come across an artist who just draws us in, very inexplicably yet in a very natural manner. As I stood staring for hours at Daumier's works at the Royal Academy some months ago, I knew I was in that rare sphere of time; of having discovered something so very precious and brilliant, something which would help me tackle some of my persistent questions and yet something so simple and lucid that it wouldn't be a hard brick on the head. At first you are just swept off your feet; you just stare at the genius in front of you. You can never have enough of his drawings (and there are over 1000's of which o

One thing which when knocks against my mind makes music to my senses is the feel of a kinship between Art and me. It is tough to have an objective understanding of your own work without getting your feet tangled in value judgements; nevertheless, it is pretty interesting to pause for a while and look back at snippets of your journey and mull over what else you could do to develop your Art. An Art residency is always such a place. It is like a low tide in your creative cruise; you think, but are stopped before your thinking can step into worry; you work but you don't drive yourself nuts, and you are made to feel safe and secure enough to have all those ideas until now hibernating in your head to be finally born, however deformed or premature it might later seem. Some residencies are more like personal spaces to be cut away from everything else and work; some residencies are pretty intense if there are specific programs or shows to be put up by the end, and you have daily excitin