Thursday 20 November 2014

Art and me - Filling blank spaces through jewelry

I was young when my parents exposed me to art. Art in all those forms that they had an access to, as a lower - middle - class - single - member - earning couple. But one thing that they had very different from a lot of other parents (their contemporaries and mine too, many more before them and those yet to come as well) was clarity.

My dad knew that the reason behind me joining at least one hobby course every summer was not to make me the marriageable material who knows stitching, sewing, painting, making some stuff toys and puppets, garlands and what not. The main objective was to channelize the whole lot of energy I had left in me, after I studied, played around, read and sang and everything else that I did.

It was till almost the 16th year of my age that this trend continued. And then it stopped, stayed as such for almost a decade, before I started learning artsy stuff again. And the rebound happened with beading and jewelry making. Here are the images of something I made a long while ago.

Now, the idea was not to show off what I made, the idea was to share why do I even make jewelery. True, I started with the intention that I wanted to wear the jewelry, then for some time it was get applause, then it was to generate revenue as well.


Given, last three years I haven't made much, and I am no longer too keen on it either. But then, here's what I really wanted to write about:

Why does any form of art appeal to me? Why did I continue dabbling in jewelry? Why did I (unlike professionals), not design the jewelry first and instead buy the material before and then assemble it later?

It took me some introspection and some serious thought before I found the answer. It was so obvious that it was almost invisible. I do this because I want to fill spaces.

It's no longer about channelizing energy any more, I know ten other things that I can do for that. It is now about filling those blank spaces in my head which get engrossed in color sequencing, bead sequencing, making sure of the knots and the locks.

It is a semi-meditative state of mind, whenever it happens (it rarely does now, my material is at home and I am in Delhi) and whenever I do it alone; It is an enjoyable time shared with mom, if and when we do it together, rarely now as it is.

I'm working on finding a substitute to beading, quilling, making cards and a lot more now. Or maybe I'll simply restart all of that again. The blank spaces are growing in size again.

But till then I'll leave you to think about what is it that fills your blank spaces? :)


© Anupama Garg

p.s. I removed the images for my blog is penalized for some wiered reason


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