I started 2020 with a big resolve and ambition. To not overthink and just create indiscriminately. At the beginning of the year, I was able to blog for 15 odd days when the reality of Covid hit all of us — indiscriminately.
For the longest part of the initial months of lockdown, I was turbocharged into the black hole of domestic work and just trying to survive with my cooking. I saw with my eyes, dust settling in crevices that I turned a blind eye to, some cob webs getting larger and small hillocks of dishes and unironed clothes got bigger.
Now, it is almost the end of this year and I wanted to pick up the pieces again and hobble along.
This is what happened in the studio this week:
My endometriosis flared up along with a continuation of the flu. I got tested for Covid-19 and while the test came negative, the healthcare worker conducting the test drove the swab so deep that it hit a nerve behind my eye and there was an additional eye to nurse along with my broken body. It was difficult sitting down for more than 20 minutes at a stretch, it was difficult walking, back and knee were sore and my spirits were really rock bottom.
Its when I am completely down and about, there wakes up a part of me that wants to rebel against my own body. I usually crash early and wake up early and head straight to the studio table. This collage is a product of that rebellion.
Watched HillBilly Elegy - a movie based on a book I wanted to read but just didn’t get the time. The performances shook me and I did move back and forth from my childhood to the present moment.
Also binged on Dash and Lily. Am I ashamed of binging on teenage romance? Never!
I have been reading Lust for Life, a biographical novel written in 1934 by Irving Stone on the life of Vincent Van Gogh. I have a very battered copy of it and some of the pages keep jumping out of the binding no matter how delicately I handle the book. I find the writing lucid and find it hard to not daydream about the time when Vincent wasn’t the most famous Van Gogh.
This week, I worked on an original drawing of an attention map made with my own words. After drawing a lot with other (wiser) people’s words, writing my own was fun.
To end, I am attaching a few pictures of another sketchbook where I spent most of 21st November with.
About the ‘From the Studio’
This is a letter that I intend to publish every Sunday. My wish is not only to look backwards in reflection but to use the reflection as a guiding principle for the next week. I am impacted by influences every moment of the day — literature, spoken word, cinema, fellow humans and my work. I am hoping to use this space as the vessel to share all the beauty I found in the world that week.
