January is a month I always look forward to for many reasons. The weather gets warmer, and there is so much happening around that is of interest to me. On the first Sunday of January our city Bangalore hosts a huge art show. This is the only day when art is sold on the street. Artists both big and small artists alike sell their art on streets specifically earmarked for this purpose. This is one day I never want to miss, even if I don't buy anything this walk becomes my inspiration for the rest of the year. I ensured that the hubs and I left home early, I was surprised that our younger son decided to join us on this art walk.
Art and craft work of every kind is displayed on the street for the day. Artist big and small sell their products here. If one doesn't get here early there is a chance of missing out on the best paintings and sculptures which are grabbed by the big players. Hoteliers and people from the service industries scout these streets like hawks to get the best buys.
Every year I make it a point to buy some piece of art to help some upcoming artist. This year however, I did not find anything fascinating that I wanted to keep. I liked a couple of water color paintings but the prices were pretty steep, so I ditched the effort even before it started.
Art almost always reflects the culture of the place.The Indian fascination with cows, temples, elephants, tigers, lions and peacocks was highly visible in the collection of paintings on display. Some of the paintings of temple sculptures was astonishingly realistic, in fact as good as any great work of photography. This one above is only a sample of the hundreds of such brilliant work.
Even though we reached the place around 9 a.m. It was impossible to stop and spend time to view every artists painting. The crowds started to get thick by midday. By three in the afternoon it was claustrophobic to walk down these streets. Taking a closer look at the art work became difficult and taking photographs became impossible. Every picture I tried to take was getting photo-bombed.
There were some beautiful stone and wooden sculptures on display. One was a bust of a young elephant, which was more of a relief work. The artist had done it so realistically that many people asked him if it was a stuffed elephant.
Right in the heart of the street is the state art school. In front of this were a number of dramas and tableau of various cultural scenes, historic and social events of the time on display. However, it was impossible to take a good photograph of these displays as it was heavily crowded in these areas and we avoided these areas.
I loved these art works which were created on canvas using sand. There were so many wonderful works and this lepord took my fancy. It was priced quite high, I had no mind to bargain with the artist, even though this is how all trade is done here. I feel bargaining is like telling someone that their work is not good enough. That is my personal take, but in India you need to bargain if you want to buy stuff off the vendors on the road.
Our legs ached with the distances we had to cover. Thankfully we carried some refreshing juice and bottles of water to keep us going. We also had to take a couple of stops to just rest our feet. Somehow we manged to find some spots on the curb to sit for a little while before resuming our walk. The fact that I hadn't walked in almost a month didn't make things easy for me. I sat in front of this piece and enjoyed the beauty of this scenery, it transported me to a real coconut farm.
There were these paintings done on slices of wood which I wanted to buy as gifts for my friends, but the wood used seemed to be of poor quality, that I had to abandon the idea. I wish we could get slices of wood like that to do a few paintings of our own. I am sure the hubs would be happy to do something like that for me. This is an inspiration that I would like to keep fresh and work on.
The abundance of ideas you get from these shows are awesome. You don't have to copy the works of others but just looking at their art work brings a multitude of ideas for the kind of work you'd like to do yourself. I loved this painting even though it isn't exactly an original work. I may try this in a different colors or forms.
This how some of the paintings were displayed, just arranged on the ground. Thousands of artists come from all across the country with no proper arrangements made for displays it makes me sad, but I guess it is a challenge to accommodate so many artist.
Thanks for walking this long stretch with me, I will be posting more about this art walk in the coming week as well. It was an inspiring Sunday walk spent with my family, I couldn't have asked for any other better way than this to spend my day.