It’s Friday and I’m making plans for the weekend. How about you? With no signs of monsoon, how does the idea of spending Sunday afternoon under a big banyan tree, listening to some live soulful music, treating your visual senses to great art and letting your kids play with mud and plant some greens sound? It sounds like a perfect happy Sunday to me. There’s food, pottery, plants, beer, and bbq – in that order for me :) How’s it for you? Image courtesy: Kitsch Mandi Noetic Nirvana by artist “Gautam Nair” Mesmerised by the painting by Gautam Nair. Why not meet the creative minds behind such many more fascinating creations in person? Kitsch Mandi is happening at Palace Grounds this Sunday after 1 p.m. All your favorite green stores will be there like Indo Greens and Green Essence. Renowned artist Shilo Shiv Suleman is conducting a workshop on how…
Good afternoon everybody! With the rains making a guest appearance only on Monday, I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. It has been a busy weekend at “dress your home”, in literal sense. I can’t remember the last time we were involved as a family in a rigorous DIY activity. Friday saw me returning home with cans of fresh, bright paint. By Saturday afternoon, we were in our muddy clothes holed up in the kid’s bedroom with newspapers sprawled on the floor and paint brushes in the hand. The job is still far from done, so you will have to wait for pictures :) But, I promise it will be a long post full of pictures with a step-by-step guide (about what? keep guessing!)
Before I started on the BIG project, I hand painted a terracotta pot on Thursday in one of my favorite colors – Turquoise. I love Turquoise because its bright, cheerful and is a head-turner. Don’t you agree? ever since I painted one of the pots in this electric color, it’s taken away the attention from my other pots. It’s picture time now.
This was how it was before I started.
After a night of immersing the pot in a bucket of water, it was ready to be painted the next morning. Earthenware absorb less color when left in water for a few hours.
The pot has a metallic shine to it as I’ve used pearl acrylic colors.
I sincerely believe some of the best talent in this country lies hidden in the rural parts – away from the world because of minimal marketing and almost zero online presence. Treasures like intricate terracotta pottery, blue and white ceramics, large wood carvings or paintings on silk are sold at exorbitant prices in famous handicraft shops such as Poompuhar in Tamil Nadu or Cauvery in Bangalore. One thing typical of these folks is they are content with what they create, at the price they sell totally oblivious of how much money their creations make in the cities. So, it’s a pleasant surprise when I come across someone business savvy enough to at least make an attempt to reach out to the world by hiring a basic web designer to let us know they exist. And, that helps. I know there are many companies in the Western belt (primarily Rajasthan) who…
The spotlight of this week is turning out to be pottery. While scouting for brilliant handmade pottery, I came across the ones by Sara Paloma and instantly fell in love with it. Sara Paloma, a potter based in Southern California, has been creating an exquisite range with fine lines for homes from 1995. Muted colors in tall oblong shapes define her range. She runs an etsy shop called Sara Paloma pottery. Her shop is well stocked. I picked out a few from her etsy shop that are my favorites: These stoneware vases in different sizes complete the look of the table, but I think there are too many of them. Maybe something like this would work. Can we have some houseplants too, please ? Just kidding.. While we are on the topic of etsy exploring this beautiful shop, I’m wondering if we have an equivalent in India? We should, shouldn’t…