Hello!
It’s October, one of my favorite months in the year. Winter’s almost here, there’s music in the air and the cherry tomatoes in my garden are perfectly ripe. Mmmm.
My month started off rather unexpectedly, being invited to paint my first mural at a government school in Bangalore. Here is the 30 ft school wall I painted with the help of some super talented artists and volunteers:
Another wall I had the pleasure of working on:
It’s quite an incredible feeling knowing that entire generations will grow up in the school, looking at my characters and doodles on the wall. It was also interesting to fight the self-doubt and plunge into the world of murals and scaffoldings.
When the project first got approved, I had a hundred different voices in my head telling me I couldn’t do it. I knew the learning curve would be beyond anything I’ve taken on. But I did it anyway, mostly with a smile on my face, and it all worked out alright. Heck, I didn’t even fall off the scaffolding!
Some words by Roald Dahl that inspired the hide-and-seek theme in the mural:
“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”
- Roald Dahl
Poetry Corner
“Poetry is eternal graffiti
written in the heart of everyone.”
– Lawrence Ferlinghetti
I wanted to send out some poems on painting and art today. Instead, I handpicked some poems that reminded me of this lovely month we’re in:
Haiku by Richard Wright
I almost forgot
To hang up an autumn moon
Over the mountainOctober by Jean Sprackland
Skies, big skies, careening over in the wind
great shoals of cloud pitching and jostling
in their rush to be anywhere other than here
You hesitate on your doorstep, glance up
and something tugs in your chest, rips free like a leaf
and is sucked up and away. Everything’s
finished here: raw-boned sycamores,
fields scalped and sodden. The houses are shut
and dustbins roll in their own filth in the street
So you would take your chances, risk it all…
You stand for a moment with the keys in your hand
Feeling the hard pull of the sky and the moment passingLate October Camping in the Sawtooths by Gary Snyder
Sunlight climbs the snowpeak
glowing pale red
Cold sinks into the gorge
shadows merge.
Building a fire of pine twigs
at the foot of a cliff,
Drinking hot tea from a tin cup
in the chill air--
Pull on sweater and roll a smoke.
a leaf
beyond fire
Sparkles with nightfall frost.The Days Are Getting Longer by Bob Hicok
The birds I feed seed every morning
never thank me, I tell on them
to my mother, who I assume
raised them and everything
from pups. She’s begun to forget
why my voice shows up in her ear
each week, let alone
what the real name of the ruby-
throated-whatsit is, it’s hard
to help the dead be dead
before they are. Mourning
doves, cardinals, chickadees
strip the cupboard bare
in a matter of hours,
as tiny guillotines cut each leaf
from every tree, the leaves
fall orange & brown, a muted rainbow
arting-up the forgiveness
of October air, which smells naked,
new, and accepts the shape
of everything in its mouth. She asked
the other day how my day was,
I told her, she asked again,
as if I hadn’t answered
or slept in the rumpus-room
of her womb. Do you ever look
at a crust of bread and wonder
if that’s God, if the quiet
that lives there is the same hush
we become? I never do too,
but is it, and why are we dragging
these anvils behind us?The Lesson Of The Falling Leaves by Lucille Clifton
the leaves believe
such letting go is love
such love is faith
such faith is grace
such grace is god
i agree with the leaves
Recommended Listening
Write A List Of Things To Look Forward To - Courtney Barnett
José González - Performance & Interview (Live on KEXP at Home)
Black Widow Spider - Parquet Courts (such a cool video!)
Links of the Week
Wes Anderson directs Jarvis Cocker music video to for The French Dispatch (So friggin’ good!)
Some lovely murals I admire: Marie Hartig, Katherine Bradford, Wasted Rita and Yessi Nur Mulianawati
Artists share the bedtime rituals that keep them creative + Practicing Self‑Care as a Freelancer
How ‘Maid’ Helps Understand Violence Without Blood and Bruises (Loved the show, love The Swaddle)
“Do what gives you goosebumps” (via Austin Kleon and others who write about a tingle in the scalp)
“Poems come when I am not gritting my teeth; they come when I make myself available. So if there was one thing I could offer about how to keep going is to follow your joys when you can, follow the bright edges, let yourself be drawn to what you love and then make poems from that place. What we pay attention to is how we show our love.”
-Ada Limón on poetry and writing through griefMay Sarton on the Cure for Despair and Why Solitude Is the Seedbed of Self-Discovery
Mammoth straw creatures populate Japanese farmland + Land art created with coloured pebbles
A Hallmark card writer gives tips on how to write a personal letter (Sign up for Chitthi Exchange for the penpal experience.)
Articles I wrote recently
Hyperallergic: Waswo X. Waswo and Rajesh Soni explore the tradition of the Gauri Dance
Hyperallergic: The Irregular Times, India’s First Art + Design Newspaper
Some words by yung pueblo before you go…
Until next week,
Rohini
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