“The studio is a laboratory, not a factory. An exhibition is the result of your experiments, but the process is never-ending. So an exhibition is not a conclusion.” – Chris Ofili
The Border of a Mind is , by vision itself, envisaged and conceived as a studio of the mind. It’s sort of my cerebral vent to the broader spaces and a culmination of ideas and themes that I tend and love to cherish to be more of my ruminations and perspectives to remain as a fleck , if you will, in the web universe.
Here is another slice into the ponder series of The Border of a Mind. To rehash the theme, these chapters are an effort to take our minds through subtle sub-layer things that we fail to ponder or think about in our daily routines yet which magically turn around as miracles in on itself. If you have come here before, you’d recollect about the journey of birds or the perception of our brains which we skimmed around. During my last visit to India, I saw this beautiful butterfly on a wall of a skyscraper (scroll down for the photograph). As we know, it’s very difficult to spot a butterfly these days, especially if you are living in a heavily urbanized setting.
Anyone would admire the beauty and elegance of butterflies with their color wing patterns and flights. The title of this post is attributed to the ornamental beauty in them owing to which we can’t take our eyes off them!
The incremental stages of formation of a butterfly is a masterpiece of process art. Silkworms are among the animals which lay the highest number of eggs. We are talking of about 450 to 500 eggs. Since there are way too many eggs, there are chances that these may be get scattered or even strewed by the wind. To prevent this, silkworms attach these eggs by each other by a special material it secretes (string). Caterpillars on the lookout for a nice place to have their eggs laid discover one of these “branches” of eggs, if you will and would stick their eggs with the same string. Cocoon building with the string starts at this stage. Caterpillar would turn around thousands of times and would secrete around 1500 metres of strings!. At the end of this stage, the caterpillar metamorphosizes into an elegant, beautiful butterfly turning out to be another embellishing ornament around us.
If you didn’t know, for the butterfly to fly, its body heat has to be at a certain temperature. Butterflies use amazing techniques to accomplish this. For example, one such type is the colias butterfly and it won’t be able to fly if its body temperature drops below 28-degree celsius. They then open their wings at a certain angle so that their upper sides are exposed to the sun. If it reaches 40-degree celsius, for instance, it rotates by another 90 degrees in order to receive sun’s rays horizontally. Using this methodology, they absorb little heat and accordingly regulate their body temperature. I bet you didn’t know about this thermal engineering expertise in butterflies. We must have noticed beautiful spots on the butterfly wings. Yeah, they are aesthetically breathtaking and adds a gradient, but did you know that they serve another purpose? These spots help serve the butterfly to maintain higher body temperatures and these spots are located close to the points that are to be best kept warm. These spot portions generally warm up quickly compared to other parts. The location of these spots is in such a way that the distance that needs to be covered for heat transmission is shortened. As you know, a pair of lenses can be spaces and angled properly to concentrate light at a certain spot and make the area hot. Some butterflies species such as Pieris, for instance, use the same technique. I believe, thinking deeper and delving deep into such intricacies would help us better appreciate the miraculous nature of these things. How do such magic happen around us when we are too busy to even put our thought into it. Ponder! : )
“I think everything in life is art. What you do. How you dress. The way you love someone, and how you talk. Your smile and your personality. What you believe in, and all your dreams. The way you drink your tea. How you decorate your home. Or party. Your grocery list. The food you make. How your writing looks. And the way you feel. Life is art.”
― Helena Bonham Carter
I have a childhood penchant of curating fountain pens. My father used to use fountain pens a lot when I was a kid and I have this childhood evocation kindled anytime I spot a classical fountain pen. Yesterday, I happened to see a well-made video on fountain pens on Gentleman’s Gazette website. The pen in the photographs here is a pen that my father used to write with during my childhood days. Recently, I started using it as my daily writing instrument and favors it over ballpoints. I do a lot of hand sketches and other technical illustrations as a part of my work and overall, fountain pens are found to be a better experience. If we ponder about it, we are living in a world we rarely write something with our hand and in this age, all of us have the same handwriting with fixed type sets in a Whatsapp message or an email. I don’t know if I’m bitten by the traditionalist bug, but in general, these days I have a feeling to have a signature and a personality to subtle things and that includes the way we pen ideas as well. Flora Watkins writes,
“Elegant, ornate and adaptable to each individual hand, nothing beats writing with a fountain pen“..Memories of inky fingers and smudged exercise books meant that the fountain pen fell out of favour for decades. However, the modern heritage pens that discerning customers seek out today are a far cry from the scratchy implements of the older generation’s schooldays.
“A pen transmits the voice of the soul.”
― Fennel Hudson, A Writer’s Year – Fennel’s Journal – No. 3
Few days back, I happened to watch Ambili. This is not a formal review of the movie per se, but my thoughts on the overall craft. At the end of this post, I shall share a link wherein you can delve into a much detailed comprehensive review. Ambili a beautiful, gently crafted story of compassion that I really enjoyed watching. I’m an ardent admirer of the director’s previous work Guppy, which was a well-made movie that walked through different stories and beautifully wove them through an ingenious screenplay that was nothing short of pure genius. I was impressed with the passion and zeal in that movie and the art and the overall way of making that film and have been eagerly waiting for Ambili right from the time it got announced.
Guileless like a child and ever so full of life, Ambili is beloved by everyone in his village. The story traces Ambili’s outlook towards life and of challenges others surrounding him that face him on an everyday basis.
It embraces a beautiful, subtle way of communicating compassion, love and caring through a magical blend of music and stellar visuals. The movie is set at Kattappana, a lush green place in Idukki district, Kerala. Ambili, in the movie, is a joyous, guileless character and through subtle events, the story unfolds the reservoir of love and affection packed inside him. Regardless of opportunists and other hatred towards him from people at his village, he transfigures them into an aura of unconditional love. He is full of affection and selfless compassion towards his childhood friends Teena and her brother Bobby. After few happenings that demonstrate his affection, the story takes the byway of a road movie, wherein Bobby, who is a cyclist champ and decides to go on a solo trip on a cycle from Kerala to Kashmir, where they met during their childhood. Ambili accompanies him and we’re treated with beautiful visuals and instances of unconditional affection and caring. I’m not delving into the details much, should you plan to watch this anytime soon.
The background music is gracefully composed, the flute being predominant and hugely complements the emotional nuances in different scenes of the movie. And the way story unfolds along with the nicely woven musical interludes is so well blended that it makes you walk out with a tear or two. The music in the film is highly commendable and some of the songs of the movie would be in my playlist for quite a long time.
Some frames of the movie reminded me of Children of Heaven, The Color of Paradise and some other Persian movies known for their amazing visuals and moving art. If you’d like to read a more all-inclusive detailed and comprehensive review, I suggest this page.
This movie is not everyone’s cup of tea, but I got in love with this flick and yes, aradhike is playing in the background as I write : )
The title is inspired from the late 19th-century French word oeuvre which broadly refers to the body of work of a painter, composer, or author is normally a work of art, music or literature. Let’s adapt it to books and the way of presenting them beautifully.
So this is one of the days where you get inspired by the art of photographing books. This is one of those ‘photography genres’ if I may say so, that’s refreshing in any of its formats. Internet is no short of ideas to get that perfect book shot. E-book bandwagon cannot replace the feel of a paperback on paper. And books are one of the most patient subjects that you can find to craft your art. I recently tried a shot with some warm afternoon light and with some backgrounds around me. The usual stuff includes coffee mugs, lights, etc. I went off with some money plants and a vintage film camera and with some Airpods sprinkled into the scene. So here is a shot of this kind that I tried for the first time with a beautiful book by Elif Shafak. And a bonus, that’s a nice book too!
“I love to soar in the boundless sky. In the vast emptiness of the blue, my soul rejoices listening to the soundless music of the wind.”
Banani Ray, World Peace: The Voice of a Mountain Bird.
“Tea is the magic key to the vault where my brain is kept.”
―
Tea is wealth itself, because there is nothing that cannot be lost, no problem that will not disappear, no burden that will not float away, between the first sip and the last.
– The Minister of Leaves, The Republic of Tea
“Social counterpoints can be a shrieking reality. But life may nevertheless become a colorful canvas with an array of opportunities, allowing us to escape from the suffocation of our enclosure if we hold ourselves receptive to the healing power of the daily little marvels and stay aware of the vivifying unexpectedness of the ‘moment’.
– Erik Pevernagie
Digital illustration inspired by an old childhood photo of my better half. I’m calling this piece of art “Damsel”.
