Reviving the dead blog

It has been years I wrote and today when I sort of looked back, I observed that I have been quite conserved and mostly conscious about how the readers will perceive what I write. Of the few things I have written about, if I read them back again, I get a mixture of feeling that includes a repulsion, naivety, a smile at how my thoughts has evolved, and how irrelevant some of the thoughts have become at this stage and most importantly an open question of why did I even write it!

I used to share it with my friends, get their help in correcting language and I was judiciously waiting for comments and responses on those posts. Obviously the attention hogger in me like one of my dear friends sums it up was seeking some pampering. But in some ways I was conscious about those throughout. And if I look at it now, I feel I have that guts to face that naivety in me. This is thanks to all my friends and all the things in life I have faced and continue to live through.

So here I look at and revisit the question of why do I even write. Of the many things I used to write, I think the only genuine thought that vented out was about painting. For painting evolved in me thought this period as a way of expression. A way of re-invention - a tool to understand my imperfections. 

As much I try, I cannot dissect out the buffering and nurturing my teachers and friends have done for the painter in me. It is again their pure love and nothing to do with how good a painter I am.

Again for the thought of being a 'good painter', the devil of comparison and ego creeps in. So there as well I am seeking some sort of gratification and attention. Looking back at the way I look at both blogging and painting, I have been doing the latter through this gap in blogging and I must confess the painter in me has changed; don’t even want to call it evolved as I don’t know where that journey will lead towards.

I started writing this particular piece to revive my blog and also to streamline the topics I write on. I am compelled more so today than before that I should write about painting side of my thoughts, as they are the only things I feel are worth recording. About 2 years back when I met my teacher who is such a selfless artist and a true teacher, I realize he has lost that enthusiasm in him to paint budging to all the adversities he faced in his life. He was looking at me as a sort of future and I am as nervous as I am right now (and I will ever be) that I should perceive painting fulltime. I am not going to write the targets he gave me and those many several lessons in painting he gave over this period whenever I visited him. This saps my courage further as I hardly get time to paint. This is an excuse and for if anyone wants to do anything, they will find time. That points to the lethargy and a heap load of hesitation in me that is stopping me in trying to tough the canvas. 

That reminds me, I have sort of fallen in love and settled for oil on canvas as medium. I have my expression kit that includes the best of oils available in India, the brushes and canvases. That said, if I am asked to show the paintings I have completed, I hardly have a couple of them. There is a whole set of paintings that I started off but never finished for I realized I started painting in such mindsets to pour them down on the canvas then but soon came out of it or got distracted. Owing to this, those many unfinished paintings are something I am conservative about and I hardly show it to anyone. Exhibition sort of again brings it down to gratification that I feel is not a very pure form of expression I am trying to keep painting as. 

So what do I paint! Landscapes? Portraits? Abstract? I really don’t know! I have just dabbled in a couple of these forms and due to a visual limitation, I am held back and withdrawn every time I try to finish a painting. Some of my friends know about it and I don’t want to talk about it. I have also made my mind to settle these hesitations in me and come out. My teacher and a lot of resources on the Internet have helped me come out of it and I am almost ready to come out. I think I want to write about those thoughts that simmer in my mind even after I got distracted. That again points me to a couple of interesting things I did with painting and art this year. So before I go on, I think I did try and break the silence! I am going to post this! 

Here are my two little friends who have been giving me company since over two weeks here at Anantapur! The trip ends tomorrow and I hopefully write soon!