To Start From Nowhere

To start from nothing, from nowhere. 

Maybe that is why people like new beginnings. It's a chance to start from somewhere. A beginning point. A new year, a new month, a new week. Days don't count as much; they come once every 24 hours, pass by too quickly, and because of that, they feel insignificant. 

I think it is interesting that nobody ever says, I'll start right now, not tomorrow, not next week or next month or next year, but this second. Each second, every second, a new beginning... chance after chance after chance. We are like cats with countless lives. When seen like this, time is ever expanding, we have countless, immeasurable opportunities. 

The best part is that there is no failure in this- we get to choose every second. There is no need to wait. If I missed doing something an hour ago, I can do it now, and if I miss the 'now', I get another chance almost immediately after. It is an easy system. It allows you to do whatever you set out to do right away. And that is its benefit, but maybe also its problem. 

Remember your old friend, the one that whispered the practical course of action to take; the one that insisted on the safest route, the route which had you doing nothing; that same friend, that out of concern, 'for arguments sake', challenged the very motivation of your work, your ideas and your goals.... remember that friend? Yes, his/her name is Fear. 

I am here to tell you, that that relationship is not going to work out well for you in the long run.  I've had a similar friend myself. It didn't work out well for me either; I had to let the friendship go. Just like you, my dear reader, my friend, (may I call you so?), must also realise it's time to let that friend go. You guys are not on the same page. You want to, no, need to start doing what you were supposed to do now, and, let's face it, Fear, will never start anything, ever! In fact he/she is a selfish pig, that will not let you go anywhere either. Fear will keep you stashed away, locked up in a world of shadows and doubts. You may be comfortable there, but ask yourself if you are happy. I know it may be hard at first, but you have got to throw him/her out. End the relationship. Move on. Find another friend. One that makes you happy. 

This is your moment, this second, January 1st, 2017, 11:49pm. And if you don't seize it, it will still be your moment tomorrow, but why wait? Do what you have always wanted to do, and do it now. Find a way to find joy. Find a way. Remember the magnitude of the number of seconds in each day; countless chances to do meaningful things. Countless ways to be happy. And when you work like this, from second to second, what date it is, what year it is, all becomes meaningless, time is rendered impotent; for there are countless seconds in each day, and without Fear by your side, and each one of those seconds will bring with it immense joy. 

Time and Space

A few days ago, I just returned from one of the most fulfilling road trips I have ever taken, to Joshua Tree National Park and Death Valley. To be fair, I haven't taken very many road trips, but this one was exceptional in many ways. For one, I only had my husband and six year old daughter with me. We did not meet or travel with anyone else, and as family vacations go, this was probably the longest time we have spent with only each other as company. We survived, flourished even. But the point of this post is not how we managed this as a family or even the value it brought to us collectively. Instead, it's rather more selfish, because as I travelled to these places one after another in the span of two weeks, I found myself pulling in ideas from books I had read and witnessing things around me that I never even knew could happen. It was an intense mental tumble of thought, too many things dashing around, and a fear that if I did not put them down soon, they would be lost to me forever.

This is probably a difficult thing to explain, but imagine, if you can, being a child and drawing a rocky, barren landscape, where you can see every crack, every dust speck. This child was me. The ochres, reds, browns and blacks in this landscape are vivid. Imagine those sketches come to life. There are rocks, and rocks upon rocks, placed as if by someone's hand in precarious positions as if waiting for a signal, upon which they will roll to the desert floor. A distinct line divides these granite faces from the electric blue sky. It is captivating, this line. It feels so near, that you feel, if you walk just a little bit, you will reach it. It looks like a concrete place; as if on one side you would be surrounded in tan and on the other in blue. But like many other things in this place, it is an illusion. In reality, that imagined 'concrete' place is a gap, and even a leap of faith will not get you from one side to the other. Outside, it is dry and you can feel the hot air on your skin. It feels like you are closer to the sun than you have ever been, and that if you stay here beyond the time you are supposed to, you will dry out like a piece of leather, become tough and wrinkled, worn, and maybe stronger. Or, perhaps the opposite will happen, and you will slowly become thin, like old paper or a leaf pressed too long in an encyclopedia and disintegrate, becoming nothing in the breeze. 

In some places, if I stood still, with my eyes shut, I could hear the silence. Silence, in this case had a weighty presence. It stood with me, even in the company of others. There was nothing around as far as the eye could see in terms of human inhabitation, just a vast space, spotted with short scrub and an occasional, exceptionally tall cactus plant. To me, the desert measured time like the folds of an accordion. Sometimes time came quickly and compressed together and at times, it stretched almost to the point of breaking, almost to the point of 'no-time'. In those moments of 'no-time', there was exceptional clarity- I saw myself as I really was, a small grain in the vastness of a desert that had existed long before me and would continue to do so long after. I marvelled at the history I saw in it's striated walls, it's deep convoluted canyons, in it's dust, that I am sure had once been rock and perhaps been birthed miles under the surface of the earth. 

With the terrain in both places being fairly uniform in their material composition, it is the air, or rather the way the air made it's presence felt, that I started to analyse. I remember closing my eyes at dusk in Joshua Tree National Park. It took exactly five seconds to feel that familiar floaty sensation I always get when I meditate. There was a hum in the air, but a silent hum, if a hum could be silent. It was like an electricity that filled me up completely. I remember not being able to sleep that night, I was so full of energy. The spiny leaves on the arms of the Joshua trees almost felt like neurones, discharging signals to each other and we happened to get caught in the synapses, feeling the jolt as it passed through us onto it's intended destination. And we benefited from being caught in it's path.

On the other hand, the air in Death Valley was dense. It pressed against you, despite how arid it was. It felt still, even if there was a breeze around. It is a difficult thing to describe. It was almost like the heat and frequent rain has petrified everything around it. It has become crusty and brittle, or rope-like and difficult. It is everything in it's extreme form, even the air. I remember an incredible excitement when I first saw the salt flats at Bad Water. It was adrenaline that carried me out onto the salt as far as I could go. When the sun felt too strong to go further, I turned back to what seemed not too far a distance. However, each step back felt heavy and difficult. I could feel my heart rate soaring and my desire to reach the car magnified every second. A mountain up ahead which looked like a five minute sprint, was actually far far away. Again, an illusion of space, time and distance....

A very persistent thought entered my being around this time. I knew as an urban dweller I would not survive in this ancient environment. I simply did not have the skills and knowledge. In fact so few of us might be able to endure it over a period of time. I also knew that the stillness, the raw majesty of this place triggered something primal that soothed my heart. It gave me a feeling that a city cannot. I had had this place in my mind's eye since I was a child. I had drawn these imaginary landscapes repeatedly on the backs of old calendars. Seeing them before my eyes as a vague sketch come to life was unimaginable. The fact that living there is impossible and living a city seems in comparison unnatural- and I mean that as not a 'natural' space, but as something manufactured- left me feeling confused. In a city I have all the comforts but not the uniqueness of 'land'. However this unique land would only have me on her terms. One place is needed for contemporary life to continue and the other place is needed for my internal life to continue. Which is more real? Which is needed more? Ultimately, which is more important? 

I pondered all this in the midst of a major thunder storm in which the electricity went out for hours and the lightening sliced the sky repeatedly. On my right, my daughter sat on a rocking chair on the outside of our humble room, giving me a blow by blow account of what was happening, even though most of the time, all we saw was the inky black sky. While it was a sticky 100 degrees F inside our room, the temperature outside had dropped considerably. Occasionally, a flash of lightening so bright would illuminate the sky and the few palm trees in our hotel oasis would stand out. That evening I had watched the storm roll in- ominous clouds from three sides, not one looking like the other, in shape, colour or texture. There had been a storm the night before as well, but nothing like the one we were going through now. I recalled, as I sat there, how this morning when we drove out to see the salt flats and dunes, the roads had looked different. I realised that no two moments are the same. The dunes had shifted, there was no road where there had once been and somewhere else a new unpaved road had appeared, along with cracks, ravines and towering cliffs to it's sides. Old, dead trees, like sculptures with arms raised to the sky had moved their places, abandoned their homes to settle in new spots with different views. The sun had reflected off of the striated hills throughout the day, changing their appearance every second, striking my cornea in a new and novel way each time. If a place can change so visibly before your very eyes, and still be the same place, surely it must be magical? 

Perhaps it is that places are real and unreal at the same time. They exist for that one second that they are witnessed and then they pass on, never to be the same again. I understood that in the desert. We exchanged something. I left something behind there, maybe just my phantom presence, maybe that one stretched moment of time, an elastic moment, that has me still walking those crusty salt flats. I'd like to think that. Nevertheless, I am most definitely in the city too. Maybe something from there has wormed it's way inside me and now lives eternally within- somewhere in the cavern of my chest is a big wide desert with no limits, always changing, ephemeral and beautiful. 

* All images below and text are copywrite of Maya Bhalla 2016

The why...and the why not

I am writing this as I hurtle fast toward to my first show in Mumbai City, the place where I was born and grew up. I've been thinking a lot about what this means to me and why I even am attempting something that is so fraught with risk. Ceramic is heavy, and breakable and we all know that the baggage handled at the airports is definitely not handled with care, even if it has a fragile sticker on it, or several warning labels, maybe even a hidden threat, and definitely several rounds of mumbo jumbo spells, positive intents and a liberal sprinkling of universal protection in place- it does not mean it is safe!

However, having my work in Mumbai means something, something so worthwhile, that it is ok to risk all this. I remember my first few installation pieces, made while I was a student, studying away from home. I was researching the notion of the immigrant, first generation, mostly farmers that moved from Punjab in India, to settle as farm helpers in the bread baskets of North America. They carried with them packets of earth from their homes as reminders and links to their roots. Like trees that need soil to grow, these farmers carried their own soil to transition into their new lives. It was a memory, a link, and a reminder,that they could touch, smell, feel, and maybe even taste. Earth, soil, mud... home- it is a powerful thing. 

As my own work progressed, I created my own packets of mud, wrapped in muslin cloth, some large, some small and hung them from the walls and ceilings of galleries. As time progressed, clay seeped through the small pores of fabric. Memories faded, 'home' grew smaller, a new reality created itself on the floor of the gallery. It was layered, clay over concrete; the patterns and directions of the spills and falls changing as the elements of motion and space acted around it, both deliberate and accidental.

This time around, Mumbai will not see these early experiments in using clay in an unconventional way. It won't see the nuanced drama of gallery presentation or the abstracted ideas and inferences of an installation format. I hope there will be a time when I can bring these to Mumbai as well. But for now, it will be a humble offering. Something concrete and perhaps even practical. In my head, I see Mumbai as a wise, old, crone, with black, sparkling, all-knowing eyes. She may ask, 'Wahan ja ke, tumne kiya kya?' And then I can show her my mud pots and plates. 'Iska kya hoga?', she will reply, because she knows there are tons of plastic alternatives available, and for the financially gifted, silver and gold too. I will have to ask her to hold these pots then and feel their grooves, experience their birth upon my wheel and know that the idea of their existence came via my mind, but in reality from somewhere in her own distant past- a place that maybe she can visit in her memory. And then, maybe, like a long lost grand child, she can finally take me into her arms, knowing that our pasts are tied together, we share some history, and even though it is for a short time, I am coming home.

Installations, and stuff that stays in photographs and memories

Reframing Focus

I remember my first home, mostly because of it's bare walls. After graduating from college with my BA degree, I had about six paintings, plus the one I had given Rahul as a birthday present, and a ton of clay work that I had no possible way of displaying. I remember the pressure as a young couple of having art work on the walls to make our space into a home. Every Crate & Barrel catalog and Pottery Barn store had things we could simply not afford in those early years. We bought cheap Ikea frames and stuffed whatever finished work I had from my college days into them and slowly filled up the spaces. Later, I began to box frame all my canvases and that took away the need for professional framing, making it cost effective to hang up more work. And although there is no substitute for well framed work, this was the next best thing, especially since an empty wall was, well, just, simply unacceptable.

Over the years my way of creating and presenting art has changed. The art I enjoy looking at has changed too. And all this makes sense because I am not the same person I was at twenty-one.  I feel really lucky that I don't have to live with the same work that I had on my walls all those years ago, because, while that was honest and truthful to my taste and mind-space at the time, it no longer holds the same weight for me now. Fresh work always helped clarify my point of view, changed the way I looked at something, affected the objects and people around it by activating the space, and it showed me in a concrete way how I was and still am evolving as a person and an artist. There have been several times when simply moving some paintings around made me feel fresh, and my living space feel new. This made me wonder, how many people were living with art that they had collected years and years ago? Whether received as a gift, or bought from a small village in Bali, at a bargain price or at a museum store? Or maybe people were living with it because more money was spent on framing it than the cost of the painting itself!

I'm going to share a tip with you, because I don't think anyone should live with art that holds no value to them. Take those paintings out of their frames. Save your frames, and put new work into them. Ask artists if they have work to fit your expensive frames, or even better commission them to make you a painting that holds value for you. Use your frames to accentuate architectural details of interest in your home instead, or use them to frame wall sculpture. Collage your frames to make interesting installations on your walls. There are many things that one can do with pieces of wood that don't involve holding up a piece of cloth you no longer find value in seeing. Ask me, I know all about it! 

A Necessary Merlion

It was 10am on a winter morning when we stopped by the cable company to drop off our cable box, the last errand we ran on the way to the airport. We were leaving Chicago. The taxi waited outside the building spewing plumes of frosty air from it's exhaust pipe. An hour later I had eaten my last Cosi sandwich and been shuffled, air frisked and scanned by airport security. I was still sore about having to abandon my brand-new, 2 litre can of Turpenoid by the garbage shoot. The movers had refused to pack it. Inflammable, they said, got to leave it here. Varnish, spray on fixative and gesso had all joined the Turpenoid in its dark, smelly spot behind the door that said 'Refuse'. I secretly hoped that they would be rescued by some art sensitive soul. It broke my heart to leave them, but I had to. We were moving to Singapore.  

It was New Year's eve when we got here, in addition to the usual disorientation of an over-seas flight, I had to contend with a country I had never seen before, jet lag, and a dramatic weather shift. I knew nobody in Singapore, save an aunt that I hadn't met in years.

I am not really sure how we got over those first few days, but I do know a trip to Mustafa Shopping Centre (apparently it is the ground zero of shopping), was involved; after all, we had to stock our tiny one bedroom service apartment with food and necessities. We realised that the buses, although well connected and comfortable- much better than any other buses we had previously known- would not stop for us unless we expressly 'hailed' them down. We missed many buses this way in the early days. In the first three months I became very good at lip reading, but not so good at ordering over the phone. I was frustrated by the slow pace of walking on the streets. And then I understood why. I was the only sweat drenched, crazy-eyed, red faced, power-walker out there in the mid-day sun, while petite, fresh faced women, clad in various shades of pastel colours, would walk by me in their tick-tocking heels, not one long straight hair out of place. 

I cried when my cupcake batter, already made and poured into moulds did not fit into my tiny oven. I cried harder when the same oven tripped repeatedly rendering my second cake mix useless in the same day. Ounces, grams, litres, quarts, fahrenheit and celsius!!!! I wanted to tear my hair out. I never wanted to cook again. And when my freshly bought apple tart grew fungus over-night, I made a vow to store everything in the fridge forever. That was about the same time I seriously considered the possibility that Singapore as a nation, might benefit from central air conditioning- like the entire nation, united under a common dome, for a common cooling- it was time to save all apple pies, everywhere.

Somewhere along the Ice-Kachangs and Mango Sago, Kopi-C and red bean paste buns, I was schooled by some 'uncles' and 'aunties'- I developed a liking for condensed milk and put on weight. I became vegetarian, drank soy milk and ate bean curd pudding. I read a local rendering of The 3 Little Pigs and their 'makkan' time. I saw a Mosque, a Hindu Temple and a Buddhist Temple on the same street, and across them, a Church. It warmed my heart. While nobody held doors open for me, many taxi uncles helped me load and unload my groceries and art work. Like old grandfathers, they gave me advice and waited in their cabs till I got through the front door of my condo. They returned my phone when I dropped it in the back seat of their taxi, and my daughter's stroller, which we happily forgot in their boot one day.    

I decided that I love Singlish! I 'die die must try' to talk it as often as I can. Phrases like 'stupid sotong' crack me up. What lah, can lah, can lay, no lor, aaanh, whaaa, must lay, so how; this list of punctuation and expression is endless! 

I remember my 10 years in America vividly, however my 8 years in Singapore are slowly catching up. It has been like floating on a lazy (man-made)river, on a sunny day, eyes half closed, occationally bumping into the bends and curves of the banks, barely noticing the ride as it comes full circle time and again, year after year. And now you celebrate 50 years of independence, Singapore! I am glad I spent the last 8 years trying to understand you in whatever way I could- Majulah Singapura, Island nation, little red dot, home. 

Tonight, in my head I'm walking down the hill from the monastery to the city below. There are grape vines on my right, and cherry trees to my left. As tempting as they are ruby red I colour, they are equally tart in the mouth- I eat them, but it's like they have the last laugh after all. 

The little vein that leads me down has found the outskirts of the city. Old lace hangs in silent windows, with dried flowers in recycled glass bottles. I take pictures; memories of memories forgotten behind the lace. Even more fragile is the sun's unrelenting gaze that is momentarily vanquished by passing clouds in an arrhythmic flow . 

I count seven little roads but I can only walk down one. So I pick one and walk down it...

In my head.

*photo copywrite of Maya Bhalla 2015.