Month: October 2019

An artist that makes mandalas

Neera

In Japanese esoteric Buddhist practice, the mandala aids meditation, promoting spiritual awareness and understanding.

Albert Yonathan Setyawan is an artist from Bandung, West Java, Indonesia who creates mandalas with slipcasts.

Setyawan replaced the five Wisdom Buddhas of the mandala with upper parts of five religious structures: mosque, church, temple stupa and ziggurat.

In my recent visit to the National Art Gallery of Australia, I was mesmerized by his monumental ceramic floor installation called Shelters which is comprised of 1890 terracotta ceramic components meticulously placed in a grid referencing the Kongokai mandala.

Setyawan’s art represents the mixture of faiths, cultures, and ethnicities that surrounded him growing up in Indonesia and the occasional religious and political conflicts he witnessed. The repeated patterns evoke mantras and sequences inherent in nature.

More than an arrangement of decorative elements, Setyawan’s ‘exalted aggregations’ instill a meditative focus and call on our interpretation of and desire to map the order of the universe.  

His other exhibits are equally impressive. A quick search on Google images gives the vast array of his artwork.

Still young, having just finished his Post-graduate degree in arts and working towards his Ph.D. in Contemporary Ceramic Art, his work has been exhibited in Japan, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, Korea, Australia, and Italy. A lot more is expected of him in the coming years and decades.

What to do with travel brochures?

Neera

I collect travel brochures.

I have a box full of brochures from my past travels which I can’t bring myself to throw out.

I am particularly attached to the maps because we clung to those while finding our way through unfamiliar cities.

For some time, I have been looking for ways to use them in such a way that they bring back memories associated with those places.

Lately, I have been watching travel journals that some very creative people are sharing on Pinterest and Instagram and I am hooked.

They are not that easy to make and are extensively time-consuming.

But I decided to give it a go.

The picture at the top is my first attempt to journal a trip to Cairns in July 2017. It is obvious I need to work a lot on lettering.

Here are the maps, which are now forever preserved in the journal.

When should an article or a story end?

Neera

Many times we can’t figure out when an article or story should end. The same goes for books, whether it is fiction or non-fiction.

As a writer, we have collected so much material that we keep on going long after the article, story or a book has reached its logical end.

What is that logical end?

The logical end is when you have made the argument.

Every piece of writing is making an argument.

Writing usually starts with an idea that often comes as a question or a problem. We explore that question, (like the question at the start of this post) and we make an argument.

Finding the argument in the story is a tool, and it can be used by filling in the blanks in the following line:

‘every …. can or should …’

This simple equation to be used to find the argument in your writing even before you started writing.

If your book is about travel writing your argument could be ‘every traveler can become a travel writer’ then give them ten steps to become a travel writer.

If your book is about taming a dog, the argument you could be making is ‘every dog can be tamed even the old and rigid ones then through your book you give them ten ways how the readers can do it.

If your book is about storytelling, the argument you are making is ‘every person should become a storyteller then give them ten benefits and teach them six elements of storytelling.

What you are doing through the argument is you are entering the mind of the reader and getting them to think differently, act differently, or teach something they want to learn.

You don’t want them to just read the article/ story/ book, you want them to do something with it.

It is easy to understand the concept of every piece of writing is making an argument in non-fiction, but what about fiction writing.

In fiction writing, the argument is made through the story.

Let’s have a look at arguments in some well-known stories.

The argument Shakespeare is making in Hamlet is, ‘everyone should stand for injustice.’

The argument of Romeo and Juliet is ‘the hatred can lead to bloodshed.’

The argument the movie Rocky is making that ‘even an underdog can win.’

None of these stories give ten points to prove the arguments they make, but they do it by weaving the argument within the story.

Because without an argument, there is no story.

If you’re telling your life’s story, it’s not just a story of survival, it’s a
story of hope and perseverance, and when somebody reads that story, they’re gonna get that too and apply that to their own situation, their own obstacles that they’re facing.

And when that story should end?

When the argument has been made.

It is that simple.

Anything after that is waffle weakens the story.

Now decide on what argument you are making, with whatever piece of writing you are doing, and stop as soon as you have made it.

Just like I am at this point.

Ten days with Master Ping Xiao Po

Neera

For the last ten days, I have been drawing Mater Ping Xiao Po of the movie Kung Fu Panda in the cartoon drawing course I have been doing since August this year.

After a week of drawing just circles, we moved on to animals (pig, hippopotamus, dog, and teddy bear) and then spent four weeks on Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Lucy, Sally, and Linus. Although the initial days were challenging but spending a month on Peanuts’ characters brought me to the comfort zone.

Ping Po was a challenge. For a start, he was a 3D character with no distinct lines like Snoopy or Charlie and his friends. A lot of facial features were depicted by shading. And each figure had different facial expressions which I was not able to replicate. After day three, I was a lot behind the other participants who were posting proportionate and expressive Po on Instagram.

Then Master Ping Xiao P himself came to the rescue and taught me his three favorite lessons.

Believe in yourself he said.

If you want to succeed then don’t compare yourself to others. You have to make your own journey, getting disheartened by others’ progress will not make you any better. I got his message. Rather than giving up and going back to my comfort zone, I slowed down.

There is no secret ingredient, it’s you.

There is no shortcut, no secret recipe just plain hard work, and focus. It’s you and the hard work that will help you grow and learn. Nothing you can achieve overnight and gain mastery in.

I focused first just on the face, getting the muzzle right. Eyes were next, I was able to align them so that they looked in the same direction.

Anything is possible when you have inner peace.

Ping Po said in Master Oogway’s voice, “Your mind is like this water, my friend. When it gets agitated, it becomes difficult to see. But if you allow it to settle, the answer becomes clear.”

Slowing down allowed me to see the alignment of the eyes and head better. I started shading around the muzzle and the side of the face. The result was remarkable.

Sticking with the Po, for two weeks, drawing each day without giving up was a lesson that nothing beats daily practice. I only spend half an hour on the drawing each day, sometimes I even break it up in two sessions of fifteen minutes each.

I need to do the same with blogging. It is easier to write a blog post every day and then twice or three times a week. Improvement will be worth the effort.

Write about what?

Neera

When I was new to writing I had a question that puzzles every newbie writer.

Write about what?

Anne Lamott got asked this question a lot, and her advice to her students was – anything, just write about anything.

But her students wanted her to be specific, so she said- okay write about sandwiches.

Sandwiches! what can one write about sandwiches?

But she insists and then sits with them and write about sandwiches.

Your sandwich was the centerpiece, and there were strict guidelines. It almost goes without saying that store-bought white bread was the only acceptable bread. There were no exceptions. If your mother made the white bread for your sandwich, you could only hope that no one would notice. You certainly did not brag about it, any more than you would brag about that she made headcheese. And there were only a few things that your parents could put in between the two pieces of bread. Bologna was fine, salami and unaggressive cheese were fine, peanut butter and jelly were fine if your parents understood the jelly/ jam issue.

Grape jelly was best, by far, a nice slippery comforting sugary petroleum-pocket grape. Straberry jam was second; everything else was iffy. Take rasberry, for instance…

Bird by Bird

Who can write like that? That was Anne Lamott, and she can make a paragraph on sandwiches sound like a literary piece. Rather than inspiring me it frightened me even more.

So what did I write about?

Me.

Most of my early writing was about myself. My feelings, my emotions, my aspirations, my observations. That was the only topic about which I knew most and continued to learn more. I filled diaries after diaries writing about myself.

But the problem of writing about yourself is that no one else is interested in reading it.

Helen Garner says she loathes reading people’s inner talk or self-analysis in their diaries. What she likes to read and what she writes about is – who you met, what they said, what were they wearing, what were they thinking?

She used to go to interesting places to find stories. Once she was asked to do a three-part article on life, marriage, and death. She had no idea what to write about such broad topics. So she went to a birthing-center, a chapel, and a morgue and even watched a body burning in the furnace to get the first-hand experience.

That is what professional writers write about. Their experiences and their observations.

It is our experieces and our observations that make our writing come alive.

According to a new U.S. scientific research, a human brain gets bombarded with 34 gigabytes of new information every day. So much so that our mind doesn’t register most of it and discard it. But there is something, each day, which does pique our curiosity and sticks to our minds. Our job is to capture that one thing and write about it, whether it is an experience, observation or information.

Today’s post is based on the following paragraph I read while going through a collection of papers.

In Thornton Wilder’s classic play, Our Town there’s a powerful and moving moment at the end when Emily returns from the dead to say goodbye to the things she’d taken for granted when she was alive: clock ticking, her mother’s sunflowers, freshly ironed dresses, food and coffee.

“Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it? – every, every minute?” she asks.

Realizing life is what writing is all about.

How to write funny

Neera

Comic writer John Vorhaus says in the book The Comic Toolbox that you don’t need funny bones for comic writing, you need tools.

The one tool he recommends is – break rules, write in a passive tense.

Here is an example:

The room was walked into by a man by whom strong, handsome features were had. A woman was met by him. The bed was lain upon by her. Then the bed was lain upon by him. Clothing was removed from them both. Sex was had. The climax was achieved. Afterward, cigarettes were smoked by them. Suddenly, the door opened by the husband of the woman by whom the bed was lain upon. A gun was held by him. Some screams were screamed and angry words were exchanged. Jealousy was felt by the man by whom the gun was held. The firing of the gun was done by him. The floor was hit by the bodies. Remorse was then felt by the man by whom the gun was held. The gun was turned upon himself. And the rest, as they say, is forensics!

I had a go at it with some random paragraphs I picked from an old diary, exaggerating it and writing it in the past tense.

  1. Late waking up was done this morning. Mucking around was not held. The efficiency was experienced by achieving more in less time. The problems of the world were not contemplated upon while sitting on the throne.
  2. A meeting was held between me and the acting boss. This week’s action items were discussed. The disagreement was reached over tiny matters. The tempers were lost. The voices were raised. Desperate attempts were made by both sides to hold their grounds. The moods were spoiled. The swords were drawn. The throats would have been slain had the meeting not gone over time. Lives were saved due to time constraints.
  3. The gym bag was forgotten at home. A detour was made. The gym bag was picked up. The car was driven to the gym. The gym clothes were put on. The exercise was done half-heartedly. Machines were used to lift weights.
  4. The neighbor’s doorbell was rung. The door was opened by the neighbor with work clothes still on. A piece of paper was given to her with our phone number. A verbal invitation was extended for dinner at the house owned by us. A dinner promise, made to each other fifteen years ago, was fulfilled.