Category Archives: India

Rupee Symbol Winner Is…

rupee symbol

Rupee Symbol by D. Udaya Kumar

The Indian rupee gets its own unique symbol today .

The winner D Udaya  Kumar‘s symbol is formed by the merger of the Devanagari ‘Ra’ and the Roman capital ‘R’ without the stem.

The media news says the symbol is based on the Tricolour and arithmetic equivalence. The white space between the two horizontal lines gives the impression of the national flag with the Ashok Chakra, the two bold parallel lines stand for ‘equals to’, representing balance in the economy, both within and with other economies of the world.

Continue reading Rupee Symbol Winner Is…

mud art of Kutch

Lippan kam or mud-mirror work

Lippan (roughly translated-mud washing in Gujarati language and the spelling should be lipan)

kam (is work in Hindi and Gujarati)

Lippan kam is a decorative art done by common people mainly women.

Lippan kam is done inside bhungas/mud huts in villages of Kutch, Gujarat.

Lippan kam is generally done inside the house but sometimes you can find it on outer walls too.

Generally harijan and Rabari women make birds, trees, animals, peacock, human figures etc in lippan kam.

It is done with a mixture of clay and camel dung. Now gum is used to stick mirrors.

Originality of lippan kam lies in  adding no colour or only whites.(You may get few pieces of very colourful mud-mirror work in export houses online; exotic pieces but I won’t call it lippan kam!)

Small round, diamond-shaped or tringle  mirror pieces are essential to lippan kam. Many a times mirror pieces are a little embroidered.

It is simple technique, anyone can do it.

iianosom106.gif

lippankam-31.gif

lippankamo.gif

lippankam51.gif

Can you see slightly raised mud lines-spread with hands.

travelblogorg1.gif

lippankam-21.gif

mudworkhodka.jpg

You just need to use the thumb with two fingers! ?

lippankam-frame1.gif

See the embroidered mirror here ?

kutch03.gif

lippankam08.gif

kutch02.gif

lippankam05.gif

mud1panjokutch.jpg

mud2.jpg

I just love-love lippan kam.

All of you  who go to Kutch, don’t forget to take photos of lippan kam (and don’t forget to send me all images!!).

(Not all photos are of good quality but I had to put all)

(images courtesy Llnosom on flickr, panjo kutch, hodka villages, travelblog, baps care, indi studio, my cuttings)

siamese art

There are certain movements and thoughts which have a timeless quality about these pieces of art. There is one common thread which appears like a recurring motif, and that is ‘bends in a road, paths crossed, corners turned ‘(Sandra Tarantino) which traps life beautifully.
Hemi Bawa was born in India in 1948. Sandra Tarantino was born in Canada in 1973. Hemi creates kiln-fired cast glass sculptures and sculptures of glass with metal, wood, or acrylic. While in Sandra Tarantino‘s works the physical base of shaped forms are constructed out of wood, which are then covered with pre-gessoed and painted canvas.

Both are continents apart, generations apart, mediums apart but still make a beautiful connection.

hemi-bawa.jpg

                         Hemi Bawa (glass+copper)

starantino.gif

                      Sandra Tarantino(shaped canvas)

hemi-bawa22.gif

                                    Hemi Bawa

lg_no36.jpg

                                    Sandra Tarantino

hemi111.gifstaran1.gif

         Hemi Bawa                     Sandra Tarantino

I was about to do a post on Hemi Bawa then I saw Sandra Tarantino’s work in an eye for an interior‘s beautiful post ‘expression of art’. I instantly saw a cosmic relation.

Boundaries merge when thought process starts travelling!