Straight From Paris!

Beautiful cotton ribbons straight from Paris, a gift from my daughter! A piece of it is already wrapped around this lovely journal at my Etsy shop 

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Ai Wei Wei's Circle of Animals (Zodiac Heads)

On a recent trip to Washington D.C., I got the chance to see the Circle of Animals (Zodiac Heads) exhibition by Ai Wei Wei at the Hirshhorn's Museum. A well-known artist and sculptor, Al Wei Wei has become more famous recently as a tough and outspoken critic of the Chinese government for which, he has been beaten, detained, imprisoned and charged with tax evasion.

The Circle of Animals is an outdoor art exhibition consisting of the twelve animal heads  of the Chinese Zodiac: snake, horse, ram, monkey, rooster, dog, pig, rat ox, tiger, rabbit and the dragon. Each head, located on slender pedestal is 10 feet tall and is displayed around the perimeter of the fountain in the Museum's central Plaza.

If you are interested in Chinese astrology but apolitical, you can enjoy this collection for its masterly craftsmanship. Though many of the characters are cast in a bland mode (like the grinning monkey), some are so startlingly fierce and angry you could almost imagine their jaws snapping at you.

A Grinning Dog!

Tiger!

Dragon!

Yet, to those who are familiar with Chinese history, the collection refers to a very painful chapter in imperial China's encounter with the European powers. It is based on a original 18th century sculptures that were designed for the clock of the Yuanming Yuan ( Garden of Perfect Brightness), an imperial retreat outside Beijing, and were pillaged by the British and French soldiers during the Second Opium War in 1860. Since 2000, the Chinese government has successfully retrieved some of them but the whereabouts of several others remain unknown.

For more photos, check my Facebook page

Enjoy and thanks for visiting.




(Photos by Indira Govindan)

Mandalas for the Planets

Kolam (Mandala) the Sun

Navagraha kolams (mandalas) are sacred designs drawn to propitiate the planets and to invoke their blessings. These yantras for the the planets are said to originate from Soundarya Lahiri, a poem composed in praise of Devi by Sankara. Though yantras are typically etched on a copper plate, kolam is drawn in front of the home shrine using rice flour or can be drawn on paper or other materials also.

The image above is the mandala for the Sun. The line drawing is the mandala; I have added color and embellishments. Here are some significant astrological details regarding the Sun, the most important of nine planets:

The following are mostly common to both Western and Indian astrologies: 
(Italicized texts in parentheses are the Sanskrit equivalent of English words/names)

Sign: Leo (Simha)
Day of the week:  Sunday (Ravivar)

Direction: East

Season: Summer (Grishma) 

Nature: mildly malefic

Rulership of: Soul

Gender: Masculine

Father of:  Saturn (planet)

Significator: 1st and the 10th house in the natal chart

Exalted: Aries 10 deg

Directional strength: 10th house

Natural friends: Jupiter, Mars and the Moon

Represents: Father, government, authority, places of worship

Represents (physical): Bones, heart, eyesight, head

Favorable in houses: 3, 6, 10 and 11 in the natal chart


The following pertains to Indian mythology and astrology only: 

Name in Sanskrit: Surya
Lordship of nakshatras (lunar mansions): Krittika, Uttara Phalguni, Uttara Ashada

Dasa length: 6 years

Aspects: the 7th house from itself

Yogas: budhaaditya , veshi, voshi and ubhayachari 

Represents: Devotion to Shiva

Navagraha Kirtana: Surya murte namostuthe by Muthuswami Dikshithar

Temples: The Sun Temple at Konarak, Orissa, India

Photo Journal: Around Kapaleeshwarar Koil, Mylai, Chennai

Front View, Kapaleeshwarar Koil

This time I remembered to carry my camera with me when I accompanied my sister and my niece for a shopping trip to Mylapore, Chennai. As my sister went in and out of shops for the best Bharatanatyam jewelry, I quickly darted around to take some photos of the famous temple which anchors this bustling affluent residential and commercial community. The story goes that when Mylapore was an undeveloped hamlet several centuries ago, it was filled with mangroves where thousands of peacocks roamed freely. Mayil means peacock, hence the name Mylapore. Well, there is nary a peacock in sight these days. But Mylapore still retains vestiges of its pre-globalization charm and the temple attracts thousands of worshippers, especially on Friday evenings. People come not just to worship but also to shop and eat.

These photos were taken late in the morning when the temple was about to close for the afternoon. The images are presented raw, unedited.

Enjoy.

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Eccentric Circles

The theme for this week's I am the Diva--Zentangle challenge #74 is Eccentric Circles. Since this is the year of Summer Olympics I chose its logo of five interlocked circles as my string. I changed its  perfect symmetry into elliptical shapes so that they look eccentric and connected them to look like a venn diagram.

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Petit Wood CoverJournals

This week's fun project is these little journals made with wood boards. I bought the wood boards from Michaels (they are available in the unfinished wood section and cost 29 cents each). I stained them first and did image transfer using Modge Podge. I got the images from the wonderful The Graphics Fairy .
I used several images from there.

I have described here how I did the Modge-Podge transfer. I have some additional do's and dont's: (1) use a laser print or a photo copy. Inkjet copies will smear, (2) Bold and large images and words (CAFE ) transfer better than images with lot of tiny and delicate details (Poems of Love), (3) Minimize the white halo effect by using a thin layer of glue.  Image transfer using glue is a tricky process, but when it works it is really lovely.

I finished the CAFE journal using coptic binding and the Poems of Love was completed using the accordian format.

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Katrina and beyond

I just returned from a conference in New Orleans. This is my first trip to New Orleans and it is hard to be there without remembering the cataclysmic images of hurricane Katrina. Not that the location of my hotel, the French Quarters, was  much affected being several feet above sea level. In the Big Easy, the divide between the one percent and the 99% is a lot starker and it was this 99% that was most ravaged by Katrina. Little of that is visible in the French Quarters, a tourist hotspot. Except, for the permanent exhibition called Living with Hurricanes: Katrina and beyond at the Louisiana State Museum. From the continuous looping video of 24-hours before Katrina made landfall- the gigantic waves, the blinding rain, the toppling roofs, to the chilling breath stopping digital simulation of the breaching of the levees as neighborhood after neighborhood submerged in flood waters and to the stories of those witnessed it, it is haunting.

So, I decided to dedicate this week's I am the Diva Zentangle Challenge #73 Bridgen to the spirit of New Orleans. In Bridgen, string is the basis of the tangle. I used a grid map of New Orleans as my string and connected the various parts of the map (or string) with WAVES, HURAKAN, River Rocks and FLEURI (fleur de lis) is New Orleans' logo) and Fescu.

Thanks for visiting.