My young friend Radhika surprised me with her artwork today. I tried paraphrasing our conversation below:
"Did you draw this for me?", I asked.
"Yes" - she said.
"Who is this?", I asked, pointing towards the largest human figure.
"That's you", she said.
"What about this girl?", I asked, pointing towards the small human figure in the sketch.
"That's me", she said.
"Is that a butterfly?", I asked pointing towards the insect like figure on the left.
"NO!, that's a dragonfly; THIS is the butterfly", she said pointing towards the other insect like figure.
"The dragonfly goes over your head, under the butterfly and the butterfly flies over and sits on the floor", she said, describing the motion in the dotted lines near the insects.
"Wow, that's amazing! Why do I look like a scarecrow?", I asked; she dismissed my stupid question.
"Look at the back", she said pointing towards the big alarm clock.
"Is this your clock? What time do you wake up?; It looks like 4pm", I said reading out loud.
"Why is it that your 3, 2 and 9 are mirror images of the numbers", I asked another stupid question.
"That's how I write them", she said dismissing my question.
"But that's not correct, you know that right?", stupid question number infinite at this point.
"Yes, but that's how I want them", she said with her beautiful smile.
"Is this for me? Can I keep this?", I asked her.
"Yes, its' for you", she said.
After this we went downstairs to play some jigsaw puzzle. I ate a delicious meal at her place and like an idiot forgot to take the artwork with me. I asked her mom to send me a photo of those drawings. Now, I can't stop looking at them.
They say Picasso drew like a child even after growing up. His figures had no sense of proportion; it was purely his feelings that came out in his countless sketches and paintings; people say they did not understand it, it was modern art when frankly it was real art unaffected by the dogma of form and art school.
Radhika's gift for me had figures with no conventional sense of proportion except as her minds eye perceived them. The male figure i.e me is the largest figure on her canvas and the centerpiece of the artwork. She wants me to feel important and after all it's a gift! She stands next to me in what I would interpret as a happy position and at the same time taking authorship for the work. The insects add a dynamic to this artwork; there is a sense of motion in this still life which adds an excitement to it. The dragonfly flies over my head, the butterfly flies over the dragonfly and sits on the grass. The tree is small, giving the drawing a sense of depth in field or maybe it's a plant with its leaves stretched out just like the humans have their hands; nature is clearly in unison with humans here. Radhika's world appears large and she has a place for me there! The sun is shown partially, the whole drawing is as if seen through a lens; there are things within the frame and then there are things outside it! Again, a sign of endless possibilities.
The alarm clock has some inverted numbers and that's how Radhika believes they should be in this drawing! She realizes that they don't meet the convention but who cares about conventions in an artwork? The time in the clock is open to interpretation; it could be 4am or 4pm. There are diagonal red lines outside the clock indicating the sound of the alarm!; her mom told me that they brought an alarm clock for her recently and she is fascinated by it. I am glad that she has gifted me her image of the alarm clock by drawing it on the other side of the scene of bliss. I could even take it as the transience of everything in life. Time is after all the fourth dimension that defines our existence.
I won't read into it that much though. I am just glad that my young friend gifted me this! I decided to return the favor by giving it a place on my blog.
