Our kitchen mandir

Recently I read in a book about a Hindu temple in Edinburgh ('A place for our gods'), that there is a huge confusion about the word 'mandir', which means either a public building to go and pray there or the mandir which every family is having inside their private home, which can be a prayer room, a board with gods or just a small corner with a postcard of the favorite god. So they were asking, why do people have to go to a temple outside, when they have one in their home already...
This confusion evolves, when people try to translate sentences in English, because then there are different words for temple and family altar. So you can just understand the meaning out of the context.
When I tried to find the answer to the opposite question 'why people have an altar in their house', I found the nice sentence:
The Temple serves as a device to remind us of specific circumstances and produce awareness of the holiness in all things. So, every home temple gives you a place for the regular worshiping and prayers to the gods and a sacred space in your house.
Our mandir was not really a planned one, we brought Ganesha from India and we got Durga on our first week in Ottawa and for longer time they were residing on top of the fridge, until I found a nice grey-red colored cupboard with a cute railing and heart shaped beams.


Some fresh white and blue color later, the board found its place above the kitchen table and in a special ceremony the gods found their new place on this board. Together with the statues, we didn't combined the typical colorful kitschy god pictures, but two postcards from the “Dr.Bhau Daji Lad-Museum”, which are showing Durga in an old miniature painting and Ganesha with his mother in a sandalwood statue. Since then they were involved in all important festivals like Karwa chauth and Diwali and of course we are never forgetting the daily offering of sweets and water... (at Christmas with German cookies only and an extra star ... ;-)


As we don't have flower traders, who are just selling 'flower heads', we got artificial flowers only and also our lights are due to safety reasons (two curious cats) electric ones, which are burning the whole night. One local “Indian” is working as a guard and is holding the scented sticks. This native American is a saltshaker by origin and I painted his farm advertisement with a very different kind of statement.

...

Vania Zouravliov – et memento mori

Born in Vladimir, a medieval city in Russia, Vania Zouravliov creates richly layered illustrations which are brillant, dark fairytale works. It takes you a long time to look at them and try to understand what you see, but the pictures also seem to show the disturbing, disconcerting and lonely world (...of childrens nightmares).
These illustrations are not just there. They are continuously evolving and creating emotions. Some things you start to like and adore and then you dislike it, because you see that it leads to destruction of it. And that is the reason such mixed feelings are even more attracting you to his work.
Zouravliov's influences were in former interpretations described as symbols from The Bible, Dante's Devine Comedy, russian fairytales, early Disney animations, japanese Mangas, aboriginal north-american crafts and E.T.A. Hoffmann.
In general, his work combines modern elements with historic references and a blend from eastern and western cultures to create scenes which look like something from a lost myth.
His mother was an art teacher and he started drawing “evil” hammerhead people, when he was just four years old. At the age of 13 he became a child prodigy in Russia, he had TV-Shows, got introduced to many famous communist artists and was already exhibting internationally.
Later he studied at the Edinburgh College of Art and still lives and works in the UK.
In my opinion, his work is still a bit too much organ of and skull orientated. And so I am really looking forward, how and if Zouravliov will start exploring the “grown-up” world and the fear it can create of if he will be forever the four year old, who draws evil people who are making him fear... What gives me hope? This quotion from Zouravliov by himself:

Holding back the night
With its increasing brilliance
The summer moon

show us the moon...

Yelena Bryksenkova

This young artist is a student of Illustration at the Maryland Institute, College of Art. And despite from her own blogspot, until now I hardly found her pictures anywhere else.
She is often drawing simple interiors like a plain bathroom, a room with a heater and window, a green plant at a window and heater, etc. and thus she is is making the daily life a theme.

At first you think her pictures are very easy to understand and the moment you turn to the next one something forces you to turn back to the earlier picture. And then you are left surprised with the tiny details which are not usually expected. For instance an elephant with pullover (the elephant can be seen in many of her pictures but sometimes instead of it you see a red bird ), a flowered teakettle, splashes of color in white and grey environments, etc. Discovering these details made me smile and happy. It allowed a glimpse of the character of the person behind such illustrations.

Slavic Inspiration

The slavic speaking countries, like Russia, Romania, Poland etc., developed a folklore style, which inspires the fashion industry repeatedly during the winter shows with its rich pattern and tradional elements for colourful coats, blouses and skirts.
It is a style which actually seems to fit the winter season. It tells the stories of old fairytales with hard russian winters, (colorful) wooden churches and small dark wooden houses warmed by the oven. These houses are shown to be filled with rustic hand-crafted furniture and fabrics which women use to weave in the rural villages.
Such fabrics are generally made out of wool and linen and the folk costumes are filled with ornamental embroidery, which varies according to age, gender and region of the wearer.
The textile patterns and colors also vary regionally, with color schemes often based on specific combinations of red, dark blue, black, and white.
This style has greatly influenced the fashion industry. I
ts exploitation for designing the intereriors of a house has not been the highlight until now.
But still you can try to adopt some of these ideas in order to change the outlook of your house. Although may be not as a complete decoration but you can set some accents like an embroidered pillow in a well-known white and red scheme or a table cloth, or even a rug, which can help to maintain a russian or general slavic inspired feeling adding a bit of cosyness into house while you are prepared to face the dark, cold winter days.

One of the most unusual music videos filled with such inspiration is “Sun Zara” from a Bollywood movie called “Lucky”. It tries to transport the style and tradition into a romantic dramatic feeling and its really beautifully filmed:



And even when the world is fascinated and inspired by the rich history and the nostalgic feeling the folklore art can create, the people who are living there are not much into it.
For example, the russian interior. Initially it got influenced by chinese laque furniture and then the Russians developed it further with their own ideas. The huge castles of the Tsars were at first filled with an all over french design, which got replaced by the soviet ideas of uniformity and function.

The furniture wasn't imported from anywhere else but it didn't even followed their own traditions and style. It was heavy, industrial made and everyone had similar pieces standing in their houses.
After the political changes taking place in the 1990s, the people orientated themselves on an all-western look. Everything had to be new to be good and were therefore cheap copies of western designs.
Nowadays they try to look back and ponder, whether what the world like in their ancient designs and they try to create a look, which is in between: a blend of old traditions, western culture and very modern technology. It is a very fascinating idea and I am already eager to see the outcome.





Following link will direct you to an interesting article I found in the NY Times. The four pictures above were taken from there:-
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/13/garden/13russia.html




There are other contempory polish folk style furniture (like the retro and folk inspired shelf and chairs), which you can find at the link below :-
http://www.proteindesign.pl/furniture/index.php




If you are interested in watching other music videos related to the theme described above then please try “Tatu-All about us”, the European Song Contest winner “Ruslana- Wild Dance” and out of the crazy 1970s: “Boney M- Rasputin”. So Enjoy. =)

While trying to find some images for this post, I came across two graphic artists, Yelena Bryksenkova, a young student and Vania Zouravliov, a well-known artist, who according to me are at the oppposite end of the same rope. Their work depicts the russian folklore themes and their pictures have really impressed me. So I thought they are worth each an extra post.

70s Deco - out of the Thrift Store

In Germany the idea of Thrift Stores isn't much developed. Although it started slowly with organizations like 'oxfam' in the last five years, it still will take many years until the concept gets really accepted.
Old furniture are either antique and then sold for high prices or they are not and then got thrown away or its sold in special “Social stores” for less-income families...normal people hardly have the possibility to shop there and therefore they even don't know about this concept. E-bay opened the market for used furniture, but still it will be a long way until the whole idea gets realized for non-profit organizations and consumers.
So, when I came to Canada I was very pleased while exploring the different Thrift Stores and options it gave me to fill our flat with inexpensive, but still good quality furniture. The largest providers are the Salvation Army and much better organized but therefore more expensive- the Value Village. We got chairs, table, kitchen tools, dishes, desks, picture frames... a lot came from these stores and - often renewed with a little paint job- it found its place in our home...
For much other things we just don't have enough space, but at least I enjoy watching it in the store, like the old trunks and armchairs.




Especially 1970s-style fabrics start to be so interesting with its flowers and wild mixtures of colors. Unfortunately our house is already mixed enough, so that we can't go for wild fabrics at all, but these things are at the beginning of being real retro pieces and they just need ten years more to be again, really cool... :-)

This week I love...

....either the dark blue chinoiserie by De Gournay or the skirt by Rohit Bal (hard to decide which one looks better) in the bedroom of writer Shyama Patel in her New Yorker appartment.
The bed though, isnt so much my style, like my granny would say: 'this full-metall bed will be strucked by lightning in the next thunderstorm... ;-).' I guess a combination of dark wood and metall, in a still modern style, would fit even better to the room.

(Picture out of Elle decor, US Edition, November 2006)