Flood waters, Hot cups of Chai and some gardening

This week began with a ( I know you are thing 'bang'  but no :) flood! Yes that's right my city was well under water these past two days with water logging, train services breaking down, never ending traffic jams and people getting stranded every which way.

Not fun I know but for the few lucky folks like me who don't need to travel for work or any other reason it was fun to stay home and watch the rains and sip hot cups of tea (we call it 'Chai') well we had a lot of fun and here are some pics from my balcony. So what did I do apart from having tea well I spent the time cleaning up my studio coming up with plans of streamlining my enamels ( they are a mess! ) which I will be sharing soon and doing some gardening !

Hope this lil guy does well 

You can see my Aloe vera trying to peek into the pic here :)

Functional design.

       Should art or rather design should it be purely a visual treat or can it functional. I think good design is so much more interesting when its functional don't you? To be able to actually use that lovely design that  you simply fell in love with, to me that's a perfect combination. 

While I love creating paintings  and enameled panels it gives me a lot of joy when someone picks up my enameled bowl and wonders if they can use it as an ash tray or perhaps could they store their  nick-knacks.  You have seen some of the bowls I create and there are a lot more on the way, but here are a few other pieces that I create, some are hand painted like this coaster set

Coaster set with yellow fleur
Set of four coasters

Chili key holder in brass and wood.

Some have metal accents on them like this chili design key holder ! isn't it cute just perfect for holding one set of keys if  you are like me and like to have all the possible keys in one single key chain :)

Getting nostalgic about pea pods

Pea Pod, Copper, torch fired enamel, pine wood
 © 2000 Nayna Shriyan

     Last few weeks have been really crazy for me with a two day exhibition featuring my jewellery and some of my metal art work. While trying to decide what to carry and what to leave behind I found this piece of art that I had created while in college. Long before I knew what torch fired enamels meant I was doing it the reason simply being, the only kiln that I was aware of was a huge old fashioned monster of a kiln in my college and whenever I wanted to enamel any small little piece at home it had to be with the aid of my trusty torch ! I also found to my amazement that while I had no idea what fold forming was back in those days, I had 'folded' the copper sheet into a pod ! Looking at this piece also reminded me of being completely fascinated by horse shoe nails  and had used them on the sides of the 'pod' to create the tendrils. 

       Cleaning and photographing this piece made my quite nostalgic for the old days when the simple act of mounting a piece meant a delightful excursion into the market place near Chor bazaar to hunt for packing material ( made of imported pine wood that did not even require cleaning !) and then carefully burning out the knots with my trusty soldering gun :)  I intend to put up this piece at an upcoming exhibition next month I really want to find it a good home as compared to just keeping it sitting in my closet, as I believe that art is incomplete until it has had a chance to interact with the world at large, what do you think?