MY FIRST POST!

Hi and Welcome to my first post on my first Blog page!

I'm excited to be here and I hope that my posts will make you excited to be here too.
I guess I have a bit of backtracking to do on this year, as its been a really busy year so far and I don't want you to miss out on anything.

I will start by sharing a bit of my time in India at the beginning of this year, for all those who haven't yet encountered my tales and photos. On January 26th 2009 (Yes, I flew out of Australia on Australia Day of all days), I left for my Indian adventure and Arts Residency for 3 months. Meeting up with my good friend Melissa, who's currently living in Los Angeles, we were all set to travel a bit of India and see some sites for the first 3-4 weeks. This time was not only a much deserved holiday, but also a really good introduction to settling into an Indian lifestyle for awhile. Along the way, I was photographing inspirational sights and objects that I would later use in my experimental work whilst in residency.

So, we started with a few days in busy Delhi, which I was later to return too. After seeing some temples, the Crafts Museum, getting locked in our hotel room by the doorknob being jammed, and discovering a beautiful women's textile market which later mysteriousely disappeared, we were ready to head to Agra.

Now, while most people just catch the day train to and from Agra to see the Taj Mahal in one day, we decided to spend 3 days there to take our time. We stayed in a place with lush green gardens right outside the east gate of the Taj. It was really only less than 500m to the entrance. Each night we dined in the rooftop restaurants that have a stunning view of the Taj Mahal. As the sun set over the Taj each night, we would listen to the surrounding Muslim prayers calling from the streets below. Just magical. I walked to the Agra Fort on our middle day, and marvelled at the intricate carving of the red sandstone which complemented the inlaid jewel marble so beautifully. You can see from my photo, the amount of care and time spent on this carving. As I saw more places throughout India, I was amazed more and more at the complexity of the work put into the architecture!

After Agra, we headed down to Aurangabad which is about 8 hours inland from Mumbai. Its also where the World Heritage listed Ajanta and Ellora caves are found. It was my birthday while we were here and I was especially excited to visit these caves. Don't worry, my birthday was not forgotten. I was treated to presents, a hotel room upgrade and a specially made black forest cake from the staff at the Lemontree Hotel. What a performance, by the way! So, on the way to the Ajanta caves which are a 2-3 hour drive each way from aurangabad, I was given a wet seat (??) which the driver only laughed about and a panic attack as we swerved in and out of traffic for the whole 3 hours. Thankyou Mel, for saving my life and sitting in the front seat! For anyone that knows me, knows how nervy I get in the passenger seat. The driver had a good laugh at all the strange noices coming out of my mouth, including the straw and even the turkey. Anyhow, we made it and the caves were something really quite special. The next day, we requested the same driver, as he was already now familiar with my strange antics and knew to drive slower than usual. However, as we left the hotel and got only round the corner, the police started chasing us.....and he didn't stop! I honestly thought that we were about to embark in a high speed chase IN INDIA of all places! I begged for him to pull over, and he finally agreed. The police pulled him out of the car and refused to give him back to us, explaining that our driver had in fact no license. So, we just sat there, in the car, in the heat, and waited for him to get us another. Hmm, anyhow we made it to the Ellora caves which we every bit as special as the others and also a little bigger.

After aurangabad, we trained it to Mumbai where we spent a day and night. Didn't think Mumbai had quite the character of Delhi, but we still enjoyed it indulging in a wonderful shopping guide who we picked up on the street. He was really sweet and we really enjoyed for a day the upper class shopping experience where we were shown where to go and given plenty of chai, air conditioning and seats and they paraded many garments and pashmena's in front of us for our selection. We had a ball! Later, we settled into a Gold Class style cinema to watch Slumdog Millionaire, which started by all 10 or so of us standing for the National Anthem.

On arriving at the airport the next day in time for our carefully selected group of flights to get us down to Kerala at a reasonable price, we discovered that they had changed the time of flight without telling us and we had missed our first connection. Mel went off putting on her fake ugly american act to see what she could do for us while I sat and explored our other options. She returned some minutes later informing me that we had been requested to leave the airport. Me, being me, actually believed her and my mouth dropped open wondering just how far she had gone with the act to get that response! However, it wasn't true and we ended up with even cheaper flights than before, but had to wait and then catch a long local train after the flight.

In the end we got to Kovalam Beach in the south of India, and were absolutely ready for a good 10 days enjoying paradise. We ate, we drank, we lazed on the beach under our umbrellas (it was soooo hot!) and of course we shopped. As part of our time in Kerala, we invested in a 24 hour houseboat along the backwaters. This was just magical and probably one of my most influential moments during this holiday part of my trip. It was a chance to get into the quiet and reality of the backwater village life.

On the houseboat we were given the best food I had in all of India and and enjoyed the serenity and calmness of the river. As we went in from the bottom end of the backwaters, there was hardly anyone else around. We also got off this boat onto a smaller canoe like boat to delve even further into the narrow warren of backwaters that the villages are built around. It was here, that I found many inspirations and noticed the repitition of the circle patterns more common. You will notice how I have used the idea of having the rings as windows in my houses, and the loose village like structure as a form.

Back on land again, I had to say goodbye to my travelling buddy as we went our separate ways. Mel was heading back to LA to work, and I was heading across to the other side of the country to explore an ongoing experiment in Human Unity.....auroville.

Auroville is a purpose built town of currently about 2000 residents. It is 6kms from the french town of Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu. Also south of India. I had discovered this place whilst randomly looking at profiles of Ceramic Artists in India. Adil Writer's work, I admire for its loose sculptural and woodfired appeal, and combination of traditional themes with contemporary political views. He lives in auroville and works at Mandala Pottery, also in auroville. This is a fascinating place, and the best thing I can suggest if you are at all interested, is simply to click on the link and find out more info for yourself. However, I will give you a brief as I learnt a lot from attending a free seminar each day given by someone who's lived there since the beginning. Each day was a different topic, such as its economy and alternative monetry system, architecture and planning and education. I stayed in auroville for a week and enjoyed getting to know what works and what doesn't about living in an alternative societal structure. Aurovile was created by someone referred to as the mother, back in the 1960's. It was a land that was desolute and bare except for the villages nearby who had learnt to adapt to the dryness of this area. Through developing a sustainable structure of agriculture, architecture and transport, about 200 people from countries all over the world made a plan. A plan to live in harmony and be recognised by the Indian government and UNESCO as a separate entity away freed from the structure of the rest of the world. The plan is to have 50,000 people live here in a sustainable environment. They have a central temple which is called the matri mandir and surrounding grounds in which the locals go to concentrate with the energy of a single beam of light hitting a huge glass ball in the centre of the structure. Its a peaceful place and the plan of auroville is built around it. The town flows out in circular bands around this round domed temple, with separate zones for residential, business and agriculture. Anyhow, interesting place but I don't think its for me. Too many steming problems which I don't see solved in a lifetime. However, I do agree with many of their systems.

So finally, after all this discovery and inspiration, I went off to start my residency back in Delhi at the SANSKRITI KENDRA! Stay tuned......