Happy monsters – how they happened

Art Gallery

Madhuri’s playful greeting cards and small paintings; “I can do everything as imperfectly as naturally it arises in me! Because it is utterly imperfect! Edges are not straight!”

Monster whose granny had a neck
Agile monster in a small space
Hairy monster in the rain
Bouquet-monster
Glamour-beast
Monster embracing mountain
Monster on mountain
Happy goldy monster
Doily-monster
Monster in tutu
Happy monster in purple country
Dancer with leaf-monster
Tree-monster flying flower to flower
Leaf-monster who has crept indoors
Monster sliding thru woods
Monster leaping for joy
Woods-monster with jewels
Party-monster

In the late 90’s I spent a month alone at Devika’s chalet in the Alps, and there was just nothing bothering me and nothing I had to do. So I painted, all over a big plastic sheet on the ground floor, with the light coming in the windows.

I was so happy. Painting is bliss. This bliss is made of:

  • I have no idea what I’m doing.
  • Nobody is going to ask me to do this more perfectly, so I can just make a joyful mess.
  • I don’t really think about it at all – what I’m doing; I just go Wheeeee! and splash color around and draw weird things that appear as if by themselves.
  • I don’t have to make something sellable.
  • I can do everything as imperfectly as naturally it arises in me! Because it is utterly imperfect! Edges are not straight! And I just don’t care!

I used as backgrounds, often, some pieces of huge paintings I’d made during Meera’s training; I just cut them up to make them easier to transport, and then found they made great backgrounds – lots of depth.

Now I’m in Hebden Bridge, England. My employer is out of town, and I’d agreed with myself that I would spend part of every day painting and playing with paper and scissors and glue – making greeting cards. No straight edges here!

I listen to music – everything from 50’s and 60’s Rock ‘n’ Roll to Miten and Premal to Mozart to Booker T and the MG’s to The Staple Singers to Baroque. I spread out in the attic room under the skylight. And I am a happy fool – just a happy, happy fool. I have backgrounds I made earlier in the month by soaking paper and then pouring paint, salt, sugar, and ground coffee all over them (I don’t recommend the sugar).

Other backgrounds are left over from some given to me by my niece, a Steiner School art teacher. I have a huge plastic bin full of different paints and crayons and pencils and acrylics and fabric paint and so on. I have a little bin of… bindis! I have two clients in India who for whatever reason can’t pay me in actual money, so I asked them to send me bindis instead. This often takes them a year to do, but eventually bindis arrive, and end up stuck to paintings. Those tattooey sticky things are excellent too.

Happy Monsters!

MadhuriMadhuri is a regular contributor – www.madhurijewel.com

More articles, reviews and poems by the same author on Osho News

Comments are closed.