16/06/2016

I am really going to have to run to catch up with myself - I've been putting off writing this blog/ journal/ scrapbook. The longer I've stalled, the more I've read, made and done that I want to record before I forget. I want, in no special order, to:

1) write about 'White Mughuls' by William Dalrymple, a marvellously researched and written book that made me fall for the romantic C18th India he describes
2) put down, before I forget, what photographer and over-painter Rajesh Soni told me about the photos of my Udaipur political agents, how his grandfather took the photos and overpainted them
3) wonder about the 'gaze', both Indian (profile and averted) and European (but then Indian). Anyone who knows any visual/ cultural theory, please feel free to contribute!
4) give some accounts of the many stories I've heard from people who had relatives who worked and lived in india and were part of the Raj.
5) describe how it feels to paint with a brush made from squirrel fur, given me by the artist that made it
6) to keep up to date with my future exchanges with new friend Sean Willcock, who studies colonial India
7) to describe my thinking behind the paintings I'm making - why I'm doing what I do, what I want to try, my experiments, failures and successes
8) to entice people to join in this blog with your own ideas, memories, opinions, photos
9) to record ideas for future development