The show has opened, pressure is off, getting ready in my mind for Jaipur

   Today had a long interview with a journalist from the Times of India - a weekend supplement that seems on a higher level than the rest of the paper. It was supposed to be 15 minutes and we talked for nearly two hours. I also went to the Craft Museum. Daughter Janet and I'd been there in 1977 when it was new and saw stunning tribal wooden sculpture. That's still there and much more including fabulous fabrics.. The exhibits are wonderful and if I'd had more time would have bought some things from the craftspeople who spread out their wares there. They have such a hard sell that it turns me off. First you're supposed to bargain, and then, some of them actually won't so who's to know what to do. I bought a palm leaf drawing.

    Don't think that being in India is paradise for it surely isn't. It's a mix as is all else in life. The traffic is a nightmare and the subway can be very, very crowded. Thank goodness for the women's car. Here at Sanskriti we get a free taxi on Wednesday. My neighbor artist, who is making art from cow patties (the aroma has been wafting its fragrance my way ever since I arrived Feb 15 - and there's been rain to make it more so even though he covers it with tarps). Anyway, today he was to move the patties to the Craft museum where he is installing his structures to be made from them and he had two of the "ladies" who will be helping him join in free the taxi ride to the museum. I sat next to them. They chatted together in Hindi and, alas smelled from handling the patties/putting them in bags for travel to the museum. It was also very hot in the taxi, and there was a traffic jam. Ugh, ugh, I got out earlier at a subway stop and decided it was faster and more fragrant to leave that scene. When I got out of the subway closest to the museum, I got into a three wheel taxi. The driver had a hard time finding the museum but finally did. The women were already there and thought I knew what they were supposed to do. Of course I didn't but brought them to the Director. He just told them to sit down outside. I then pulled out a card written for me by a director of another museum that said I should be given free admission so I was spared the 150 rupee entrance fee (44 rupees to the dollar).

    I enjoyed the interview at the American Center today as the man was intelligent, responsive, and perceptive. We focused on a sampling of the monoprints, Face Paintings and Portrait Boxes for the article,

    New artists have arrived at Sanskriti and I likely won't have time to get to know them as I leave on March 15 for Jaipur. The ones I've gotten to know and enjoy have left. The vegetarian food has become monotonous, but the curd was good tonight and the dal. was delicious. Not always so as it's often spicier than I can handle. In my lust for more protein, I've taken to buying eggs and cooking them in my electric tea pot, and mostly eating lunch out now that my show is up at the American Center. I've been going there for interviews and to meet people who want to see the show and that leaves me near Connaught Place where there are restaurants, shops galore, and a constant and huge crush of people..

   I'm still making new art and it seems to me to be very good, being very different from anything I've done before that's filling me with the sense of surprise. Right now, I'm working on four and soon to be five 24x18 inch sheets of Bristol Board (nice and thick). I've layered both sides, one side with vivid blues, copper color an with some red and the second side just with gel medium to keep the pieces flat. The paint, Acrylic, is water based and could warp the paper if I didn't treat both sides. Whereas with the "Face Paintings" I've obviously filled the page with a large face, that is mostly so as a few of the ten have more than one face. With the new work, I've been keeping an oval in the center, but there is, at least as of yet, no face. The color and sense of the work speaks to me of being more cosmic and in the realms of outer space. I'm now thinking this is coming from the fact that in recent months in my early morning brief meditations, I've been projecting my mind into that realm and amazingly, when I do, my eyes (though closed) become filled with light.

   Getting late now. To get up early enough to do the "Five Tibetan Rites" and my yoga regimen, and then get to breakfast on time, I'll be heading off to sleep now. Trying to attach pics of some of the "Face Paintings." Don't know if I can succeed as the process is still something of a mystery to me. Hooray, I think I did it!