Visual arts has been a part of my life since childhood. I spend many hours drawing and sketching all through my youth. Encouragement from my brother, teachers in school kept me connected to paper and pen. It gave me a way to express, to create. Somehow the events of life did not lead me take to study art in an University formally…I remained a self taught dabbler.

However it led me to my career as a graphic designer. Now creation was inspired by need of a client to produce collaterals to communicate, sell, and express identities for brans. It was a great place to learn the discipline of skill building…to take the element of ‘me’ out of the creative process. This was problem solving with art, this was creating design to fulfil another person’s need. 

Often during these times I would occasionally take up pencil and paper and indulge in some free art play with no agenda. Some moments inspired by falling in love in love, or breaking up and then pouring out my heart break in some cartoon scribbles all coloured by the emotion of the moment. Here art felt catharic and expressive. Other times just moved by the beauty and yes cuteness of life I drew. 

Then came the practise of Yoga! Yes I fell head over heels in love with the asana practise and threw all my energies into it. Often friends and relatives would ask me if i still painted of drew pictures. I often said…oh that was another part of my life, i think i am over it, just don’t have the time and interest to spend time with the visual arts.

Yet the murmuring of this undercurrent remained. I never truly disconnected. I still did graphic design…but not much personal work. As i am nearing 50…yes this October I will complete 50 years of life as me…i found myself increasingly impatient with client’s demands in the realm of graphic design. Luckily having Yoga teaching as an additional livelihood meant I could say no to some clients and refuse projects. I became picky…or i would like to believe discerning.

As we all know 2020 onwards due to the strange circumstances we have all gone through, many things closed off…however new opportunities also opened up. I always wanted to study Tibetan Tangkha art. Swiping through instagram I came across Tarakei’s site. She having to get back to Japan due to lockdowns started giving online classes through zoom! How convenient!! I enjoyed every lesson with her…I like having a teacher…its my learning style, same applies for yoga and meditation, having a mentor focuses me and gets me to commit. On my own I can be quite lazy and insincere in my efforts. So I showed up every week doing my home work exploring drawing Buddha faces, White and Green Tara’s. This period rekindled my love for creating art again. I took some of the techniques i learned from Tarakei and started doing some other themes like Laxmi, Patanjali and some Yoga asana drawings. Once more i enjoyed putting pen on paper. Leo my cat loved me drawing for some reason.

The just like that…suddenly some design work took over my time and i had to give up the time i was spending learning with Tara. Suddenly there was no time…was this my internal resistance, my lifelong desire to abort my creative output…maybe it’s some old wounding i haven’t processed

Once again, I am again engaging with the Goddess of art. Setting an aspiration to create visual artworks to inspire, amuse and educate. I often felt unable to answer the question…Why am i creating art? The other day like a simple spark of insight these words popped up in my head during meditation. How simple, how apt! And now, as I am curating the old work to display on my site I realise these categories work perfectly.

aparajitaarts is a also a space for me to create and share visual arts with others. 

I realise like yoga, and meditation, art only gets good with practise. Sure I might have received the grace of some talent however unless I nurture the skill with time and energy nothing will come of it. So here’s to faith in art and applying regular efforts to developing the space of aparajitaarts!