From a chair by the window

Makeshift workspace by the window

What is it  they say about life giving you lemons?  You make lemonade.. right? Cheesy cliches apart,  good lemonade is always worth striving for.

Although today's post has been in the writing for the past four months  its germ has been in mind for over two years. 

"Time is a created thing. 
To say 'I don't have time', is like saying 'I don't want to" 
~ Lao Tzu

Waiting for the right time often becomes a carefully cultivated scam  to avoid implementation. The mind adds to the difficulties real and imaginary,  and before one  knows even the best intentions suffocate slow mo. Only in my case, a few developments at home, not altogether positive forced me to confront this resistance. 

Early  his year construction delays at home and a mishap soon after we moved in had me home bound for an indefinite stretch. As if that was not enough, my digital camera with its dainty dust sensitive sensor had to be  packed away!   I simply had to find an escape from the sheer madness unleashing itself day and and day out. A way out of the noise dust and juggling between focusing on the house, the children and still getting some work done!

The house was in a disarray anyway.  Life was going to be like sitting on a three legged chair for the next six plus months if not more. Would it hurt  anymore if I added to the chaos?  Took up a corner and started to sand paint, colour glue and mess about?!  It is hard mucking about in a clean calm space. But one which is rumbling and shaking like a monster spewing dust belches ?!!

So  in one chaotic corner of the house -a single desk by a window:  Photo + took shape.  Tentatively and one mistake after the other at first,  I had to teach myself restoration of old furniture- trunks mostly.  Sand, prime, paint, detail and varnish.  A little by myself and mostly thanks to the constant hand holding and encouragement of dear friends...(they know who and they know how ;)

Some of you might recollect the project I undertook with the wall niches and old calendars a while back (here).  As an extension of  the niches,  other objects that have been subsequently embellished using paint, paper-mache, decoupage and moulding.

In process.

The  idea has to do with the power of  the authentic object. Calendars, posters, old books. Vintage photography, coins, old hand written letters, postcards endless material that invokes nostalgia and longing.. add to it my own photography which in the past ten years or so has become a map of my life across countries and cultures in a way. Is it possible to pick up an old object and reinvent it with older material?

In a somewhat finished form, the project involves restoring old furniture- trunks, cabinets, stools, platters, boxes and containers etc ( pretty much all I could lay my hands on) and lending them a fresh layer of interest and therefore a new life using layers of old material- collected, inherited and found.

Check out images of some of the handcrafted Photo + art works at  the fabulous Bhavna Bhatnagar's An Indian Summer. I am thankful and thrilled to have her feature my work.

With much trepidation I will launch the initial set of objects coupled with select fine art prints at a day long AWC event at the Trident  hotel BKC  on the 30th of November.

Would love to share stories  about a few  objects over the next few days.  For above all, each painstakingly handcrafted object in the series this far  has multiple stories to tell. Will keep updating my facebook page at Chandan Dubey Photo + simultaneously.

I promise to post continuously over the next four days. See you around