Trucking love

A vehicle sold as a chassis only from its manufacturer,  then custom built in numerous small and big workshops is a unique feature of the truck building industry in the Indian subcontinent. A  brightly coloured, desi truck bearing quirky messages and signature motifs speaks of the driver/owner personality and above all the love that goes into making it a spectacle of form over mere function. So when a dear friend contacted me with the idea of surprising his soon to be wed buddy with a custom 

made gift for his big day, I had to look no farther than a local truck building yard.

Here it is then, a true labor of love in more ways than one. The Truck Trunk!

Before starting the project I made a trek to a truck building yard in Masji Bunder, Mumbai.  To understand how a truck is a labor of love, one merely has to see crafts men spend days on an end building truck bodies and customizing them for their owners.   A well finished  vehicle has its  owner/ driver's personality all over it and unashamedly. For such a predominantly masculine profession and the ruggedness of a truckers life, the style of painting is surprisingly cheery, colourful and irreverent.

What better gift could there be for a biker? One that speaks of his affinity for the road and all things highway.. ? His black enfield bike called 'dug-dug' and his dreams of a biking trip to Ladhak for a honeymoon?!

Hence the Love Carrier .  Together with all the cheesy delight of the highway, bright kitschy colors, saying and one liners typical subcontinental verve and expressiveness.

The best trucks in the region come out of Pakistan. Meticulously detailed and painted in vibrant kitschy colors of the, these trucks and busses have plyed the Karakoram highway for long.   My own little truck trunk draws a lot from the tradition.

Not going too much into the details of the design history of the art form, it was easy for me to see in this small workshop in Mumbai that things are changing rapidly. A lot of the details that would be hand painted onto trucks in the past are being replaced by plastic sticker sinage. Most workshops prioritise delivering functional bodies over  individual custom finishes.  Above all , the master painters' are dwindling in numbers.

Painting this little truck trunk with  inputs and suggestions from the master painter Issar bhai has been a fantastic learning for me. Of course a detailed post about the workshop and its going ons is due.

It is a project borne out of love  and very fittingly tells a love story of sorts too! And since Feb 14th  just went past,  Belated Valentine's day folks!!!

detail of  road signs and graphics inside the box.

Detail of  a hand made  heart  tassel 

DIY : Calendar art inspired wall.

A good part of what I, like  countless Indians growing up in the 70s and 80s small town India know about art, culture and religion comes straight from a bright, kitschy calendar, or bazar print : the colour saturated, mass produced representation of deities, religious themes alongside chubby babies, freedom fighters, movie stars and romantic and idyllic landscapes.  These  psychedelic prints of benevolent Gods and Goddesses smiling down their blessings  on to living rooms, shop floors and street corners have  fired popular imagination and visual culture in the subcontinent for over a century .

Much of how we imagine our deities as, is coloured by years of  exposure to the generously proportioned Gods and Goddesses rendered in rich jewel tones in one too many calendars. I have always wanted to hang a few at home.  The problem with wanting to frame calendar art is that there is way too many attractive, fascinating and confusing options to choose from!

So while scouring the local flea market for appropriate prints ( as in, those that evoked memories of  other calendars in other homes )  I landed up coming back with a stash!  With some amount of thought, all of the 11 crumbling and yellowing  prints I found, landed up in a single niche right at the entrance of the house. 

Although the prints were mostly whole they had aged considerably, making  the paper very amenable to being decoupaged. So decoupaged they are, embellished with sequins paints and mirrors. Have two other niches to go. Will come back with them later. Until then, hope you enjoy these. 

It all begins with a single niche  hand drawn in the shape of a Jharokha and cut out along with two others near the entrance.

Cutting, priming, texturing  the wall and painting the Jharokha.

Croping and cutting from Calendars, pasting selected images  on a piece of ply cut in the shape of the Jharokha.

Detailing 

 Going over the pasted images with layers of any good quality sealant . I used modge podge. It is a good idea to allow the surface to dry out completely between applications.

Finally, getting Hem Singh to secure the finished  ply onto the wall :)

All that Folk-Sholk

I have had in mind to post about folk art for  some time now. That kitschy, street, utilitarian brand of artifacts that are naive and endearing at the same time.  Before pop art, and kitsch crafts became such trends in the design world were these little hand made objects, appropriating the street and everyday so wonderfully.

Each little  object brings to mind a particular street side, a  mela  or a weekly market one picked them up from. Their rough crude finishes lending texture and fun to nooks. Of course it helps that most of these objects are readily available in a corner bazaar near the home, at dirt cheap prices..
Great ideas for shoe string decor and beyond.
Here are a few snippets from around the house: