Morning Preponderance

fan's whirring hum
birds chirpling,
footsteps below
distant train' toot tooting
makeshift bedsheet curtains hang askance
permitting brilliant sun's light pattern
entry to the room

bed made but
slept on instead of in
due to the persistence of
summer night heat
indentations like shallow graves
burying their dead
in again another
long sultry night of nothingness

mangy dogs greet the morn
as they greet one another
desperate shallow barks
possessive, possessing
likely possessed

brown window bars
frame long strips of green
palm exoticity
beauty almost lost to familiarity
palms themselves framed
with the watered down blue
of hot sky
empty save for the promises
health to the crops
sweat to the laborers
sweat to the non-laborers
behind computers
honest sweat?
who knows
it all smells the same

Ahhhh! The Sweet Smell of Ink.

I walked into this project and the smell itself took me back to Myers School of Art. This Project was originally a project of MCC and they are now their own independent enterprise. They produce greeting cards and collaborate with another enterprise nearby which produces handbags, called Action Bag (another former MCC project) Both of these enterprises have products sold through 10,000 Villages although most of their buyers are from Europe and Japan.




Cloth screen prints drying. They will be made into a book bag eventually at Action Bag.



Look at that color! I envy this environment . . . actually, early next week I will be shopping for all of the supplies to start making my own screen prints. I love clay. . . but the logistics here are a bit overwhelming unless I would be here for years and build my own kiln etc . . .

Beauty Built

I am not usually one to go ga ga over architecture, but when I saw that Sukanta's studio was based in this old house I thought, "wow! I could handle that." It makes it all the more interesting that it is his ancestral home and that the lost wax metal casting that he does has been in the family for ages. During the war of independence his Hindu family fled to India so when he returned with his family he basically had to start it up again.

Haunting Details . . . Fallen Angels . . . Otherworldly Beauty...

the partial skeleton of a round basket under a searing sun casting brittle shadows almost as physical as the thing itself.


the startling unnatural symmetry of an illuminated being framed by the beauty of decomposition




terracotta angels . . . flesh covered by metallic sheen . . . hollow . . . fallen . . . alone together




still life:
everyday honest/exotic labor.
blue collar.
blue cuff.
blue . . .



man and woman . . . go figure.

Rice of Life

rice
sustenance
the essence of food and community
obhab, scarcity
a threatening of life as is understood
beggars
thieves
pariahs
we all gather
undignified in our hunger
scrabbling in mud for fallen grains
we are one
in hunger
we are one
in need
Rice of Life
mysteriously fill us
un-mysteriously fill us

If All My Neighbors Were Potters...

I visited this wonderful potter's village in Manikgonj. When they found out that I was a potter they said that I do Hindu work. I have a confession to make. I like taking pictures of pots almost as much as I enjoy making pots. All of the families in this village are potters and they all have their own kiln etc. on their property. The pots below are all stacked up and ready for the kiln to be built around them.




Here is one of the potters loading up the pots to be fired.




Here, amazingly enough is a neighboring kiln that is fully loaded. The pots been enclosed in clay walls which form the outside of the kiln. The big hole is where the fire is built. The sari adds some great color to the picture and has nothing to do with pottery.




Here is my colleague, Bita, carrying several of the bowls we bought, to the van.




Last but not least, my favorite pot shot. I feel like I have to paint it. It is so rich with shadows and subtle color contrasts and not-so-subtle texture contrasts. It almost feels as if they have already started to bake in the light of the sun and I can feel the tension, knowing how fragile a bone dry piece of greenware is.

We The Millers

I can't take credit for this great shot, obviously. Jensen begged to take some pictures with my camera and this is what he framed. I quite like it even though it's a little tilty.



I love the blues in contrast to the red of Jensen's shirt and the maze of angular green machinery behind him contrasted with the organic symmetry of the thing that he is holding. We were visiting an indigo processing plant. The tool he is holding was the previous technology for stirring the dye. The green machine behind is what they use now, powered by bicycle pedals.



I am in love. With the subjects...and with this picture. Wow...look at the texture on the wall. This was a little roadside restaurant that we stopped at. The food was so good that we stopped there on the way back the next day.





The following picture is out back where we washed our hands before we ate. Behind the pump is the little outdoor kitchen. The lady who started it was quite successful from the get-go. In fact she was too successful. She had hired different helpers, but she worked them so hard that they all kept quitting. Finally she came up with a solution; she found another wife for her husband and arranged their marriage. Now they all work together. Truly a family business.

The Bicycle

We stayed at this hotel in Saidpur which actually had air-conditioning which I made good use of. The only problem was that when I came out to the courtyard where our van was parked in the morning and found this good shot, my lens promptly steamed over. The first shot is a Photoshop doctored version, the second the original, and the third a variation with more diagonals and complementary colors.

Bloomin' Stuff

This neat little flower pot was found on the roof of my office.




The following two are shots of the Krishnachura tree. I had totally forgotten how this tree illuminates the countryside of Bangladesh at certain times of the year. I would love to get it framed in a complementary deep blue sky, but unfortunately we don't see too much of that this time of year. I guess I'll settle for green foliage.