Changes again

Change is good, or so I am told. They also say soup is good food, which I have to agree with. but right now, right here, there is no connection between the two, not that I can immediately think up, that is. Of course, I am not sure I am able to think any more today, it having been a long day in a series of long days in a very long week, even though it is only halfway through the week that is halfway through a very long month that is at the end of what seems to be an astonishingly short year. That apart, when I was writing a blog on nothing in particular, it seemed like I needed to get some focus into it, so I decided to write on food, which is a favourite subject of mine, but now that it has focus, I find so much else that I want to talk about. And since a blog is essentially self-indulgent and for the soul of the person writing it, I think I can do what I want to do. If occasionally I do focus on food, or people or books or travel, or whatever, so be it. Right?

In short, this space is changed as of today. I go back to rambling. And happily so.

This morning I was at an art show, one that was – the captions said – a tribute to one of my favourite artists, especially in his avatar as a sculptor. Romanian Constantin Brancusi, whose work captured my very young and raw imagination when I first saw his Sleeping Muse at the Metropolitan Museum in New York when I was a child, was on par, in my childish mind, with people like Alexander Calder and Henry Moore, more since I saw them all during that time in my life rather than any artistic connection they may have had. It helped, of course, that my mother once said that I had a vague resemblance to Mlle Pogany, whose big-eyed pony-tailed head was captured in so many ways by Brancusi. So when I read about this exhibit, I had to be there.

I was not impressed. There were very few pieces on show, which was fine, since they could all be studied and savoured at leisure. It was mainly paintings, the rough lines and occasional dash of vivid colour that the artist did. There was one small marble carving that was suggestive of the beauteous Mlle Pogany. And there were others that had a certain mystery, an intriguing quality that made me want to look at them from various angles, walking around each to find a new facet with every blink. There was even one small yet delicately suggestive sculpture that had me wishing for a bigger bag or a more voluminous outfit into which I could sneak it and flee the gallery, to set it on the glass dining table at home and have a happy gloat. But, being rather law abiding and not equipped for larceny on any scale, I just sighed and left.

The show, as you may have guessed, was not of original Brancusi work. But it was the efforts of a group of young Romanian artists who were paying their tribute to the great artist, especially to his ‘Indian’ experience. This put the works into the right perspective, with one fairly large hanging piece in what seemed to be deeply scored wood that was planned to be placed in a shrine, reflected in and spatially cradled by a pool of water. Did it work? For me, only after I read the accompanying note, I must confess.

There was no one else at the show, perhaps since it was too early in the morning for the average art-seeker to be out and about, or because there was no social event involved, or because it was a rather esoteric artist being honoured in a rather esoteric exhibition. Whatever the case, it is a pleasure to see the memories of an extremely interesting childhood come home…to my home.