The Festival of Lights
Diwali is around the corner and we are eager to invoke Goddess Laxmi in our lives. For the uninitiated in the pantheon of Hindu Gods and Goddess, Goddess Laxmi is revered as the goddess of wealth, fortune, and prosperity. In contemporary times too people connote her as the harbinger of material happiness. Every year during Diwali, faithful’s pay her an obeisance to summon wealth and opulence in their individual lives. The ceremony is referred to as Laxmi Pooja.
Being an artist I have had an opportunity to pay obeisance to the Goddess in my own creative way with an artwork named Sripada. When I took up this project I had apt clarity on what needs to be done, but how? It is then that I turned to stories and folklores to understand how I could recreate the aura of Goddesses Laxmi symbolically.
I realized that the feet of Laxmi are considered as a totem to attract wealth and happiness. And it would be a precise representation since culturally touching the feet is the most preferred way for seeking blessings.
Sripada was created using corrugated tubes, the array of elevated tubes in the installation creates a 3d effect. The installation is also a unique expression of two different mediums namely cardboard and brass.
The brass lotus visible in the installation also has a beautiful connotation too. Along with beauty, prosperity, and fertility the lotus represents a healthy life. And hence it has been placed on the various acupressure points of the feet.
The idea of using corrugated tubes goes back in time when I happened to see it randomly on one of my journeys across the city. There was this store that was engrossed in creating cardboard tubes. Earlier in my career corrugated cardboard had infused my mind with curiosity and proved to be a turning point. This time around loads and loads of cardboard tubes were ogling at me with the same intensity. At that point in time, I did not have an answer to these overtures. However, when I was commissioned to design Sripada, a flashback in time helped me realize the key and approach to create the artwork. On that note here’s wishing you “A Very Happy Diwali and a Happy New Year.”
Link – https://sripadabandanajain.blogspot.com/2023/11/in-creation-of-sripada-i-embarked-on.html