Play and rest
Books are best
Interspersed with inspiration
Follies and theatrical
Architectural creation
July is a great time to play
Summer painting event
Wondering where time went
And how it was spent
A Book of Hours in a single day
From a day to many years
Intergenerational cheers
China's long century
And Moki Cherry
Being mainstream
Or following your dreams...
...Just thinking about how amazing the book or codex form is especially with tracing paper...
...and how, depending on how you flip the pages and hold it...
…you get several iterations of the same images, all talking to each other and interacting in different ways. It could not be more 1001 Nights. Below, some hats/folly hats/party hats that I imagine characters of the Nights would have liked...
...and above, a cat curled up, tired of chasing wool. It's a reminder to me to rest, especially over the energetic summer months when I have a lot of inspiration and the sunshine generally makes everyone feel great. Rest and water: these are crucial summer elements (I'm also teaching an in-person Water class at the Prince's School: https://princes-foundation.org/school-of-traditional-arts/open-programme/persian-miniature-painting-the-figure-c2f268 ) and I find I need to fill my cup in many ways in order to make the most of summer...
...such as when painting this Carpet Page as we are currently doing in the classes (live and recorded) - focus like this can only be sustained for so long.
You can also make your own Carpet Page. Instructions here:
https://vaishaliprazmaricarpetpage.thinkific.com/courses/make-a-carpet-page - once downloaded is yours to keep forever...
...and thankfully the recordings for students enable them to catch up in their own time, at their own pace and at their leisure. It's effortful fun and we are as busy as the bees or perhaps butterflies, dragonflies and summery insects. Here: https://www.vaishaliprazmariteaching.com ...
Download Geometry of the Page here
Book classes
…Iram and the Tall Columns is one of my favourite tales from the Arabian Nights and the true inspiration for my Memory Palace: a city frozen in time. It's based on a pre-Islamic legend and really is lost in the mists.
Speaking of time, I am particularly looking forward to this summer's painting performance party, which is also an act of endurance: painting a Book of Hours in a single day. That is to say, a Book of Hours made over the course of one day (but not necessarily completed in the contiguous 24 hour period!). Paint all the canonical hours in their correct time periods - which will vary according to where you are on earth - so yours may be staggered. We will overlap in the middle. Rites vary depending on the church (Byzantine, Syriac, Armenian - who also would have known about Islamic-style bookbinding) and you are welcome to adapt your breviary to your own natural rhythm. The European Books of Hours are absolutely stunning and there are a wealth of images I encourage you to feast your eyes on online, apart from the famed Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry images shown above. You could even be inspired by the images in your research as well as the actual time of day you're painting, so it could even end up as a (day)dream book depending on the level of tiredness/stimulant consumption. A bright red small pocket book you can use as a form of prayer book. Summer is a great time for all-nighters; practise being a monk! Here: https://www.vaishaliprazmariteaching.com
Times of sessions:
1. Matins 12am (midnight)
2. Lauds 3am (early morning)
3. Prime, the first hour, 6am (first hour of daylight)
4. Terce 9am (third hour)
5. Sext 12pm (midday)
6. None 3pm (ninth hour)
7. Vespers 6pm (sunset evening)
8. Compline 9pm (end of the day)
All times are London time. I will start each class at the time specified above and each session will last for an hour each. Videos will be made available for catch up. You are welcome to drift in and out and nap in between. That is to say: the first session is at midnight on 24 July, and the last session is at 9pm on 24th July. Last year's painting performances were fun: the Haft Paykar/7 Domes, the 7 Planets and then the 30 Birds.There are unlikely to be any more painting performance events this summer and indeed this year, so this might be it!
Since these are book classes, we will also be developing our bookmaking skills and learning new book cover techniques with the leather gradually. The books are also getting gradually bigger (unless they are specifically miniature - or grandiose - books). Class includes a bespoke handmade red leather envelope-flap cover to paint and free postage to anywhere in the world. Sent separately depending on production schedules. Make your own library of handmade books!
My Year of the Book will continue into next year as Patrik and I adjust and establish good librarian practice with all our bookish offerings. His part is quite painstaking and meticulous work. But not as painstaking and meticulous as...
Book the books
…this amazing peacock robe from Qing China, seen at the British Museum's exhibition 'China's Hidden Century' (the 100 or so years leading up to the revolution). Below is a multi-scroll map and some miniature furniture and even theatre I couldn't resist. It's inspiration for my Aladdin toy theatre. Also, those Chinese-style scissors are similar to the ones used by my grandmother...
...above, left, is my children's favourite clothing from the exhibition. They really liked it and said they would wear it. Looks quite contemporary to me too. The chequered design was believed to confuse evil spirits hence providing protection for the wearer. Above, right, is a photo of a man. No - wait, yes - it's a photo of a man.
...HOLD ON... it's NOT a photo of a man!! It's an EMBROIDERY of a man that is based on a photo! It's a photographically precise embroidery. How in the world...?!!!...Yes, that's right: stitch by stitch, it was embroidered over several months. Some businessman, some merchant. Some woman (we don't know her name either, I wish we did), presumably, made it. Likely in a Chinese bed (the function of the Chinese bed was not just for sleeping and the night. It was a daytime activity area too. More to come later on my beloved Chinese beds!) There was one stitch called the 'blind stitch' - so-called, in China, because it rendered the young girl blind due to its complexity. The lady who made this sensitive portrait was an artist with fine, fine motor skills. If you don't necessarily have fine, fine motor skills like her, fine tools can help you along - I tidied up the Shop area of The Perfect Brush somewhat, so you can see more of the brushes. Did you know that, alongside our staple miniature and watercolour brushes we also have a Young Ox series as well as an Old Goat series? They complement each other and are for oils and ink/water respectively. Here: https://www.theperfectbrush.co.uk/shop
Below is a Devil's Tongue! As far as I know also used in Chinese medicine but don't quote me - the BM says it's a poisonous plant! Reminiscent of the Corpse Flower, a plant I've also covered in the Poison series, also available on The Perfect Brush website Shop - you just have to scroll down. I wonder how many people do...
More brushes and beautiful tools here
...the monthly meeting link is also over at the Forum, which by now is a real hub of information and you just need to scroll around for it. If you're not so internet savvy but are reading this, would like to join and don't like scrolling around so much...
The Zoom link is via the Forum https://www.miniaturepaintingforum.com or here's the direct link:
Monthly Miniature Meeting 18.7.23, 6-7pm London time - all welcome
JULY MEETINGVaishali Prazmari is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Vaishali Prazmari's Monthly Miniature Meeting 18.7.23 6-7pm London time
Time: 18 July 2023 6pm London BST
Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us02web.zoom.us/j/82019092143?pwd=UmxSelN0cGVyRFJSNHhSbTFmeDBHUT09
Meeting ID: 820 1909 2143
Passcode: 330530Join by Skype for Businesshttps://us02web.zoom.us/skype/82019092143
Join the free forum
...Below are thumb rings for Manchu-style archery. My kids also loved these. Those are SOME BIG THUMBS they had! It reminds me of a scene in Everything Everywhere All At Once where Michelle Yeoh, the main character, does Kung Fu training on her little finger and ends up with a ludicrously comically, muscularly massive pinkie finger....
...here's another quirky painting niche: Reverse Glass Painting. Eyelashes first!
Below, a show of Chinese opera performed by a Peruvian who worked with a professional Chinese opera singer. Their project was to try to make links between traditional Chinese and Peruvian performance cultures. Both feature dragons heavily among other links. I love London for this kind of collaboration. They gave a workshop too. I'm immersing myself and the kids in Chinese culture right now partly because I'm doing it anyway and it's part of their heritage, and partly as inspiration for my Aladdin toy theatre which is set in China (yet whose tailor father is called Mustafa and whose false magician-uncle is from the Maghreb. It happens, though!)
Below, a UCL Art Museum exhibition on languages. Here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/culture/whats-on/not-just-words and, especially, here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/european-languages-culture/language-and-culture-show-and-tell if you want to see the language taster videos for yourself, all available online. I love UCL for all it's done for me, I love the Art Museum, its staff, the Slade, my friends who are in the exhibition. But I gotta say: if you're going to have an in-person exhibition, it's difficult to hold my attention when iPads are given pride of place and all the videos are online anyway. The concept of the exhibition was wonderful. I love languages and recommend those videos as tasters of how language shapes culture. What they did do right was to host various events in the middle of the space: special shoutout to Ben of the Badge Cafe who held a badge-making workshop I dropped in on when I was there and I made strawberry badges together for my kids and he made my day with his friendliness and good humour. Perfect half hour with https://badgecafe.com/about/#hangouts!
...Above is the Moki Cherry exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Arts. Incandescent ICA bookshop by the way! Irresistible and up-to-the-minute relevant titles, brilliantly curated selection of books. I wanted to read them all but of course time and money prevent this so... I propose that a few people read one book each (or listen as an audiobook) and then summarise it for the rest of us! I used to do this for my mama friends with parenting books (which I've mostly graduated from; when you've got a 2nd toddler you realise that you don't need them. Also you don't want to spend the time. Also you don't want to be told - again - that you're doing it wrong, because you already know that, it's old hat!)
Above: a newly discovered heroine: Moki Cherry. You have probably heard of her famous family: her spouse Don Cherry and children Neneh Cherry and Eagle-Eye Cherry. She was an artist mother and worked in sculpture, textiles, drawing, ceramics and more. I can see the influence of Tibetan Buddhism on her work. Also - I don’t know if it was her intention yet because I’m seeing theatricality everywhere - those staged drapes!
She made her art and she raised her children. She schooled them on a tour bus - they were also a musician family. She was an educator to others too - she taught many students, both children and adults. A parallel with Francois Hybert: a teacher too, through his works which have a didactic role, covered in a previous newsletter (archive here: https://www.miniaturepaintingforum.com/forum/newsletter-archive). She lived in a geodesic dome and made mandalas for a while (ie. the magical mythical 60s-70s, a mythical time for me since I wasn’t born!). She started a children’s theatre group. Basically, she made and she played! An inspiration from the previous generation. She was doing it all before us and just wow! She chose to walk the path less travelled which reinforces for me my own chosen path-less-travelled. There is a paragraph at the end of Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch which describes something similar. What if your heart tells you not to stay on the well-trodden route but to stray? What if you can’t help but yearn to veer and swerve and wonder what’s on the scenic route… which may in the end be the most direct?
The flexischool arrangement we have is a combination of part-time, paid-for, private (yes, this is where 90% of my money goes), Ofsted registered ‘proper’ mainstream schools and homeschool. It’s a long story and in short, we feel this is what’s best for our family. It feels like freedom. We are still there, connected to what’s ‘normal’. But we are also equally immersed in what’s not.
I have always been like this and have always lived my life on the basis of having several part-time things going on, which equate to a fully full-time existence. I have never had a full-time job. I never imagined a 9-5. I have always thought there was more. I am compelled to do it because I really am ‘called’, I wonder what’s around the corner, what’s in the 100th room which is forbidden to enter, what’s in the smallest Chinese box, when will I get to the tiniest Russian doll, what story the next Night holds… One foot in the mainstream and the other foot dangling in the rest of the world…
...here are my kids being very Mainstream using mainstream public transport ie. the bus, and to avoid arguments I always carry loads of little activities they can busy themselves with. The best kind is just to give them a notebook/sketchbook and pen, and then you get scribbles, drawings and hieroglyphs. Then they are indulging in their very useful and mainstream hobby of cooking and making a very mainstream and normal dish, ie. scrambled eggs. With rhubarb - why not? Rhubarb for me is great in both savoury and sweet dishes.
The biggest chocolate coin I've ever seen is bigger than the big one's face.
Little one loves being in the studio with me and painting. He also loves sitting in a corner, which reminds me of Jack Horner, studiously eating his yoghurt while wearing very matching red socks. Matching socks is a very mainstream thing to do. I actually don't care whether socks match or not but my husband does, as he thinks that by matching our kids' socks we manage to fool the world and lull them into the illusion that we are, actually, very mainstreamly organised, got-it-together parents, which we are indeed, but not in the way everyone wants.
Partly - no, mainly - yours,
Vaishali Prazmari