Artists and the Sacred
Dear Guru Maharaj,
Please accept my humble obeisances, all glories to Srila Prabhupada!
Since we last met, I spent some time visiting friends in Atlanta & family in South Carolina. I spent some time working on a few pieces commissioned by relatives and then I just arrived in Charleston a few days ago. It took longer than expected to get here, and I have less time than I hoped for but where there's a will there's a way. It's all very exciting.
Blake & I met right away to set a schedule for everything we need to do, and it's a long list, but I asked advice from a curator in Sumter and I was relieved to find that it all seems a little easier than I was expecting.
The other day we met the gallery owner who will be hosting our show. She was very amicable and willing to help us with promotion. The venue is small but well placed. It is a storefront at a psychiatric office that hosts art exhibits in their lobby. It is in a "hip" part of town with restaurants and bars where a lot of young people hang out. There's even a yoga studio right next door. I was thinking maybe in the future we could even arrange for you to speak at an exhibition there. I'm sure both the clinic and the yoga studio would be thrilled to have you.
I've been trying to develop some imagery to visually represent different concepts like the body mind and soul and their interactions, so Blake and I were discussing at length about our theme. It's amazing how sometimes a simple conversation can have a profound effect of enabling people to witness their own ideas which may otherwise have remained embryonic in their minds forever. I really felt like a "philosophical midwife" in this instance and I could practically see her coming to significant realizations about how the soul is different from the brain, about how only love of God can truly satisfy the self.
Although we are currently utilizing her flat as a studio space, the roommates and visitors are constantly coming and going. She has pictures of Krishna and Mahaprabhu all over the house (even a Jagannath sticker on her car dashboard) and I usually put out a photo of you also while I'm working so I never feel like I'm ever alone with just her. Even though the situation is not ideal, it's not the worst either. It looks like she also likes to hear your lectures, so I try to play them as often as possible while working.
We just had our first meeting with our other contributors and they all seem as fired up as we are about it. Our goals for this week are to complete as much art as possible (including a commission I got some time ago) so we can put together a press packet by the weekend. We want to include an image & short statement from each contributor. After that we will try to get my videographer friend Chap to compile some "work in progress" footage from the studio that we can circulate as a kind of trailer.
As far as my personal sadhana goes, everything is streamlined, and sometimes a little scattered, but a full program seems to get done somehow or other and I'm chanting a good16 rounds early in the morning and getting some reading in. Throughout the day I try to engage everyone around me in hearing and chanting as much as possible, especially since it's kartik.
I'll be staying at my friend Chap's house for the duration of my stay here and trying to instill in him some good habits while I'm around. He is struggling on his own out here and he is very grateful to have some association.
The situation is a bit chaotic, because I have to deal with my friends' lifestyles and their mundane daily struggles like loss and rejection etc, but it seems they really appreciate a Krishna Conscious perspective on things. I've been cooking prasad for everyone practically every day and even though I have to deal with using other peoples cooking supplies and occasionally people tasting bhoga and other inconveniences, the atmosphere is all very nice. I'm trying to imbibe the mood that Srila Prabhupada had early on when engaging hippies and not not focus on things that people couldn't or wouldn't do, but rather focus on what people can and would do. The way I see it is that this kind of independent preaching is like being in a speedboat rather than a giant tanker. At the temple, you don't feel so much the crashing of the waves of the modes of material nature, but this program enables me to be more flexible and maneuverable in terms of getting things done. Although it's kind of a bumpy ride I feel safe knowing that if I stay focused on serving you and Krishna I will always be protected no matter what the situation.
Your shudra servant,
Ekashma Das
HpS-ASA - Super! AGTSP!! paoho... you serving prasad at the event??
I forgot about the painting of Prabhupada that you gave us and then I saw it on our book case and now end up contemplating it as the King of our living room whenever we are there. That's all it really takes, no? How would Prabhupada look at this situation...
Keep yourself a little grounded as a leader so that you can teach other people to do your current job and then everything can expand.
When is the event?
Send a link to the Trailer.
Please send photo of the Blake and others!
