I celebrate twenty two years of being in the design industry today. Looking back, my early work was heavily influenced by classical Indian architecture and history and later contemporary modern and post modern work as I started practicing design.

Today, and with a big leap of faith, I created an online store to make space to offer my work, allow for collaborative place and resting home ground for my art pieces. It has been in draft mode for over a month and I had written and scheduled for this to go out to the world a month ago, but as the hour approached, I got cold feet.

I chose to just practice my drawing in a sketchbook this morning to distract myself, set a 60 minute timer to work at my shop page and post page on a desktop and took off to watch a movie. On the way, I got a message from my friend congratulating me and I was wondering why, and she said she loved my website update! I quickly went into my phone and panicked because there were so many errors, I tried to fix it and then got those done just in time. HP (my husband) asked me if I even watched the movie because my head was in my phone for the first five minutes and then again at interval. After the three hour long movie (This was PS-1 the epic Tamil movie) I was able to peek into my phone only now. Thank you fro your views, my friends, I see a giant uptick in traffic, and I am hoping these would turn to collectors sooner than later! 🙂

Coming back to my practice, my projects and interest vary seasonally, but documenting them in art and bringing those stories to life have been the most rewarding part of my creative practice. A creative practice can sometimes be a solitary journey, but in some social media spaces and this newsletter, I’m hoping to find community. And I decided to stick with Instagram and now with the web gallery.

I want to share that I had stopped conscious creative practice for a number of years between 2014 thru 2018, trying to focus on my life and career in the Bay Area, then motherhood and all the challenges it brings. But then, I went back to a drawing and painting practice that I have sustained since and have been documenting on Instagram under the @savoryfooddesigns handle since. I want to slow down the social media posts to website newsletter as a periodical update rather than feed the algorithm everyday.

So here we are, while I quietly make art in my studio, and write to you all about my explorations and stories a, I want to share that it’s not a lie that this is an easy or calm climb. It is filled with anxiousness, trying to fight the imposter syndrome and/or stay in on top of a sustained practice while running a regular mom/full time work life. So thank you, for being here and following my work!

Okay, now for the show update. 🙂

Livermore valley arts is hosting an exhibition at the Bankhead Theatre called SHAPE, FORM, and COLOR: MODERN EXPRESSIONISM at the UNCLE Credit Union Art Gallery Oct 5 through Dec 4, 2022. One of my pieces has been chosen to be exhibited at this gallery, and I can’t tell you how excited I am to be included in this exhibition. If you are in the Bay Area and are in the neighborhood, please do catch it. More information is in the link here.

For the sake of the locals here, I shall hold off from posting the actual piece of art till after the exhibition is over. Reception is on Saturday, October 22, between 1-3.30pm and it is free and open to public.

I will not be attending the reception because I will be at Brooklyn with Ohn Mar Win and Samantha Dion Baker for a sketchbook workshop y’all! I’ll share more on that in the next post.

As always, I sign off on a happy note and this is a constant, with every post I write. Have a powerful week ahead!

Cheers

Radha