When I got married, I did not know how to make hot water. So things like muruku and idiyappam were quite intimidating. I was almost thankful that my mom did not buy me a murukku nazhi (murukku/idiyappam press) as a part of kitchen stuff I carried from India to US. “First become an expert in sambar/rasam and idlis before you venture in to complicated stuff” she said and I thought that it made sense. I still remember the initial idli days when YadaaYadaa and I used to grind the batter together, mostly because we were afraid to do it alone. After numerous rock idlis, doasas that refused to leave the ladle, India map chapathis, we kind of settled in to a generic formula. Soon I was feeling brave to venture in to uncharted territories – medhu vadai, masal vadai, adai, paruppu urndai kuzhambu, usili, modhagam, pidi kozhukattai and the likes of such followed. But I never attempted anything that would require special cooking tools.

After a nearly a year of marriage, I decided to try idiyappam at home. But the problem was the nazhi, I did not have one. So I bought one during my next trip to India. It was a regular aluminum mold, T-shaped, the kind that needs to be pressed on both sides. The handle was so hard that I had to wear mittens to protect my hands. I started experimenting with idiyappam. One day the idiyappam dough was so hard that I had to ask R for help. We both grabbed one side of the press each and applied our full strength to the press. Result, a broken nazhi. Relatives in India were horrified that the dough was so hard that the nazhi broke 🙂

I decided that I am not waiting for the next India trip and purchased from the local Indian stores, the kind that has a rotary handle, for $14.99. Relatives in India were aghast, by the price of the press or by my resolve to keep at idiyappams, I don’t know. I have to say that this press served me rather well. Only three plates came with the press – a single star, a single thin rectangle and multiple fat circles. I made chunky idiyappams, but the taste was all right. Deepawali came and I made murukkus too and was quite happy with the results.

After 5 or so years, R was getting tired of the star murukkus. He really likes the smooth ones. But for some odd reason I never found a nazhi that had the right sized circle holes. It has been 11 years and that is when this came in to our lives.

This nazhi belonged to my MIL. It is almost 75+ years old, made of finest quality Burma rose wood, heavy but smooth from all those years of use. The nazhi used to belong to my MIL’s MIL. Apparently my great MIL’s senior daughters-in-law had dibs on this nazhi and my MIL, the youngest of the daughters-in-law got it, to the heavy dissatisfaction of the other DsIL, I must add 🙂 This nazhi has accompanied my MIL in all her trips to the US. The nazhi and her tattered 50 year old recipe book would definitely be in the top ten things she packs in her suitcase. She has put it to good use all these years I must say. Every time she visited us, my MIL made sure that there was an unending supply of fried goodies for R to munch. She would skip her mid-day siesta and churn out murukku, ribbon or omapodi. This was a regimen she strictly followed every ten days. It was purely her way of telling her grown up son, that she loved him fiercely. Tad too fierce, but hey that’s purely me 😉

Now the nazhi has been passed to me. At first, the impact was minimal. But last Saturday as I was making murukkus, both the mullu murukku and the smooth ones, it finally sank in to me. For my MIL to give up something that she has had for most of her life…..I don’t know….. I felt very emotional about the whole thing. Some things have the power to stir up powerful emotions in a person and the nazhi most definitely did it for me.

So here is the song in the girls’ voice.

TisAGift2BSimple

Out of the blue, the old Shaker song Chula and Mieja sing in the school during circle time comes in to my head.

‘Tis the gift to be simple,
’tis the gift to be free,
’tis the gift to come down to
where we ought to be,
and when we find ourselves in the place just right,
’twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gained
to bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed,
to turn, turn, will be our delight
till by turning, turning we come round right.

It IS a gift to be simple huh?! So coming down to where we are meant to be is a gift too? How absolutely right that it has to happen at the right time!?! Otherwise we wouldn’t have the capacity to recognize this gift. But how do we differentiate between coming down to a simpler level and lowering our aspirations and generally aiming for much lower than our capacity? In terms of life style, I understand the simpler we get, the harder it is at first. In today’s world simple is complicated. But in terms of aspirations, can doing our best and living a simple life co-exist? Are they mutually exclusive? At times is ‘simple’ an euphemism for ‘lazy’? By asking for both am I asking for too much? Or, just like lifestyle choices, simple aspirations are the most complicated? Are opposites the same?

In Eat, Pray, Love Elizabeth Gilbert talks about this balance. Wait a minute, I have read about something along these lines in the Swami Nithyananda newsletter. I have to put these down some where, but I realize that I am in the shower. So I quickly jot down hurried notes in the glass shower door that is misted with the vapor. Now the challenge is to get out and record the thought in something more definitive like a paper/voice memo in my phone or even better on the computer. The vapor notes are already beginning to streak with water.

But even before I open the bathroom door, Chula and Mieja come rolling in to the bathroom. Yes, they are rolling, fighting about something. Everything in my mind goes blank, there is a shift of priorities, I disentangle the children, help them resolve the conflict, realize that I have ten more minutes to get ready and leave home for work. Then it is run, run, run all day long and by 2.00PM there is some down time and I realize that the idea on the shower door has long vaporized.

It is not just one instance. For the past six years, everything, I realize, is a series of broken thoughts, interrupted processes. I have been on my feet constantly, improvising, abandoning one thing to pick up something that escalates, compromising, and postponing.

I am a visual person. The one thing that helps me is to see or to visualize with elaborate mental images. To remember numbers, I used to close my eyes and visualize myself writing the number on a paper and in the process come up with a code or a clue that will etch the number in my memory for E.V.E.R. Now I hear things and even before it reaches the brain I turn to catch the next thing and it is gone. My brain is like a sieve. I have become absolutely incapable of holding numbers.

When the uplink is happening, when the connection between the synapses is in process, to be jerked away from it and to be posed with something absolutely new that has to be dealt with….. Sometimes I can almost feel the pain from the synaptic connection that is ripped.

I badly needed time for myself and hence came up with the whole 4.00AM getting up thingy. For a while it was peaceful. At times, I would have nothing to do. I would sit with my steaming cup of ginger chai, with my devotional songs mp3 in the background and stare out through the dark window. There is nothing like hearing MS’s voice at 4.00AM. There is something deeply spiritual at that time of the day and in that voice. It was absolutely refreshing. Then one kid realized that I get up early and if they get up at more or less the same time, they can get my attention. So one started getting up to cuddle with me. Then slowly both started getting up at 4.00AM. I realize that they grow up and pretty soon they may not need me on this level. But, come on kids, be reasonable.

I truly believe that every object has a place. Even in the house, everything has a place. I wouldn’t say that everything is 100% organized, but for example, washed clothes go on in to the guest bedroom and wait to be folded. Even if it takes a while to be folded, even if it is in a pile for a week, that pile has to stay in a certain place. There is a place for newspaper. There is a place for mail. The mail mixes with the newspaper or if it is lying in the middle of the house, I just cannot think. I cannot take misplaced clutter. Oxymoronic huh? But, hey, that is me. Now, I have clutter in my brain and I don’t have time to organize the clutter. I can almost feel the corrosive clutter sitting in my head ever so slowly eroding my brain.

So with this in mind, I am trying to do some changes at home.

When kid 1 or kid 2 comes to me with another end of the world problem, I ask them if it is something they can solve by themselves. And the answer I get is always NO, no exceptions 🙂 So, unless there is physical pain, I give them a choice, ‘You can either think and try solving it or wait till I am done with whatever I am doing.’ Works sometimes.

I also ask them, considering that it is going to take me a while to get to them, if they can think of another adult who can help them. I have stopped the blunt, ‘Go ask appa’ kind of blunt redirection. Because the kid1/kid2 when she approaches me, has already made a visual image of me helping her. (Apple does not fall far from the tree. Arrrrh.) So if I abruptly rewrite it, it leads to more drama. So I have to let her think and let her rewrite her own visual.

If I am starting something that needs to be done in one shot, no matter how trivial it is like transferring idli batter from grinder to vessel (The husband begs to differ. Under no circumstances he refuses to think of idli batter as trivial), I give them advance warning. I tell the kids that I am doing something and that I do not want to be pulled away from it till I am done. So they better behave themselves and not kill each other in that five minutes I am occupied.

Blackmail works wonders. I tell them, if there is a problem/conflict, then it means that they need to think about ways to solve/resolve it. Then I look straight at them and say, “This is what your teachers tell you in the peace lessons right? Can I call R/J and ask her how she feels about it?” They just scram when I mention teachers.

Thanks to a friend, I tried some empathy lessons last weekend. It was hilarious and I enjoyed doing it. Chula was sitting and watching her usual weekend end quota of TV. I sat next to her and pestered her to cuddle with me, get me some water from the kitchen, asked her if she can play with me, fell on her and in the process hiding the TV from the line of sight, every three seconds I whined ‘Are you done?’, when she will be done watching ‘her TV ‘ and if it is time for ‘my TV’ and demanded attention. She was just about to throw up her hands up in the air in frustration and I told her this is E.X.A.C.T.L.Y how I feel. Will work with Chula, but Mieja would probably think that this is how things are done, so I can’t do this with her.

Last but not the least, sharing. I am sick of being passed half eaten fruit, children usurping interesting food from my plate, once tasted and rejected cookies, cold soggy dosas, lukewarm idlis, left over cake with cream licked off, deflated pooris and the likes of it. Last Sun we were eating in a restaurant and I swatted hands away from the appalam that came with my thali lunch. I AM NOT SHARING MY APPALAM ANY MORE. So, deal with it kids.

I am reading currently.

Here is your clue and the condition is, YOU CANNOT GOOGLE.

Come on, be true to your heart.

====================================

WAR IS PEACE

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

====================================

Send your replies to me by email utbtkids@gmail.com.

You have till Jan 29, 2010 4.00AM PST

Edited to add

Law abiding citizens, the answer is

1984 by George Orwell

113 ppl have viewed this post. I get nada emails. So I take it tha ALL of you googled to find the answer. What honest citizens I say!!

Tora Bora lives with her sister Bula/Bieja, their trusty pets Kumar seval (Kumar the rooster) and two parakeets namely Pachai Pazhuppu (pachai = green, pazhuppu = brown) and Ilamsivappu Neelam (ilamsivappu= pink, neelam = blue). She has an arch rival, Looter as in the person who tries to loot things from others.

Looter is not as bad as one would imagine. He is not the typical black or white kind of villain. He has multiple shades of gray, like all of us do. Given the circumstance and his impulsive way of thinking, he makes some regrettable choices.

For example, he steals Tora Bora’s pet fish because he badly wants to take care of something. Then Tora Bora and Kumar seval open the atlas and look for the place that is highlighted and travel there to retrive the fish. Tora Bora gives Looter a valuable lesson, ‘Don’t just take. Ask. If you need something you need to ask/work for it.’

Once Looter stole everything under Tora Bora’s Christmas tree. Tora Bora came down to find an empty tree. Even the lights and decorations were gone. The atlas pointed the duo to Iceland. She tracked Looter and found Looter and his whole family enjoying Tora Bora’s goodies. But Looter did it only because he didn’t have enough time and money to get his own presents for his own family. Tora Bora understood Looter’s plight, she shared her presents but only after reprimanding him for the act.

You get the idea. Every time Looter strays from the path of righteousness, Tora Bora and Kumar Seval step in and do the necessary. But the thing is, Looter never learns. He always relies on his impulse and Tora Bora never gives up on Looter. Unreal, but it is essential for sequels. Besides who is looking for logic? Then a lot of elements have to be cut from the story and we would have a bland, preachy monologue.

Just like Pipi Longstockings, the story focuses only on the children and the pets involved. There is not much mentioned about the parents, school and the likes of it.

Why am I rambling about all this?

This is the girls’ bedtime routine. They come up with a location, something out of random, Lebanon (CA, Why Lebanon you asked and this is the answer), Reykjavik (Iceland), Papua New Guinea…no rhyme or reason for the location. R has to look up something about these places and build a story around the place. He does an excellent job at this. He talks about snow sleds in Iceland, the wonders of Machu Pichu in Peru, the vastness of the Thar desert or the beauty of Taj Mahal in India, the paddy fields in Thailand and so on. He talks about the natural beauty and historic significance of the place/object. He is so good at this that the girls have christened him Storyman. When it is time for bed, they lie in bed and start chanting ‘storyman, storyman, storyman….’ and our dude makes his entrance and stuns them with the story.

As for me, I sit on the couch in the living room and listen to the story. After observing for months, I found that there always a context. The choice of place from the girls is always inspired by something that they heard at school or read in a book or simply mentioned by their friend. Another thing I have observed is that a storyteller can never be extraordinary if he just tells the story. He has to live it, give his interpretation of things, be emotionally involved, only then the story shines. I have heard Tora Bora rescue the arctic squirrels from the mean hunter Bora Palin, the abducted fish pet swimming in the paddy fields of Thailand and making big noise about how he is from the US and the paddy field is not up to his standards and such. R is very guarded and is a man of few words. So for me, it is like a window in to R’s mind. Sometimes it reiterates how different our thinking processes are. Sometimes it pleasantly surprises me with the things we have in common. Sometimes it just makes me laugh, roll on the floor, hold my stomach, tears from eyes laugh, which is what banned my presence in the room and landed me on the couch.

Looking forward to many more stories, Storyman, from the couch of course.

Part 6 of many.

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Books like Pranav’s Picture, Harold And The Purple Crayon, Dot and Ish are very helpful for the parents to understand the creative process. I have reviewed these books for Saffron Tree. I reviewed, also for Saffron Tree, a few books that have open ended art exploration ideas.

You can find some awesome projects in Sheela’s blog. Some how god gave her 44 hours in a day and an extra truckload of patience. I especially loved this and this. Imagine the fun you and your child will have doing this.

If you are planning on introducing art history or working with your child to recognize elements of a painting books, don’t fear. There is a cartload of books available. My personal favorite is Lucy Micklethwait and Usborne’s The Children’s Book Of Art.

Books like Can You Find It, When Pigasso Met Mootisse, Oooh! Picasso and Look!Look!Look! are very effective when you can follow it up with a trip to a museum.

One thing I am constantly struggling to achieve is a definitive art space for the kids at home. Also what are the basic supplies one needs? If you have the same questions, don’t fear the Camp Creek Blog is here. Check out the right hand side links for ART LESSONS and also posts under CARD CATALOG ->in the studio. That was the basic I started off with.

That pretty much summarizes all that is in my mind. Now I am throwing the subject of art appreciation open to you all.

On the subject of appreciating your child’s art, what do you do when you child shows you her art? Do you say good job? Do you define what she has created? Do you say, “Oh is that a butterfly?” In that case are you prepared to meet an answer like, “No it is you amma. I drew you.” Do you ask her to define her own work and in the process tell her that what she creates must be something that fits in to definition? What do you all do as parents?

Another thing I am trying to get a grasp of is how to store all the art they churn out. On an average day there are atleast 5 papers per child. On top of this there is their usual academic work from school. What do you all do?

So long folks. Have a great day.

Contd 7 of many.

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Part 5 of many.

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Okay the survey results are as follows:

92% played with Fevicol and loved it.
44% loved coloring and erasing with markers, 20% yes on only coloring, 20% yes only on erasing.
92% loved pencils and sharpeners.
Candle wax seems to be the biggest hit with 96% love.
57% did not like ripping newspaper. What a bummer?! I strongly recommend you guys try it. It is such a cathartic release.
50% love swirling paint, 28% like it, 14% are okay with it.
72% make rainbows in the shower and I am happy to announce that we all believe in showers and soap.
57% rolled chapathi dough and then ate it. 38% played and discarded the dough.
62% did not scribble in the house, no experimentation and wondered about my mother’s reaction.

My grand conclusion based on the poll results…….

As children, most of us just played for the sake of playing, without bothering about what we produced at the end of it. These are the found memories that we carry with us. These are the memories that we might have forgotten, but when kindled, put a smile on our face. This is process orientation. This is what your young child is doing. Just doing something and taking pleasure at that moment without a bother about the past, future, accolades, recognition, praise and the mess. Soon they are going to grow up and slowly get in to the product oriented mode. For now, just let them be.

This, my dear peeps, is the ulterior motive behind the survey.

Give them the art materials. Give them the space. Give them the freedom. Stand back. Let go. Let them play. Let them discover, understand and love their material. If you feel like they have to create something meaningful to an adult, get in touch with your Fevicol days. Set limits. Like for example, paint only on designated area. Because, not many of us have studio work space. So, parents need to set limits to protect the walls, furniture and carpet. If it is their first time with paint or messy material sit with them to make sure that they understand their limits. Children and mess, many a times it is not intentional, they just cannot help themselves. Even better, sit with them and participate without taking over or interfering. It provides the children with a good model and you get to realize how much fun the whole process is.

The first six years of their life, children learn their world and express their thoughts through art. So it is essential that parents understand that the process is ‘learning about the world and communicating through art’ which later, around age 7+, becomes ‘art through learning and communication’. You cannot ‘formally teach’ a three-year-old-child to make art, but you can show them the different ways to explore.

When it comes to tips, techniques and pointers, there are overwhelmingly large number of resources. But when I look for open ended art exploration for the preschool age, I carefully avoid projects that have a finished product to show for. But, hey, it is just me. Given my personality, I have to consciously stop myself from controlling what the children do. In my opinion, when we follow some one else’s instruction and strive towards a finished product, it is craft. Not that craft is any lesser, but it is some one else’s baby, not mine.

Coming up next: List of resources for open ended art and books on art appreciation.

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Part 4 of many.

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We all would have colored, painted, made some kind of art as a kid. Many of us do it even now. So dip in to your memory bank or your current experiences and answer some questions.

There are just 10 questions. and you can choose to be anon. So don’t be intimidated. 9 questions are about you and the last question is for me. Indulge me please. Pretty please with a cherry on top ???

You will see only one question at a time. I have provided some answers. For folks who want to tell more there is a text area. After you answer click on next. Please make sure you answer all 10 questions.

Survey will be open till Jan 18, 4.00PM PST.

Get…Set…Go 🙂

**********************************

Contd: Survey results

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Part 3 of many.

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A child comes in to this world all geared up for survival. Think about it. Who taught this itty-bitty thing to latch on, to suck from the breast, to root, to paddle while in water, and imitate walking? All this within minutes after birth? The only explanation is new born brain is wired to handle certain reflexes. Few other things the newborn brain is designed to do is to communicate, to absorb language and to bond. These are the essential tools for survival.

If one looks at language development, music development and art development in children, it follows the same pattern. Language for example, children start with receiving language before they start talking. Talking comes in a certain order. They start with cooing, progress to babbling, figure out everything has a name and hence understand symbolism, start to say single words, move on to telegraphic speech and then comes the talking.

Children view art as a form of communication, especially in the first three years. They understand the concept of communication – thinking up something and expressing it to other people. Then they understand that communication can be using words or physical body movements like pointing gesturing etc or using paper and pencil/crayon. (The beauty about art as a tool for communication is that children use it to communicate to themselves at times. They think of a visual idea and many a times putting that visual on paper clears a lot of things for them) By this time they are masters in cause and effect, otherwise they wouldn’t know that pencil causes an impression on paper. They are developing hand-eye co-ordination and fine motor skills, otherwise they cannot manipulate the pencil to make marks on paper. We are talking about a 12month – 18month old child now.

Just like talking there are stages in drawing. Once there was a nice lady called Rhoda Kellogg. For 18 years she collected one million drawing sample of children in a certain age group. She researched the scribbles and concluded that

• Children first explore the art material, euphemism for your child eating crayon or grinding pencil. Or like in our house, a person who shall not be named painting their younger sister’s freshly tonsure head with red paint. And another person who shall not be named allowing their older sister to paint her head but insisted and rolled on the floor crying that her face needs to be painted too.
• Then they scribble. Children have 20 basic scribbles. Not all children use all the 20 scribbles, but they favor certain scribbles based on their intelligence style.
• They extend their scribbles, like making X and something resembling shapes. Invariably all children draw the circle as their first enclosed space. Happy face and sun figure in most of the children’s drawings. Then they combine shapes and such. This is when they draw ‘the house’ with one triangle for roof and a rectangle/square for the bottom. Even though they live in apartments with flat roof, they draw A-line roofs in their drawings!!
• Then they repeat and repeat and repeat, till they refine their style, placement, materials and they evolve their own individual style. By this time your child is six years give or take.

Are you blown away? Did your jaws will drop? Mine did when I first read about it 🙂

If one were to debate if art is nature or nurture, I would say both. When it comes to art, there are two things there is appreciation and there is creation. An artist is a person who has the ability to appreciate what she sees, figure out what makes the maximum impact on her, break it down in her brain in to simple elements and create it using a medium. The first part, appreciating what they see and capturing the main elements of the images that make the maximum impact on them comes naturally to young children (6 and under). Plus they are process oriented. Hence my belief that children are born artists (NATURE). As they grow up, they either grow in to people who create or grow out of art. This solely depends on their experiences with and exposure to art in the first six years (NURTURE).

So, should I run and sign up my two-year-old for art classes? What is art exposure? What do parents do to encourage and inspire their children? Will keep y’all posted. Before that indulge me in this survey pliss.

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Technorati Tags: is art nature or nurture, Rhoda Kellog, patterns in children’s drawings, children use art to communicate

Part 2 of many

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Art is open-ended. What is beautiful or meaningful to one person makes no sense to another. Personally, I love Raja Ravi Verma. My next best would be the impressionists. I love them all, I love the concept, I love the play of colors, I love the way the artist looks at light and dark. Recently I have been introduced to pointillism and all I can say is WOW, what a vision. This is in the late 1880?! I consider this some kind of rudimentary vision which later got extrapolated to the pixel concept now used in TV monitors.

Modern/abstract art, I simply don’t understand. I have always thought, a child could make it, what is the big deal. But one of my classmates, with a masters degree in art, explained to me that it is the process, not the product. During break time, we were discussing Jackson Pollack’s abstract expressions in particular and I said, “Jack the dripper??? Come on, my three year old can do it. I can do it. Drip, spit and roll in paint. Hah!” and my classmate said, “But did you do it? Did you have the guts to exhibit your three year old’s painting? A painting is an expression of a thought or the artist’s perception/reaction to a mental image. Pollack captured it in a way that no one had done before. He deserves credit because he was the first to think about that particular expression and had the guts to back it up.” Post that conversation my attitude to modernism and abstract expression has changed from condescension to respectfully saying, ‘two thumbs up, but not my style’. Jeez, I don’t want the enormous responsibility of looking in to some one’s mind. I am not quite ready.

But modern art does have its merits, purely from my POV. I have found from experience that children are likely to be less intimidated by modern art. They find some sort of kinship with the artist. May be it gives them the same, ‘hey, I can do this’ confidence?! May be because before six years of age children are still pure and process oriented?! I was blown away once when Chula (she was 4-ish I think) drew the drawing below and explained to me, ‘This is you amma and this is you dancing. The dancing you is moving, just like the picture lines in my class room is moving.’ The picture in her classroom she was referring to is a Kandinsky.

So what is art for a young child? It is nature, it is communication. It is a basic instinct.

Part 3, if art is nature, then why aren’t we all artists? Click here.

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Technorati Tags: what is my art, preschooler art, child art, art product vs art process, is art nature or nurture, raja ravi verma, pontillism, impressionism, kandinsky, pollack, abstract expressions, what is modern art, do young children prefer modern art