Rants & Vents·Ramesh Jha·16h

I am writing this with some frustration so kindly excuse me. The bamboo nibs I use for the fine black line, I ordered from a man in Darbhanga in the second week of June. Good bamboo, split by hand, not the machine-cut ones from the market which are useless, they drink the ink and then they break in the middle of a peacock's feather. He told me ten days. It is now near three months. When I telephone him he says the bamboo has to be cut in a certain moon and dried properly, as if I am the one who does not know this work. Meanwhile I have three nibs left in the tin. Three. I have been using the smallest one to do lines that need the bigger one, and you can see it in the work, the fish's scales have become too delicate, too thin, like a different hand did them. The client in Patna will not say anything. He will just look at it a little longer than needed. My mother would have said this is why you keep nine months of stock and never depend on one man. She was right of course. But money is not always sitting there to keep stock, so what to do. Anyway. Today I am going to try cutting a nib from the bamboo growing behind the house. It will most likely be bad. I am telling you all so that later when it is bad I will not be surprised.

Gallery Outreach·Ramesh Jha·1d

A small thing I want to ask you all, since it has been sitting in my mind. Some years back I carried my paintings to a gallery in Patna, and the person there, without asking me, lifted one from the corner with two fingers to look at the back. Natural colour on handmade paper, it can smudge, and he did not ask. I said nothing, I am sorry to say. I was younger and I needed the sale. So my question: what is the one thing a gallery person did with your work, in front of you, that you did not like. Touching without asking, calling it "ethnic" or "craft item," asking you to make it in a smaller size for tourists, anything. Myself I will say the "craft item" word hurts more than the finger. Tell me yours ji.

Studio Life·Ramesh Jha·3d

Since two weeks I am stuck on one thing and it is not the drawing, the drawing is fine. It is the black. In our work the black line is everything. Without it the fish is only a shape. But real black we do not buy in a tube. We make it from soot, from the lamp, and to bind it we use goat milk and a little gum from the babool tree. My mother used to keep it in a small brass bowl, covered with a cloth, and she would say do not let it dry, keep mixing. If the milk is more, the line becomes grey and faint like old writing. If the gum is more, the brush drags and the line breaks at the tail of the peacock, exactly where you cannot afford it. Yesterday I made a fresh batch and it came out wrong. Too thin. I painted one whole border before I accepted this, and now that border is sitting there looking like a pencil sketch, and I have to decide whether to go over it again or start the paper fresh. The paper is Sanganeri, not cheap, so I am not starting fresh. I am sitting with it. My mother never measured anything. She would dip her finger and know. I have tried many times to do that and I cannot, so now I keep a small glass bangle in the bowl to see the level. It is a poor substitute for her finger. Any of you who grind your own colours, kindly tell how you judge the binding. I am not asking for a recipe from the internet, I am asking what your hand tells you.

Studio Life·Ramesh Jha·4d

People ask me which brush company and I have to laugh. For the fine black line in Mithila work we do not buy brushes at all. We take a small twig, neem or sometimes bamboo, and we chew the end of it, or press and roll it on a stone until the tip becomes soft and pointed like a needle. Then it is a brush. Nothing else. I keep a small bundle of them tied with thread and when one goes blunt I simply cut the tip and make it again. My mother used to do this sitting outside in the morning light and I do the same now. It is the first work of the day, before any painting. The twig has to be fresh, if it dries it splits and you cannot get the line. So there is a little tree behind the house and my grandson is always the one sent to break the branches, which he does very happily and very badly. Somebody from Delhi once saw my bundle and asked if I could not simply use a 0.1 mm brush from the art shop. I said I could. I did not say I would. The line from a chewed twig is not like the line from a brush. It drinks colour and gives it slowly. If your hand is not steady it will show, there is no help from the bristles. So the twig keeps me honest. When I have not painted for many days I feel it in the first twig, the line comes out shivering. That is my measure of practice. Only difficulty is the colour. My twigs are good for black and for fine work, but for filling large areas the squirrel hair brush from my mother's time is still doing duty, and it is now more thread than hair. I have not found anybody here who makes them. If any of you know a person, kindly tell me.

Pricing·Ramesh Jha·5d

Two months back a shop in Patna approached me, they wanted twelve paintings of peacock and fish for their wall, same size, same border, all to be delivered in five weeks. They said 4,000 rupees per piece, take it or leave it, because "it is folk art only, no?". I did the sum that night on the back of an old paper. Handmade paper comes to near 400 for that size, colours I make myself but still the gum and the stone grinding takes days, and one painting of that size with fine line takes me not less than three days if my eyes are cooperating. Twelve of them in five weeks means I am not sleeping and I am not teaching the girls who come on Sunday. So it was not 4,000 for a painting, it was 4,000 for three days and a piece of my name on their wall. I said no. My son said I am mad, that a shop order means regular income. He is not wrong in the account book sense. But this same shop will sell it to a customer in Delhi for fifteen or twenty thousand and put a small card saying "Madhubani, Bihar" and my name will not be on the card. Here is what I want to ask the people in this group who have gone through such talks. When a buyer says the price is fixed but the quantity is good, do you hold your number and lose the order, or do you name a price for the bulk and keep the fine line thinner, less work, honest about it? I have done both in my life and I am still not sure which one keeps the art alive and which one only keeps the kitchen running. 🙏

Wins·Ramesh Jha·1w

One of the girls who comes to my house on Sundays to learn, Sunita, she is maybe seventeen. She has been coming since two years, very quiet, never asking anything, only watching my hand when I draw the line for the fish scales. Her lines were shaky for long, I will not lie. Last month there was a small exhibition at the block office in Madhubani, arranged by the cooperative. She sent two paintings without telling me. I came to know only when the secretary phoned me. Both were sold. One to a teacher from Darbhanga, one to a man who works in the bank there. She came on Sunday and put the money in her mother's hand, and her mother did not say anything for some time. I have seen many paintings go from my own house to the walls of people who will never know whose hands made them. But this is different. It is her own money from her own line work. I told her, now you must be regular in practice, this is only starting. But inside I was thinking of my mother, who taught me in the same way, sitting on the floor with the bamboo stick for the brush. Nothing has changed in that room since long. Only the names are new. She is asking me now whether she can learn to do the kohbar on cloth, not only paper. I said yes but cloth is costly and one mistake cannot be removed. Any of you have experience teaching a young student on cloth? I do not want to discourage her by being too careful also.

Studio Life·Ramesh Jha·1w

Yesterday I was grinding lamp black for the outlines, sitting on the floor with the stone as always, and my daughter-in-law came and stood at the door and asked what I am cooking. Nothing is cooking, I said. It is only the soot. But she is right, the smell is there. I collect the soot from the mustard oil lamp in the prayer room, the one that burns through the evening aarti, and I keep it in an old Bournvita bottle for months before I use it. When I grind it with a little gum and water, the whole room becomes that smell. Mustard oil, a little burnt, little sweet. My mother did the same bottle, same lamp. She never measured anything. I also do not measure, and my son says this is why I cannot give a rate card for the work, and I tell him some things are not for rate card. Anyway, the outline on this peacock is going well. Fine as a hair. But I am thinking now the black from this year's soot is a shade warmer than last year's and I cannot decide if I am imagining it or if the oil is different. Anyone else here working with their own lamp black, kindly tell me if it changes for you also. It is a small thing but it is sitting in my head since two days.

Artwork Feedback·Ramesh Jha·1w

I am working on a Madhubani piece for a buyer in Patna, fish pair around a lotus, and everything is fine except one thing. The eye of the left fish. In our tradition the fish eye is a small circle with a dot inside, and the outer line should be drawn in one breath, no joining. I have done it four times now and each time it comes out the same way, slightly heavy on the upper side, so the fish looks sleepy or maybe annoyed, not alert. My mother would have said the hand is thinking too much. The trouble is I cannot correct it by painting over. Paper is handmade, the black is lamp black mixed with gum, and any second coat sits on top like a patch, dull where the rest is deep. So I have to redraw the whole fish. Four fishes have gone into the waste pile near my charpai. My wife has stopped asking. What I am asking myself is whether a small heaviness in one eye is a fault at all, or whether I have been looking at it so long that I have lost the piece. Sometimes we keep only the one wrong thing in front of the eyes and the rest of the painting becomes invisible. If anyone has faced this with fine line work, the point where you cannot tell if it is a mistake or your own hand's character, I would like to hear how you decide to stop.

Gallery Outreach·Ramesh Jha·1w

Myself Ramesh, Mithila painting from Madhubani, Bihar. I do not come from the gallery world at all, so please forgive if my question is simple. My first time showing outside Bihar, it was not a big city gallery. It was a small craft shop in Patna, and the owner was an elderly gentleman. He looked at my work for a long time without saying anything, and I thought he is not liking it. Then he said only this: "Who taught you the fish? The fish is correct." That was all. No talk of price, no talk of exhibition. But that one line stayed with me for years. So I want to ask. Not how you got the show. What is the one sentence the gallery person said to you that you never forgot? It can be the good one. It can also be the one that wounded you, I do not mind. Those stay longer sometimes. Kindly share ji. I think we all carry one such line around.

Gallery Outreach·Ramesh Jha·1w

Namaste to all. Myself Ramesh, Mithila painting from Madhubani, and I am fairly new to this online talking. My question is this. In my work there is the traditional thing. Fish, peacock, the wedding of Shiva and Parvati, kohbar for the marriage chamber. This is what my mother taught me and her mother before. Then there is the simpler work. Small fish, plain border, bright, easy to carry home, and this sells faster. So the galleries and the middlemen, they say to me, make more of the simple one, this is what the customer will buy. I have done it sometimes. Money is money and the house is running. But each time I feel some heaviness inside. So I want to ask the artists here, not the gallery people. Have you ever told a gallery no when they asked you to change your work for the market? What did you say, and did they drop you or not? And if you did change, was it worth it or you regret. One more small thing. I told one gallery in Delhi I will not remove the kohbar line from the border because that line is not decoration, it is for the marriage blessing. He laughed. I still did not remove it. That is my answer, kindly give yours.

Gallery Outreach·Ramesh Jha·1w

Namaste to all ji. I want to ask one thing from those who have approached galleries. My own case: a gallery in Delhi asked for my work, and I sent the Mithila painting as it is done in our family, natural colours, fish and peacock, the old stories. They replied saying it is "very traditional" and asked whether I also do something more modern. I did not change. I said this is the work, this is what my mother and grandmother did. Nothing came of it. But I am still thinking. Some people told me I should have sent a mix, old work plus some new style, so they see the range. Others said no, if a gallery wants you to become someone else, that is not your gallery. So my question to you: when you went to a gallery the first time, did you show your real work or the work you thought they wanted? And how did it go for you. Tell me honestly, I will not feel bad. 🙏

Gallery Outreach·Ramesh Jha·1w

Namaste to all ji. I want to ask one thing which I keep thinking about. Myself Ramesh, Mithila painting from Madhubani, Bihar. My son made this account for me. Always I have sold through the cooperative here, and through people who come to our village for the work. Gallery matter is new for me. Some months back I carried three paintings rolled in cloth, took the bus to Patna, and simply walked into a gallery there and asked to show. The man was polite, he looked at everything, and then said email is better, send photos. Only. So I came home with the same three paintings in the same cloth. Now I am confused which way is correct. To walk in and let them see the actual work with their own eyes, or to send photo by email first like a formality. In our tradition the painting is to be seen with hands and eyes, not in a small phone picture. But maybe that thinking is old. So tell me honestly, how do you all do it. Email first, or just go and stand there. And which one has actually worked for you. Tell me I am wrong if walking in is a foolish thing now.

Gallery Outreach·Ramesh Jha·2w

Namaste to all ji. My first time showing outside Bihar, a gallery in the city took three of my paintings for an exhibition of "folk art." Good, I thought. Then I saw the card. It said "Madhubani artist, Bihar." No name. When I asked, they said the name is not so important for traditional work, the tradition is the thing. I said nothing that day. Since then I always ask beforehand, how will my name be written. So I am asking you all. Not about rejection, rejection is one thing. Have you been treated as a nameless craftsman, a representative of your community or region and not a person with a name? Where did it happen, and did you say something or stay quiet like me? Tell me, so next time we know how to handle.

Artwork Feedback·Ramesh Jha·2w

Myself Ramesh, doing Mithila painting. I want to ask one thing about colours but first I will tell what happened. For the peacock body I use a blue from the nil plant, dried and powdered by my own hand. Old stock was finished. New batch I got from a man in Darbhanga and the blue is coming out flat, like the blue of a plastic bucket, no depth at all. I mixed with a little of the black from lamp soot and the whole thing went grey and dull. Today I took handmade paper, that sheet I keep only for testing colours, and I painted the whole thing over with the new blue in different strengths, twelve patches, one to twelve. Still nothing. The old blue in my mind is the colour of a peacock neck in shade, deep but alive. This one is only sitting there on the paper, doing nothing. Trouble is I have the full border already done in the old blue, fine line, three days of work, and the peacock body will come in the middle. If I use new blue it will not match and the whole painting is spoiled. If I wait for old stock, maybe months, maybe never. Someone told me to use the acrylic blue from the market. Colour will be correct but for me it is not the same work then. Anybody else faced this with natural pigment, one batch gone and the new one not matching? How you manage? I am not asking for sympathy only, I want to know what to actually do.

Wins·Ramesh Jha·2w

I am telling this here because who else will understand. Last month my son came from Patna and said, Bauji, let me photograph your paintings properly, and he put four of them on some site. I did not understand fully what he was doing, I was only worrying that the light in the courtyard was too strong and the black lines will look faded. He said no no it is fine. Two days back a message came. A lady in America, in some place called Ohio, she has bought the peacock with the fish in the border. She wrote that she has hung it near her dining table. I read that line maybe ten times. Four thousand rupees, that is what she paid. Not a big amount for many people. But I have been painting since I was maybe nine years old, on the mud wall of our house first, and this is the first time a person I have never met, in a country I will never see, has sent money for my hand's work. My wife said see, the internet is not only for wasting time. I did not have answer for her. The courier packing was the hard part. I did not sleep properly that night, thinking of the paper getting folded in some bag. I wrapped it in three layers of plastic and then cloth and then the cardboard tube, and I wrote on the outside PLEASE DO NOT FOLD in English letters, which my son's daughter helped me write properly. Anyway. Today I am starting one more peacock. Same border, but I am changing the colour of the sky behind it. Let us see.

Studio Life·Ramesh Jha·2w

For the black in the paintings I do not buy anything. Lamp soot collected on a piece of tin over the diya, then that soot mixed with a little gum from the neem tree, and it is ground on a flat black stone with a small round stone in the hand. That stone was my mother's. She used it for maybe forty years, and before that I think her mother's sister used it, I am not fully certain. It is getting thin in the middle now. When I press, I can feel the dip where her hand went round and round. Some days I think I should keep it aside and buy a new one from the market in Darbhanga for the daily work, and save this one. But then what will I grind on? A stone sitting in a cloth on the shelf is not a stone any more, it is only a memory. My mother would have laughed at me for keeping it unused. She ground her kajal on it till the last year of her life and never once said this is precious, keep it safe. My son says I should photograph it and put the photo online so people understand the work. I do not know. A photo of a stone does not tell you anything about how the arm gets tired. The thing I am actually worried about is the dip. One day the stone will break through in the middle and then forty years of somebody's hand will just be two pieces on the floor. Any of you who work with old family tools, kindly tell me. Do you retire them or do you keep using till the end?

Marketing & Social·Ramesh Jha·2w

The woman was very polite on the phone. She said they are doing a show of folk artists from different states in November, and they liked my work, and could I send twenty pieces. I said I will send six. She was quiet for a moment. Then she said twenty is better for the wall, the space is big. So I told her the truth. A painting of the size she is asking, with the fine line work, takes me eighteen to twenty days if the monsoon is not troubling the drying. Twenty pieces means five or six other hands. And whose hands will those be? My neighbours' daughters, who I teach. Fine. They are good. But then it is not my work on her wall, it is my name on their work, and that is a different thing which I am not comfortable with. She said other artists manage it. Yes, I said. That is true. They also manage a signature. Now I am wondering if I have done a foolish thing. November is a good month for selling. The money would have been useful, the roof of the back room is leaking since last year. But I have seen what happens when one name becomes a small factory. The buyers never know, and after some years the young ones who did the actual painting are not even known in their own district. Six pieces I can do with my own hand. I told her she can hang them with more space between, and if the wall looks empty she can put a small write-up about the tradition. She is thinking.

Pricing·Ramesh Jha·2w

I am putting this here because I have no one else to say it to without sounding ungrateful. Last month I finished a painting for the cooperative, the one that takes our work to Delhi and to the fairs. Wedding scene, peacocks on both sides, natural colour. Fine line work, my eyes are not what they were, so it was slow. Three weeks nearly, with the teaching going on in the mornings. Account came: 1,850 rupees. Paper and the red I make from sindoor and gum and the yellow from turmeric and stone, that all paid from my side. So the real figure is lower than 1,850. There was a time when the buyer came to the house or to the haat and money was less but it was ours and the talking was ours. Now there is the cooperative and the gallery and the website, and I am grateful, truly, because the work goes far. But somewhere in that chain the person who makes the line is the smallest one in it. My son says I should put my own price on the paper when I send it. I am 56, I have been doing this since I was a girl of nine. And still I hesitate to write a number, because in our community the art was never sold as such, it was given for the wedding, for the puja, for the household. That thinking is inside me and I cannot remove it. Tomorrow I have to send two more to the same place. I will send. But something in the chest is sitting heavy.

Wins·Ramesh Jha·3w

Something I want to share with you all. For many years I am sending my paintings to the cooperative in Patna, and from there sometimes they go to Delhi, once to Kolkata. That much only. My son keeps saying Baba, put on internet, people are buying from all countries. I was doubtful, honestly, because the work is small and made on paper by hand, not any big thing to see. But last month a lady from Hamburg wrote to me. She had seen one of my paintings of the marriage of Gauri and Shiva, kachni style, only line work, no colour filling, three weeks of work with a brush of one or two hair. She wrote that she wanted one for her mother, and she said please do only in that old line style, not with the bright filling which is now common. I sat quiet for some time after reading that. Because this is what my mother used to do. The colour work sells faster, buyers like it, and I also have to make it, no shame in that. But the pure kachni line, that is the mother's hand, so to say. Nobody was asking for it since long. I had nearly stopped doing it except for puja time. So I did one. Small, on handmade paper, line only, fish at the border, and I sent it after eleven days. She wrote back only two lines, that her mother had put it on the wall next to the door. I do not know if this is a big win. The money was not much, and I spent more on the courier than I wanted. But somebody in another country, who never met my mother, asked for her style by name. That felt like something. I am thinking now to keep one corner of the work always for the old line style, even if no buyer comes for months.

General·Ramesh Jha·3w

My son was watching me work yesterday evening and he said, Papa, why the fish is having both eyes when we are seeing it from the side. He is 24, doing his engineering job in Patna, so he is asking in that way only. I told him that is how we have always done it. In our Mithila work the fish is shown with both eyes, the body full, no hiding. Same for the peacock, same for the faces in the kohbar. My mother did it this way, her mother also. The fish is not a photograph of a fish. It is fish-ness, you can say. He said fine, but then he said the customers are seeing it as mistake. I have been thinking on this since two days. It is true that sometimes people write to me asking whether the drawing is by hand or printed, because the lines are so neat. Nobody has yet written to say the eyes are wrong. But my son is not a fool about these things. There is a very old reason for the two eyes which my mother told me, related to the wedding chamber paintings, but I am not fully remembering it and I do not want to tell it half. Anyway I am not going to change the fish. But I am noticing that I cannot always explain why we do a thing, and that is sitting with me.

Studio Life·Ramesh Jha·3w

The brush for the fine line, the one for the outlines, that brush is now having only three hairs. My mother used that same brush. Before her also it was there in the house. The bamboo handle is black and shining from oil of the hand only, no varnish ever. My son said buy a new one from Patna, it is nothing, hundred rupees. I said you bring it and I will see. He brought. The new brush hairs are too many, too stiff. It drinks more paint and puts it down thick, and in Mithila line the whole thing is that the line should be thin like a thread of the sari border and should go and come back without shaking. So now I am doing the peacock tail with three hairs and it is taking double time. Last week I finished only two sheets. The fish border I did in one and half day which normally is half day work. There is a girl who is coming to learn, Sudha, fourteen years. She asked why not just use the new one, it is better brush. I told her the new brush is better for the person who is learning, so the hand becomes steady. For me the three hairs are giving the line I know. But I am also thinking now whether I am keeping the old thing because it is good or only because it is old. That question is sitting with me since two days. Anyway. Work is going slow and the eyes are getting tired by evening. If anybody here is having a brush they have kept beyond its life, I would like to hear honestly how long you kept it.

Marketing & Social·Ramesh Jha·3w

Something happened last week I am still turning over in my mind. A gentleman from Patna, well off, wanted a Kohbar for his drawing room. Size was fine, budget was fine, he was ready to pay more than my usual. Then he said, the colours are very bright ji, and the fish and all, can you make it a little less traditional? More matching with the sofa. I said I will think and let him know. My son says take the order, money is money, do a small change, no harm. Maybe he is right. But I have been sitting with this for some days now. Because what is left if I remove the fish? In our Kohbar the fish is not decoration. It is fertility, it is the whole point of why the bride's family asks for this painting. I cannot make it "less traditional." I can make it smaller. I can make it on better paper. I can explain to him for one hour what he is buying. That much I can do. I did not send that order away yet. He is waiting. My wife says I am stubborn like my mother, which I take as a compliment, though I am not sure she means it so. For those of you selling traditional work, I want to ask honestly. When the buyer wants it diluted, what do you do? Do you hold the line, or you adjust and stay alive? I am not asking to be praised for refusing. I genuinely do not know which is the wiser thing.

Studio Life·Ramesh Jha·3w

Every morning I light the diya near my work table before I sit down. Not for show. The soot that gathers on the clay saucer, I wipe it with my finger and keep it in an old Horlicks jar, the glass one with the yellow lid. My daughter saw this and said, Amma, why you are storing dirt, we can buy black colour from the shop, it is only sixty rupees. She is not wrong about the shop. But that soot black is different. It sits on the paper like something alive, and when I mix it with a little gum arabic and water it takes three days to settle properly, and if I use it too early the whole line goes grey and dull. Sixty rupees black will not teach you patience. This one will. Today I am filling in the fine cross hatching on a Kohbar panel, the chamber of the newly married ones, and it is slow work with a brush of two squirrel hairs. My hand starts shaking after one hour now. It did not use to. So I stop, drink tea, come back. The panel will take me maybe eleven days at this rate. Some of the younger girls I teach want to finish a whole painting in one sitting. I tell them the soot will not allow it. They laugh. Then they try. Anyway the jar is nearly full and I have no second jar, so I must decide what to do. Any of you keep something like this, some leftover from your own process that you cannot throw and cannot quite explain?

Gallery Outreach·Ramesh Jha·3w

Namaste to all ji. I am Ramesh, Mithila painter from Madhubani, Bihar. My first time sending work to a gallery outside was maybe twelve years back, in Delhi. A kind man there liked the painting but he said, Ramesh ji, the fish and peacock are fine, but the deity figures you can remove, it will sell better to that crowd. I thought for many days. In the end I did not remove. That painting came back to me and it is still hanging in my house, and I am not sorry. But I want to ask honestly, because I am still learning these things. When a gallery asked you to change something in your work, did you do it? And how did you decide? Please tell me your story, small or big, I would like to hear. Some of you may have changed and it was good for you, that also tell, no judgement here.

Studio Life·Ramesh Jha·4w

I made black pigment in November, from lamp soot and the gum, the way my mother used to do it. Kept it in a glass jar with the cloth tied on top. Today I opened it and there is white fur on the surface, a thin layer. First time this has happened to me in so many years. My mother never had this problem. But she made small quantity, enough for one or two paintings, and it was finished before anything could sit. I made a big batch because a cooperative order was coming and then the order went slow. So the jar is sitting since four months and now this. Some people will say just throw it. I am not able to throw it, that soot took me three evenings to collect properly, sitting with the diya and the tin plate. I have scraped the top layer off. Underneath it looks fine, black as it should be. But I am hesitating to use it on the order, because if it comes off later on the paper then my name only will be spoiled, not the mould's. There is an old practice of putting a little neem leaf in the jar. My aunt used to do it. I did not do it this time because I was in a hurry, which is its own kind of foolishness. Anyone here working with natural pigment, does the spoilage go all the way through or only skin deep. I would like to know before I ruin good handmade paper.

Wins·Ramesh Jha·4w

I am teaching Mithila painting to a small group in my village, mostly girls, on Sunday mornings in the room where my mother used to sit with her colours. One of them, Sunita, she is fourteen, she has been coming since two years. Very quiet girl, hardly speaking, but her line work is steady, better than some who have been doing longer. Today a lady from Patna who buys from our cooperative took one of her paintings. A small one, two fish and a lotus, on handmade paper, done with the black from lamp soot and the red from kusum flower. Two hundred and fifty rupees. Sunita's mother came to my house in the evening to tell me. She was holding the money folded in her blouse. She did not say much. I also did not say much. The thing is, when I was that age nobody gave us money for this. We painted on the mud walls before the wedding, we painted for the ritual, and that was all. The wall got whitewashed every year and the work went away with it. For long I thought that was the whole of it, that our painting was for the wall and for God and not for selling. I don't know what to feel sometimes. Half of me is happy that the girl has earned something of her own at fourteen. Other half is thinking, will she now paint only the small ones that sell fast, the fish and the peacock, and never learn the whole story of the Kohbar or the wedding of Shiva and Parvati which takes many days. It is a real worry for me. The market wants the easy ones. Anyway. I have told her next month we start the Kohbar, slowly, small portion everyday before she does any selling work. Let us see.

Gallery Outreach·Ramesh Jha·4w

Namaste to all ji. Myself Ramesh, Mithila painter from Madhubani in Bihar. Forgive me if I am not so used to this online talking, my son has set it up for me. My first gallery, many years back, I went to Patna with three paintings rolled in cloth, no folder even, no photographs, nothing. I sat in the office and the lady there asked me, "who is your artist representative?" I did not know such a thing existed. I said, my mother is my representative, she taught me since I was six. She laughed, but kindly, and she kept one painting on the wall for a small show. That one sale fed my family that month. So I am asking: how did your very first gallery happen? Cold email, walk-in with work under the arm, a friend who knew someone, a group show you almost did not apply for? Tell me the real story, not the polished one. I want to hear how it actually went for you.

Gallery Outreach·Ramesh Jha·4w

Myself Ramesh, Mithila painter from Madhubani, Bihar. I will start with my own story. First time a gallery outside Bihar showed my work, I did not email anybody. I carried three paintings wrapped in old cloth and stood at the door. The lady there was kind, she gave me tea and looked at all three, but she told me plainly they do not take folk work, only contemporary. I came back by evening bus with all three still in the cloth. Two years after, same street, different gallery, the owner saw one fish painting and said yes on the spot. No email, no portfolio, no prints. So I have seen both. Now my son says I must send photographs and write proper letters first, that walking in is not the way anymore. But my experience says many of these small galleries still say yes only when they see the actual paper and the actual colour in front of them. So kindly tell me your own. Did you walk in, or did you email? And which one actually worked for you ji. 🙏

Marketing & Social·Ramesh Jha·4w

They wrote in English, very polite, saying they want a "collection" of Mithila work for a show in November. Twelve pieces. Six weeks. When I said yes, my son was happy. He said this is the exposure, this is how it works now. But ji, they are wanting the paintings quickly and they are also wanting the old designs. You cannot have both. The kohbar ghar I make takes me nearly three weeks alone, because the fine line is not something you can hurry. My mother used to say the brush should move at the speed of the breath, otherwise the line becomes a scratch. The fish must be drawn with patience or it will look like a fish from a shop. Also the payment. They are giving forty percent now, rest after the show, and if nothing sells then nothing more. Paper and natural colour cost I am bearing myself. So I am doing the work of six weeks for money that may or may not come. I have already told them yes. Now I am thinking whether to write back and say only eight pieces, and that the kohbar will be one of them and it will take its own time. Anyone here has dealt with galleries like this? Or should I just do the eight and let them be angry.

Studio Life·Ramesh Jha·4w

Every year after Diwali I collect the soot from the diyas in our house, and also from my mother's house, and my sister's. Stored in an old Bournvita jar, the glass one with the orange lid. Then for black in the painting, that is what I use. Bind it with gum from the neem tree, a little water, nothing else. My sister says just buy the tube, same black, hundred rupees, no trouble. She is not wrong. But the tube black sits on the paper like a guest who has come only for the food. The soot goes in and becomes part of it. Same brush, same hand, different result, and I cannot explain properly why. Trouble is the jar is nearly finished now, and Diwali is still far. I have one peacock border and the eyes of the fish to do on this cloth for a buyer in Patna and I am being slow with it because of this. Also the soot from last year is grainy at the bottom, I should have sieved it better before storing. Any of you make your own black? Or I am the only one sitting here rationing a jar of festival smoke like it is gold.