cogs in motion

we've finally started to settle into a routine. spent the past 3 days setting up our studio in the city at my masi's house. this has been more work then i might have guessed.

my masi lives in the states, so her house is boarded up much of the year. they're tearing up the road out front, so there was a couple inches of dirt piled up everywhere. veena, our nanny/cook/caretaker/cleaner extra-ordinaire, has had to spend a lot of time getting the house in shape. oddly, the biggest pain has been arranging for the heating gas (locally called sill-ANDER) - apparently the indian government rations the amount of cooking gas available to people. you have to apply, then wait in line for 30+ days. of course this wasn't an option. since the economy here is quite creative, the black market usually supplies, but even the black market can be taxed. apparently the wedding demands on black market cooking gas are extreme this time of year (we're in the peak of wedding season, and typical punjabi weddings have many hundreds if not thousands of people eating many meals over many days). after some hemming and hawing and connection pulling, we now have our gas.

we have begun painting a lot. started out with a lot of sketch work. i ordered a bunch of canvases, and they're starting to come in now. we spend our days on the kotie with chairs and munjis and paint and cha. its a lovely day. ameen and i are worried our work is melding together since we're staring at the same stuff. we've spent the past few evenings cruising the back gulliahns snapping photos CIA style of random things here. its amazing how much just being here makes me want to paint - i think its a combo of the new sites, huge time blocks, and local materials.