I learned about Nurturing Walls: Animal Art by Meena Women from the source of all good things, Book By its Cover. From the publisher, Tara Books:
Nurturing Walls focuses on the favourite Meena theme of animals and their young, featuring a striking collection of living art from the walls of Meena tribal homes in Rajasthan, known as Mandana. Mandana motifs are inseparable from everyday life as women paint the mud walls and floors of their homes regularly, keeping time with recurring festivals and changing seasons. Mothers teach their daughters how to paint, and this tradition has been passed along generation after generation.
This teeming world of baby animals and their mothers has been carefully recreated here as a series of silkscreen prints, on textured brown paper recreating the feel of mud walls. The lives of the artists behind this little known art is just as fascinating, and full colour inserts capture this richness, making the form of this book as unusual as the art it recreates.
This book makes me proud to be a woman. Also: India! Design! Tradition! Tribal art! Pattern! Mothers! Daughters! Ephemeral beauty! Baby animals!
I think I'm in heaven.
Don't you just long to recreate these Mandana animals somewhere in your house? I'm envisioning a mural in a child's bedroom, hand printed bedspreads/pillows/notecards...so much fodder for inspiration here. Lena Corwin and Lotta Jansdottir would have a field day with this book.
And don't you just long to teach your girls something beautiful your mother taught you when you were little? Something they can pass down to their daughters?
Buy the book here.
P.S. New readers - welcome! Thank you so much for stopping by last week and leaving me some love. Your presence and comments are precious to me. Regulars - thank you for putting up with my infrequent posting of late, and as always, for your kind words and warm humor. xoxo
