The family of Mysore Vasudevacharya has been associated with art in a variety of ways.
Besides music, dance and composing, the legendary composer’s great grand-daughter, K. Kusum, has also taken to rangoli art. Her passion for this art transcends from being just a mere floral art.
They assume improvised expressions that could be computerised and used in a myriad mediums of art. Some of her designs can also be used for kundan work or as stand alone paintings.
The line drawings can be used as intricate crafting in jewellery, on ceramic tiles, or even copied for sari embroidery or fabric design.
Apart from being a veena player, dancer, wild life and bird enthusiast and a columnist, Kusum took to the art of drawing rather casually when her mother could no more handle the art of making a Rangoli sitting on the floor.
“About a year ago, my mother (Devaki Murthy) suffered from osteoporosis and could no longer sit down and draw a rangoli. With hesitation I drew a few designs that week.
But gradually the weeks that followed saw a stream of imaginative drawings coming out of my hands. It was strange as I wasn’t a rangoli enthusiast.
I brought out nearly 500 intricate contemporary versions of rangoli patterns,” recalls Kusum.
Her designs have been published by Prism Books in the form of a book called Lines Divine , which contain nearly 100 pages of her art. Apart from mainstream rangoli patterns with modern touches, there are rangoli patterns for shoulder bordering, side borders, filling up patterns, variety of inner intricacies that can be brought into drawings, geometrical and floral variants, mythical characters, birds and leafy designs, all so flawlessly represented by deft hand drawings.
“My rangolis weren’t meant to be drawn just in front of the tulasi plant. I started documenting them in books. Once my aunt Parimala saw them she said they were worth being modern models for replicating them on to other forms such as mehendi decoration or ceramic designs. With guidance from painter Radhakrishna who helped me fine tune them to suit other mediums, I brought out models of my illustrative art in all mediums,” she explains.
After Lines Divine book, Kusum is now working on another innovative rangoli art that fuses alphabets and numeral, which she claims will be interesting and amusing for children.
“If colouring books are getting to be a trend, this rangoli art is equally interesting and far more creative to observe and learn,” assures Kusum.
Kusum, who’s the daughter of the late musician and musicologist S. Krishnamurthy, trained nearly 500 students in music and has composed Bhakthi Geethe lyrics for two of her albums Geetha Katha Kusuma and Kusumanjali .
