Fireworks: Eastern Dawn

A vignette about a journey to the East where art/festivity serves as a medicine for world-detention.

A short vignette about the magic of art and how it serves as a medicine for the modern depression associated with real-life dilemmas (e.g., terrorism, disease, displacement, etc.). Thanks for reading, 

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My name is Abishai, and I'm headed to India for a special artworks/animation project to discover some of the roots of my creative heritage, since I was born in India to Asian-Indian parents before I moved to the USA.

I'm taking with me two artworks of value to me personally. One is a creative amazing pencil-color drawing of an ancient Indian musician my father made while he was young, and it's got a special 'Eastern-Asian' aesthetic I think comparable to this new era 'aesthetic' of pedestrian or 'walking' themed characters/avatars (e.g., Blondie).

The other work is a simple pencil-doodle I made of an odd American boy named 'Deer-Boy' (a precocious psychic with deer-antlers which give him extra courage!), and though it's not as 'ornamental' as my father's musician-drawing, it also captures a sort of new era 'aesthetic' of walking or living daydreams (e.g., Blondie).

The modern world is filled with exotic/anime images of fantastic sword-wielding cyborgs who re-present our developed civilization fascination with machinery-tech and weaponry-toys. These images are the 'subject' of this world-space imagination journey I'm making in my mind with these 'arts' of dynamic or cartoon-like vitality!

I take a special Air India (First Class) flight from JFK to New Delhi and begin my journey which will include an inspection of neo-classical Asian-Indian comic book art as well as fireworks displays/festivities.

We all know that while Americans make the best toys in the world, Indians sell the best fireworks in the world, and that's because the annual festival of Diwali in India holds special 'metaphysical' significance to many Indian citizens, which is why you'll find stores lined with walls of amazing fireworks boxes, and I take images of these civilization toys.

I check into my first-class Indian hotel in Delhi and prepare my notes and camera for my journey into the artistic spirit of this exotic land in which I was born. The elevators in this Indian hotel are simply amazing and make me feel like this homeland where I was born still boasts the finest examples of tourist-hospitality today.

When I attend the ensuing Diwali festival in India, I'm in 'awe' of the amazing use/display of the Indian fireworks by everyday Indian citizens who wish to re-cast their metaphysical beliefs in life-and-light into expressions of night-wonders.

In fact, the entire Indian night-sky in Diwali are simply spectacular and oddly remind me of some kind of anime-film or video-game symbolic of modern times!

When I pick up my selection of Asian-Indian comics while on this Deli journey of imagination, I notice the merchant/writer is pleased with my two special-value drawings I brought with me (the one of the Indian musician my dad made and the 'Deer-Boy' cartoon-character I doodled), and he tells me that Indian comics, like Western/American modern art/comics (e.g., Blondie) are reflective of a very 'dynamic' energy!

In this world of blood-diamond piracy and rampant terrorism, there's comfort in the idea that the food of life can be found in the dynamic experiences of modern living 'street-art' or comics or illustrative calligraphy for avatars. These images help to alleviate our real-life headaches and remind us that art can be a form of medicine from the reality of...darkness!

Indian Art demands of the artist the power of communion with the soul of things, the sense of spiritual taking precedence of the sense of material beauty, and fidelity to the deeper vision within (Sri Aurobindo, India).

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"Money is everything" (Ecclesiastes)