i met two great personalities on that day. It was especially great because both of them were from the field of Art! First was Mr. Anant Kulkarni – my colleague Sameer Kulkarni's father (Sameer is a sr. animator of our company, bcwebwise) and the other was , Mr. Neville D'souza, Nash Paul's father. (Nash is creative Head of our company).
Anant Kulkarni, is a retired professor of Illustration & Design from Sir J. J. School of Art. He is a great master of illustrations n designs. According to him, his students have been a great source of inspiration and he has learnt a lot from them. I found most of his work, graph based. ie. his illustrations are within a grid. That's the amazing part of his work. He had been teaching at the J.J. school for last 33 years. n retired 2 yrs. back. Not only me but each n everyone was thrilled to see his work. I liked his description of the abstracts. He said, distortion is abstract, Exaggeration is abstract. Abstract is for the creator himself.. He did what he likes in his own way. To be a great artist/designer, one should have skills, interest, observation, passion and interpretation. After having a talk of 15-20 mins. he was chatting with us for awhile when he told us his memorable experience with the Great Marathi Poet Mr. Mangesh Paadgaonkar. Once Mangesh Paadgaonkar was watching his design diary, (yess.. design diary.. he has a habit of putting down, scribbling, doodling, sketching in his notebook.. but as this all is in art/design form.. he calls it as a design diary...) he asked AK if he could write something in his diary and AK was willing. Then Paadgaonkar wrote in Marathi... "ज्यांचे ह्र्दय झाडाचं असतं, त्यांना फुले येतात" - that means, "Flowers blossom for those, whose heart is like a tree” Ohhh.. My God.. i think.. that was one of the best compliment he had ever got . it was greater than any kind of reward. He is great... n i am wordless..!!
Neville D'souza, Ohh.. my godd.. the man is full of energy, full of art enthusiasm, extremely friendly, very talkative and a little confused. :) We went to his place on the same day n we didnt find any wall in his house. there were just paintings, paintings n paintings all over the house. One would have to really look hard to find an empty space on the wall. Why would you want to try out, when u can have huge amount of art at one shot!!! He was very happy to see us there. From the start to the end, he was with us explaining most of his paintings and the experiences. I found a masterpiece. He had done a lot of work in about all the mediums with all the textures, with different styles, different forms. calligraphy, landscapes, abstracts, portaits, miniatures, photography and poetry.. everything was there. i liked his oil paintings of the Gorai Village, very much. It's in duotone with top angle perspective. Just loved it. i also liked his mini paintings. size woukd be approximately 12 mm x 12 mm. He had done that in water colours, spreading the colours very well n at the bottom-left he had drawn a small fence. ahaa.. what a rocking painting it was!! he has worked with Lintas and O&M long time back as art director. He also shared some of his rocking experiences in the field of advertising with us, like how they cracked some advt. ideas, what kind of thoughts they were having while advertising a specific product, their way of thinking, how they got ideas etc. etc. this was the most amazing part of our visit. i was just watching n clicking snaps with my mobile there. I was unable to stop myself. Another great experience was the Photography slide show.. the slide show which we enjoyed in my school days..U won’t get to see those machines these days.. It is well said that Old Is Gold…He showed us some of his snaps.. with the thoughts behind it and how to make improve in photography. We enjoyed it very much. it was an insight. His funda of work or design is... initiate, create and sell. ie.. first start your work with a great plan, create it and then properly execute it n then finally sell it. we really had a great time with him. He is great.. n i m wordless...!! Again!
There are a lot of thing i would like to tell about these 2 personalities.. but im short of words.. or im just lazy!! :D
