Drawings by UG
The drawings were made by UG starting in January 2005 in Baveno, Italy, then again in Switzerland also in January. Finally in March of 2005, some drawings were done in Palm Springs, California. Some other drawings may have been lost along the way but this is highly unlikely as the work is closely monitored and highly collectible! This work represents a new phase of activity in the unpredictable life of a great unknowable sage.
In January of 2005 UG returned to Europe after two and a half months of intense talking in the living room of Suguna and Chandrasekhar in Bangalore, India. I was lucky enough to fly back with him and continue on to Baveno, Italy where he stays along the Lago Maggiori at the Residence Dei Fiori in the Azalea Suite. I would sit next to him on the couch and try to write or sketch in a notebook when he wasn't hitting, kicking or splashing me with hot water. One day I asked him to make a drawing and to my surprise he asked for a piece of paper and started to draw. He said that when he was studying botany he used to draw plants. He wondered out loud if he could still draw. He handles a pen with style and the loose quality of his lines is really nice.
UG was watching me on the couch drawing spirals. He kept asking what I was doing so I would ask him to make another drawing. I think he liked to draw me because of my bald head (which he also liked to hit all the time). He would make fun of my inability to make money as an artist. In this drawing he made the arc first, then the flower, then a portrait of me in my now green striped shirt with a third eye on my forehead. Nice touch.
After he had made a couple of drawings I asked UG if he would make a self portrait. He took a fresh piece of paper and the notebook, propping them on his knees he worked at this one pretty intensely. When he finished we all tried to figure out the significance of the pose. I saw the boy on the back cover of the book he used to draw on and realized he had copied this. His invention was to add the legs with big side pockets like the ones on my cargo pants. At another time he said he cannot draw himself because he has no image of that. “The only thing that exists for me is the object.” While he was looking at this book cover that was him.
This is one of two drawings done by UG on a napkin in Gruyères at a coffee shop. He was in a feisty mood and grabbed a pen from me and started. The question marks that float above the flower are a beautiful touch. What is that perfume? This is the real self portrait of UG. The day he made this drawing we had driven him to the door of the cafe since it was so cold outside and he still looked a little frail from India. He sensed our hovering concern and got out of the car and walked all the way back to the entrance of the quaint little feudal town in the snow and ice to look at the exchange rates. So much for our trying to help, to protect him from the elements. This he cannot stand.
This is the drawing from the other side of the napkin in Gruyères. He said it is a picture of me and my “supposed girlfriend”. He had warmed up drawing the flower. While he was drawing, Kara and Lisa took a couple of photographs. He really looked like he was having fun. He grinned widely when we noticed her “bouncing breasts”. Much later I was trying to figure out what was happening between the two characters. I asked him and he said, “She is hitting him.”
A Picasso-like figure, again, supposed to be of me. I like the multiple arms. It was done pretty quickly. Also from Palm Springs.
This is another drawing UG made in Palm Springs in March 2005. He was visiting the Malladi family with the two newborn babies and Sandhya, the granddaughter. Sandhya had been drawing with a glitter glue pen. There was no paper left and UG wanted to draw so we grabbed a paper towel for him.
