Swimming in Devotional Art

Troves of uniquely framed devotional art

I’ve been digging through some of my old travel photography, being instantly drawn back into past adventures the way rummaging through old photographs allows us to do. When people visit my Dharma Boutique shop they often comment on the smell as they come into the rooms (“Oh, it reminds me of India!”), as so many of the vintage and antique items still possess elements of the aromatic essence of their origin. As you enter the big room, on your right is a wall of literally hundreds of framed devotional art prints: antique frames filled with original lithograph prints from the early/mid 1900s, as well awesome reproductions of old hand-painted miniatures.

Murtis in their Natural Habitat

One of the more unusual items I have collected and offered in my Dharma work over recent years has been a constellation of old marblemurtis, the temple statuary seen ubiquitously in homes, temples and roadsideshrines across India. When properly installed, these murtis are considered literal forms of the divine, and worshipped as a manifestation of the Deity represented—in the above photograph taken near Keshi Ghat in the sacred Yamuna River town of Vrindavan, we see Shiva, Parvati and their son Ganesh with the Yamuna flowing past.

Masters and Simplicity: The Veena Makers

We were in south India, and in search of a harmonium maker.

After asking around, we were assured that the right place had been found, and a few of us hopped into some tuk-tuks and headed out, down bouncy dirt roads, far out of town, until we came to this small workshop, which was NOT in fact a harmonium maker (surprise, surprise) but another kind of handcrafting.

Here, in this open air, dirt floored workshop, 3 generations of men were handmaking beautiful Veenas. 

You can see the progression below, from the raw wood to the instrument being tuned.   Each one of these takes a month to make, and there are usually several in process at once.