HYDERABAD: “I travel as much as I can, and when you travel you get inputs from a new place, which could be deeply inspiring. Also, when you get away from your culture and then you go back you see it differently; it kind of opens your eyes. I think travelling makes you more sensitive in general,” says Michael Richardson, an American printmaker and a puppeteer, travel enthusiast and more. Also a performer, a building designer and above all he is a learner.
Michael is presently in India working on his Kalamkari project at Srikalahasti in Andhra Pradesh. He has also been encouraging the students of Jawaharlal Nehru college of Fine Arts, Hyderabad, with his talks. In February, he visited the city twice and stayed for three days. While in the city, he talked about the art market and his prints; the technique and the concept with the students. He is working with local arts and artisans like kalamkari. And during his previous visit to India he researched on tolu bommalu.
“My father was in the United States army, and unlike most Americans, we moved constantly. When I was young I changed seven elementary schools. I did not really have a choice and when I was 12 we moved to Germany for five years. So I had this upbringing of different places and a mixture of influences,” he states.
Michael went to an art school in Baltimore at 17 as a print maker, “In my first year at the art school, I needed a job and there was this puppet company that advertised that they needed workers for the summer programme. I ended up taking it and was amazed at how much I enjoyed performing; It was different from being a studio artist,” he explains about how he ended up becoming a professional puppeteer and continued to be so for 30 years. Meanwhile, he also made prints.
In 1985, the US government sent the multi-talented artist to Indonesia (as a part of Fulbright programme) where he fell in love with shadow puppets. “I realised it was not an art form for children. It was a srious art form telling the Indian stories of Ramayana and Mahabharata. In 1991, I had another ‘Fulbright’ programme to do a research project on what is the stage of traditional puppetry in India. And I had been to Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and I interviewed 15 puppeteers doing ‘tolu bommalata’ and other kinds of puppets, but the stories I was hearing made me sad. Every puppeteer said they felt sorry that they were struggling.”
“And I now know this problem is worldwide and every country is losing its traditional art forms. I see individual cultures disappearing and I call it crisis.”The bridge between print making and puppeteering:
“For the longest time I was told that artists need a consistent body of work, because of which I had a secret life; to some people I was Michael, the puppeteer, and to some I was Michael the print maker, I never let the two people know that I did both.
After years of being a puppeteer, I went back to doing my work full time, started showing my work; I realised that I have been doing both all my life and both of them are me. And for the first time, I showed both my puppets and prints as one man’s work. And I gathered that both of them do fit together, they are based on drawing whether it’s drawing a puppet or a print and in my case it’s a narrative, telling a story. After doing a couple of shows, I had a feeling of liberation.”
The social concern: Michael Richardson makes a lot of art relating to social issues, the unfairness and the irregularity of the society. “I wasn’t trying to sell my prints and I was keeping them to myself like a diary until recently. The reason I make art in spite of being intellectual is that I make it from emotion; I have to feel something in order to make a piece of art. There is usually some emotion driving this. Things which make me happy, I make art about them, and things that make me sad; Yes, I make art about them, as well. And on this particular trip to India, I have many ideas. This comes from reactions of how the world is treating us and now I realise instead of running away, I take it as a source of my inspiration. And now that I know, I am not trying to do anything else.”
Transcultural art
“I am inspired by your traditional hand-drawn, Srikalahasti-based Kalamkari because Kalamkari is a painted drawing; there is a difference between a painting and a painted drawing. I like Kalamkaris even with lesser colours like black and red. For me it’s pure and there is a kind of elegance and simplicity in that.”
He says he was inspired by Kalamkari on his first trip to India in 1991. “I was looking at puppet theatre and I was in Bangalore for three weeks and happened to see a store with ‘kalamkaris’ ;I ended up buying six of them. I gave five of them away as presents, but the biggest one I have had it in my studio for 20 years and I look at it every day.”