ONGOLE: Dasari Srinivasulu (31) a lower middle class youth from Bapuji Colony in Tangutur mandal of Prakasam district was a high school dropout. Due to his family financial troubles, he left school at the age of 14 while in Class IX and started getting a livelihood through various labour works. Finally he settled as a Hospital Operation theatre assistant in a Ongole-based ENT hospital. Though he stopped his formal education, his thirst to acquire new skills never ended and he started sand sculpting on the banks of Musi- a local stream.
Later he turned his interests into making miniature, micro articles. Then he thought about making the lowest price material articles and he found that the earthen bricks are those materials as a suitable canvas to showcase his artistic skills.
Then he started brick carvings, a unique form of art which needs highest grade of concentration and skills as the bricks are made-up with a special type of material that have both hard and brittle characters. It needs lot of time and patience to carving- out the desired shape of any imagination with all minute details in a brick. It’s a special and unique kind of art.
Struggling a lot initially, Srinivasulu learnt on his own how to identify a real earthen brick which suits his requirements and how to carve the desired structure it over years of continuous efforts which he has mastered over the passing of time.
Now, he can carve anything he wish to depict on a brick material with life. This brought him recognition as an artist with his unique brick carving art skills and many likes his hand-made brick carving artefacts.
“It is a very long and painful yet satisfactory journey for me since I choose this unique art-form and achieved some talent in it. After gaining enough knowledge, I am now able to identify the bricks which are suitable to my work which are vintage one. For this, the banks of our local streams like Musi, Paaleru etc., are contributing a lot as they got decades back submerged houses and kings era constructions floated through their streams. Recently I collected about 100 such old-age bricks by spending nearly Rs 5,000 and preserved them in my house just like big treasure.” Srinivasulu explained.
Most of his articles are related to Hindu mythological characters, scenes and episodes. He carved out many artistic brick sculptures of Lord Sri Rama along with Sita and Lakshman, Buddha, Puri Jagannadh idol and temple, Goddess Padmavathi, Narakasura mardini -Satyabhama, Sudarshan chakra, Lord Venkateswara, Lord Nataraja, Lord Vinayaka, Hamsa Vahanam, Ratham, Simha Vahanam, Bapuji idol, Jesus idol., etc., He proves that everything will be made into a beautiful piece of art if we have an artistic eyesight and artistic vision. Recently he carved out the beautiful Ongole-breed young Bull, which attracts several art lovers.
As this art-form requires lot of patience, skills, as a performing artist Srinivasulu becoming accustomed to a sedimentary lifestyle resulting health problems like backache, kne- joint pains, Neck pain, vision related issues. “My wife and family members are very much cooperative to my passion and without their support I wouldn’t achieve this talent” he humbly accepted. My aim is to prove myself as a special category artist and get my own identity among people. With this I developed this brick carving skills. If government recognises this brick carving art and me as an unique category artist I will be very happy” Srinivasulu told TNIE.