BY SONAL LADVA
REDONDO BEACH, CA- Inspirations come in many forms over a lifetime. For an artist, inspiration is the bedrock of creation, but what could be underlying a growing collection of more than 9000 sketches with no formal training? For Ashish Sharma, it came from a person called “Papa” or dad.Om Prakash Sharma,
REDONDO BEACH, CA- Inspirations come in many forms over a lifetime. For an artist, inspiration is the bedrock of creation, but what could be underlying a growing collection of more than 9000 sketches with no formal training? For Ashish Sharma, it came from a person called “Papa” or dad.Om Prakash Sharma,
now a retired Deputy General Manager with the Reserve Bank of India had sensed the artistic potential of his daughters. An exercise in building character, discipline and devotion in any field had Prakash challenge all his daughters. Ashish, the middle of three daughters loved drawing. “But why is that unique,” asked her dad? She was pursuing her MBA in Mumbai in December of 1990 when her father’s challenge of one painting a day was spinning in her head. “December 31, 1990 was one of the most restless nights of my life. I wondered what or how I would do a drawing everyday.I know my sister had kept her challenge of writing a poem daily; would I be able to do it too”? The morning of January 1, 1991 felt blissful and the journey began. Ashish began drawing Ganesha on a daily basis. A highly intuitive person, Ashish started sensing an internal calling and one day in the month of February, she saw Ganesha in the letter ‘G’. She started to draw Ganesha in “G’ in all the Indian languages. She completed 54 scripts of Ganeshas. Ashish felt a great sense of connection with Lord Ganesh and His omnipotence manifested in her daily visualizations, expanding to other languages where the pencil was the medium that had a mind of its own. She felt the pencil would just glide on the paper and it seemed as if she was the medium for this surreal and pure energy that held her hand throughout the work. Ashish’s love of Ganesha has also translated into a book called ‘My Ganesha- The Journey of a Dot to Become a Line to align with the Universe’. She looks at GANESHA as an acronym that opens up to God who to me is Alphabet faced Navigating the Eternal Sound to give us Happiness and Ashish (blessings). Ashish has done extensive research on Lord Ganesha and in the book makes references to the scriptures as the Atharvashirsha or the Ganapati Upanishad, which enlightens the reader about the Cosmos being Ganesha; the ‘Brahman’, ‘ Satchitananda’, the Creator, Preserver and the Destroyer.
Ashish has had exhibitions in India and is also a well known artist here in Southern California. Only recently has she opened up to the possibility of selling some prints of her artwork; “Money was never a motivation or intention or the incentive to do this,” she quips. “The Journey with Ganesh continues,’’ she says as if in a trance getting inspired for the next sketch tomorrow.
Ashish has had exhibitions in India and is also a well known artist here in Southern California. Only recently has she opened up to the possibility of selling some prints of her artwork; “Money was never a motivation or intention or the incentive to do this,” she quips. “The Journey with Ganesh continues,’’ she says as if in a trance getting inspired for the next sketch tomorrow.
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