SharedBliss: Folk Artist Dithi of DeezDen

Artist Dithi of DeezDen.

Listening to: Hindustani fusion that is relaxing and rejuvenating at the same time.

Bliss: Today is my partner's and my 14th Anniversary. Bliss is fourteen years with your best friend. Bliss is 14 years of laughing and growing and exploring and creating. Bliss is 14 years of love and light. Bliss is 14 years that seem like a moment and an eternity. Bliss is another 14 years and then another...

The blogging world sometimes reminds me of a very large museum. You know the kind I mean -- where you could walk for days or weeks and get totally lost. The kind of museum where you could easily find some nook and hide from the security guards and live there like in one of my favorite children's books. The kind of museum where you turn a corner and find something new that makes you gasp right out loud and people look at you, but you don't care.

The blogging world is like that for me. As Sarah Vowell puts it, the internet is the nerd's Israel. Yep. But it's also the artist's Nirvana.

Without the internet, how many artists would still just be painting or writing or sewing on the weekends, never dreaming that they could stay at home and make a living from anywhere in the world?

With the internet, possibility expands and suddenly anyone can do anything depending on their own motivations and desires. Self-taught artists who don't live in New York City or have agents or put on giant shows. Self-taught artists like Dithi, who moved recently from Mumbai to Geneva. (Phew!)

I found her on one of my very lucky roams. Ambling about the internet blog world like a series of pleasant, cool, quiet hallways on a day when I had nothing to do but sip espresso and wait to be surprised. And then I turned a corner...and gasped out loud.


Dee blogs and has an etsy shop and also an ebay store and a youtube channel -- which I love! I am fascinated by watching a painter build a piece.

Describe the PrimaryBliss of your life. How did you come to know that this was your Primary Bliss?

My PrimaryBliss is my art. It helps me express and connect. It makes life complete. I have always loved painting and crafting. I used to paint off and on, in between 9 to 5 jobs and household chores. That changed after our recent move from Mumbai to Geneva. In the middle of the chaos and stresses of settling in a new place, art was therapeutic. It helped me cope and also became my very loyal but demanding new companion. I started with art-journaling and mixed media but gradually moved focus to folk-art painting. My art changed from ‘’something that I liked to do’’ to ‘’something that I needed to do.”

What types of choices and sacrifices did you make to be able to craft this bliss-filled life?

As a self-taught artist, I feel the constant need to learn, practice and improve. I try and make life simple so that I can give as much time to art as I can. It is a conscious decision. I do not have much of a social life but I don’t really miss having one. I have some close friends with whom I spend quality time, but I try and keep it simple and minimal. I have put off taking up a regular job so that I can give my art the undivided attention it deserves. An impractical decision, perhaps, but, well, we shall see! These are choices that I have made without regret.

I am happy to live in this creative space I have built with my thoughts and my ideas.

How does your Primary Bliss radiate out into the rest of your life?

It helps me express, introspect, communicate. Its important for me to create work that is REAL. Sharing work through blogs and videos, I have also met some amazing people and other artists and the entire process was very rewarding. I get feedback which is very helpful and encouraging. I meet people with similar interests and perspectives. We live in a time when there is immense technological empowerment. It is so much easier now to reach out if you have a message or you want to spread awareness or simply share your creative journey.

What are some other activities that also give you this sense of bliss? Things that make you lose track of time?

Music, listening to Arnab (my hubby) play the sitar, exploring cultures, people and places, chatting with friends, an occasional thriller-movie, traveling, enjoying home-cooked rice and curry with family, going home to ma and baba, being totally pampered by my two elder sisters.

What is your daily or weekly spiritual practice?

Making Art. Learning, being sensitive and having consideration for others, being thankful for the beautiful gift called life.

What music is your bliss?

Sufiana music, Ghazals, Hindustani Classical and Semi-Classical, Fusion, Instrumentals (Flute, Sitar Sarangi and Sarod). My most favourite artist is Ustad Rashid Khan-ji.

Name books or authors/poets or people who are your bliss, who influenced your bliss.

Frida Kahlo, Emily Dickinson, Mirza Ghalib, Gulzar. Urdu shaeris or poems are my bliss, I am almost addicted to ghazals composed on Mirza Ghalib’s shers (poems).

What advice would you give to someone who feels they have not yet discovered their PrimaryBliss?

Some of us figure out what we want early in life, others, much later. You could miss a step or two, but if you listen to your heart you will realize that it is in the journey that one discovers one’s PrimaryBliss.

Do you have a favourite quote you would like to share?

There are so many, but today, I would like to share this one by Francis Bacon: ‘’If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; But if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainty.’’

I think Dee makes an excellent point about simplifying her life for her art's sake.

In this time of the Super Woman complex, where so many of us have been taught that we can or should have it all, we sometimes forget the reality that we can't and shouldn't have it all. That "having it all" only spreads us too thin. It turns real women into paper dolls.

I think it was Oprah who said (and who knows where I read this!) that we can have two of the these three things and have them well: a social life, a family life, and a career. She's right. You could have all three but what would suffer, what would end up half-assed?

As artists, and in particular as female artists, I think we have to learn to cultivate a bit of selfishness. We have to learn to have boundaries about our work and our time. We have to learn to say no to others so we can yes to the muse. We have to learn that our work is important and that it matters and that we should be doing it, that we are meant to be doing it.

Doing what you are meant to do is the best way to do for others.

Just look at the art coming out of Dee's commitment to her work. Imagine if she were stuck in an office five days a week...