Sonabai : Another Way of Seeing (With DVD)

Contents: Foreword. Preface. 1. Puhputra. 2. Sonabai. 3. Legacy. 4. A personal view. Acknowledgements. 

"The art of Sonabai Rajawar is entirely unique: it has no precedent. Her story expresses the capacity of human beings everywhere to meet their challenges head-on, and to draw from deep within their inner resources the strength and insight to change their lives. She was not daunted by her oppression: she found ways to transform it into expressions of courage, beauty and joy in living.

Sonabai is one of the few self-taught artists of India, a country where encrusted traditions overlay one another in a complexity that defies full comprehension. Possessing fine faculties of mind, body and spirit, her only "disability", if indeed that word is appropriate, was her enforced isolation during fifteen years of her marriage.

For a decade and a half, she was forcibly removed from almost everything she had known growing up. Always shy and withdrawn, Sonabai created an entirely new artistic expression with no guidance or instruction. Her art was completely different from anything ever seen in India before--a world of color, light and whimsy--all her own.

Her creativity was discovered by the Indian art world quite by chance. She was awarded India\'s Highest Honor given to an artist, the prestigious President\'s Award. Her art was exhibited at fine museums and crafts fairs throughout India and even in San Diego, California and Brisbane, Australia! She taught her unusual sculpting style to other artists, resulting in an innovative art form that has affected the incomes and lives of many. Although her artistic vision was singular, her message is global.

Sonabai : Another Way of Seeing is the result of years of research by Stephen Huyler, an acknowledged cultural anthropologist, author and photographer. He has also featured Sonabai in his last book, Daughters of India.

Through stories, insightful documentation, and evocative images, Huyler conveys Sonabai\'s life and that of her family and community, portraying the remarkable productivity that resulted from her isolation, and the influence she had on the work of seven other local artists. Sonabai : Another Way of Seeing and its accompanying DVD are complements to a visually dynamic travelling exhibition of the same title." (jacket)