As related to Sandra Bowkett.

The limited time available for this project was foremost in Vipoo’s mind and so he was keen to establish a structure to enable an equitable collaborative productive process. They made the decision to work on a small scale enabling results that subsequent pieces moved from. Initially Puspa made from her known experience with clay, small ritual images for the festival of Sama Chakeva, traditionally these unfired images were made over a 10 day period, different objects for different days of the festival. As a response to these pieces and on seeing Pushpa finely detailed drawings Vipoo suggested the process by which they then worked. This proved to be a successful creative formula. That being, one made the form, on that form the other created the decorative composition in pencil and then the other then filled in the details in cobalt oxide and then this process was reversed. Vipoo is well known for the detailed imagery that appears on his work. Pushpa’s drawing skills challenged Vipoo to new levels of refinement.

At times Vipoo felt frustrated by the level of communication available and thought it limited the conceptual development of the work. Pushpa had commented “You think too much”.

I asked Vipoo what was the most significant outcome for him from this collaboration and being involved with Crosshatched. He stated he was surprised with the quality of the work that was created in a short time but more importantly and to be seen in recent work was his exposure to the imagery and pattern making of traditional India art.  The freshness and unrestrained quality of the ‘Outsider art’ of which Minhazz had a brimming folio also captured his attention.

 For Pushpa, other than the trip to the MCG collaborating with Vipoo was the highlight of her stay in Australia. According to Vipoo she was in particular rewarded when she moved beyond her known traditional composition and already rich and extensive iconography.  This collaboration had established a confidence to enable this to happen.