Project Beginnings

I was fortunate enough to take a class with Marianetta Porter, Professor of Fine Art at the University of Michigan. Our first project was to write a reflection about one object of significance in our lives. I chose kidney beans, because these remind me of my mom in the most uncanny (pun intended?) way. I suddenly became aware of every tangible object around me, started to imagine each object telling a story, and I wondered what other people felt about their own objects. So I started this collection, and I hope it grows.

I'm grateful to the educators (not just Marianetta Porter, but also Joanne Leonard, Dwayne Overmyer, Beth Hay, Rene Davids, and Lewis Watts) who taught me the power of the creative process, making me a more thoughtful observer and practitioner as a result.

About Me.

My work centers around discovering and articulating the wisdom in those around me, and I relish the process of helping others make that knowledge explicit. In my professional and creative work, I prompt people to generate their own stories through the processes of intentional conversation, reflective writing, and empathetic listening. I am especially committed to the stories that, when emerging from the primary source, can erase the narratives that try to speak for us, that try to tell us who we are.

Depending on the need, I have taken on the role of :

• designer - of courses, curricula, programs, networks, and conversations
• artist - of images, possibilities, songs, pizza toppings and grilled cheese recipes; 
• manager - of programs and people and offices and emotions and goals;
• mobilizer - labor organizer, event planner, megaphone-wielding protest chant leader, institutional changemaker;
• facilitator - of learning, growth, ideas, and action plans; and, a general enthusiast.

In all of my work, professional and creative, I am drawn to working on the discovery of someone's stories. Everyone has a good story to tell, and I enjoy the process of finding it.

My object story.

Prepare Yourself.

I know death isn’t something you really prepare for. But I’ve become so obsessed with the idea of my parents dying that whenever I visit them in California, I waste much of that visit thinking it could be the last. The thought of my parents’ death produces a grief in advance, and one of many layers. The first layer is obvious, that of the generic grief of losing a loved one. Then, there is this grief of losing this space that I call home, a space they’ve provided and cleaned and messed up and cleaned again and fought over and fought for and fought inside. The next layer is guilt and confusion, where I can’t believe I even have the privilege to have them near me but still choose to focus on the inevitable loss. But fear is suffocating and blinding like that.

The kitchen in my parents’ house is my mother’s true domain and safest haven. When she and my father found this house, her immediate reaction to the kitchen was that it was too open. Instead of an enclosed space, the kitchen was bordered by a bar counter that looked onto the living room. “You can see right into the kitchen. How will I have any privacy?” she lamented. So, the first and only modification she made to the house was to install vertical blinds – the kind that people reserve for their windows – to hang from the ceiling and graze the counter. The kitchen is the space where she excels and also relaxes, and where she controls every object’s placement, and where she can eat while she cooks without feeling guilty that she’s not seated properly at a table.

My mom can really cook, though I don’t know how much she always wanted to cook. She learned to cook because she was expected to cook. Over time, she loved to cook because everyone loved her cooking. In her twenties, she managed the needs of a small colicky child, and a husband whose social instincts brought many a friend and appetite into our home, so she learned how to cook fast and often and well. And now, food is the glue that keeps her connected to her children. Without cooking, she couldn’t care for us, and without food, we’d have a lot less to talk about.

I never really got that cooking gene. I can cook when I want to, but I don’t always want to. My mom still worries that my brother and I will stop eating if she doesn’t remind us to do so. She especially worries that my brother needs her particular brand of cuisine to survive, and they have regular telephone-based cooking lessons where she walks him through a meal. I know he wants to learn, but I also know that he recognizes the happiness it brings her. In my case it’s weekly emails of salad recipes, streams of consciousness that delight me in their total haphazardness. I love my mom so deeply, but I don’t always feel comfortable sharing things that she might disapprove of, so I’ve determined the topics that are acceptable. We find our common ground in talking about food, and we truly bond over kidney beans. It’s hard to believe, but my mom and I actually talk about kidney beans at least once during every phone conversation. And I sometimes feel that without the beans, I wouldn’t know what to talk about.

Mom’s recipe for Salad (Version 12)

Email from Mom to my brother, with me cc'ed:

Dear Sudhir, I am eating vegetable SALADS atleast 3 to 4 times a week. This is what I put in my salad and it is almost a meal by itself.

Iceberg Luttuce leaves 4 ( tear into small pieces )
2 Table sp heaped white corn( or yellow canned corn )
1 small tomato cut into bite size
3 tble sp of canned RED kidney beans, rinsed
one half cup of cut cucumbers,
raw cauliflowerettes,
broccoli head pieces,
2 to 3 tsp dark raisins,
sunflower seeds raw

On a plate spread the cut lettuce, ladle cucumbers, tomatoes, cauliflower and broccoli, corn and beans. Sprinkle raisins and sunflower seeds. I use ranch dressing low fat .store brand, or even regular ranch dressing is good. You may want to use plain Italian dressing, but I prefer creamy dressing myself. This is good during the day time with a soup.You could add cottage cheese as well with pineapple chunks! love mom