Kala korner -by Dee Cee

Await a new experience

Music lovers are assured of a new experience when Khemadasa presents a string quintet in the concert he is planning at the Elphinstone Theatre on Thursday, January 26. His two daughters Anupama and Gayatri (they study music in Prague University) will be among the musicians - Anupama on the cello and Gayatri on the piano. Others are Sanath Sathischandra (violin), Amarasiri Peiris (viola) and Rockey Layton (double bass). 

The concert is to celebrate his birthday, which falls on January 25 (he is 64, I believe) - part of a two day programme. On the first day, three of the many films he has provided music for (and won awards), will be screened, at the Elphinstone. The selected films are Lester James Peries' 'Golu Hadawatha' (10.30 am), Dharmasena Pathiraja's 'Bambaru Avith' 2.30 pm) and Lester James Peries' 'Nidhanaya' (6 pm).

Khemadasa's record is impressive. Operas, symphonies, Sinhala film music with a difference, music for a South Indian film and a host of performances abroad. He has given a new dimension to music in teledramas. He has collected enough and more awards for his creations. He is ever so keen to build a new generation of musicians - he prefers to mould them into 'performers'. The talent he has unearthed through the Khemadasa Foundation is remarkable. The young performers have proved their skills under his guidance. They will once again be seen in action on the 26th.

Khemadasa has just been appointed to the Arts Council of Sri Lanka under the Ministry of Cultural Affairs. (It is now headed by that veteran exponent of dance, Sesha Palihakkara). We hope this time it will be a more rewarding experience for him than the one at the National Institute of Education where he tried to create a new approach to music in schools, failed, and left in disgust.

Bookshelf

A fine record of Kelaniya Temple paintings

One Sunday morning in late January 1937, as I watched the devotees ascending the steps to the great shrine, I thought of the symbolic grandeur of the easy climb from the world of men to a region far removed from them.

By my side a large tusker stood whisking flies from its spacious territories. The Kandyan pillars of the new entrance to the Vihare took the morning light and shaded it in regular vertical columns down their octagonal selves. A pathway decorated with gentle greenery crept up to the many-pillared entrance."

This description by the renowned journalist D. B. Dhanapala refers to the day the new section of the Kelaniya Vihare was being handed over to the Maha Sangha by the donor Helena Wijewardane. Mention is also made of a man "to whom nobody paid any attention" among the private gathering - a man who was paying attention to everybody by observing and making mental notes of the scene of consecration. He was to paint it on the bare walls of the new section of the shrine which had been gifted to the Sasana. 

"He had already finished the sculpture works round the new Shrine, having created three friezes of dwarfs, sacred geese and elephants, without repeating once any one pose and having endowed the outer walls with nine abodes of the gods above the friezes", Dhanapala adds.

A rare picture of this man appears as you open Professor J. B. Disanayaka's latest publication, 'Kelani Vihare Situvam' (paintings in the Kelaniya Temple), the second in the series 'Sittara Mahima'. (The first was on Sri Dalada Maligawa). You may have guessed his name by now - Soliyas Mendis described by Dhanapala thus in 'Among those Present': "If genius means untutored, natural, instinctive but extraordinary talent, imaginative or inventive, modern Ceylon has produced at least one real genius". 

In his most informative and well illustrated book (photographs are by K. M. I. Swarnasinghe), J.B. discusses in detail the two distinct categories of paintings in the Kelaniya Temple. One belongs to what is commonly known as the 'Udarata Sittara Paramparawa' - creations by the Kandyan artists. The other is the collection by Soliyas Mendis seen in the new wing of the Temple. J.B also points out that in the Kelaniya paintings, the themes are much more varied than the ones normally seen in temples. Traditionally the temple paintings describe the life of the Buddha and depict Jataka Tales. In Kelaniya there are much more. 

The traditional Kandyan school paintings seen in the Old Hall of the Vihare have been categorised under six headings: Life of the Buddha, Buddha's visit to Kelaniya, 'Solosmasthana' (16 hallowed places in Sri Lanka visited by the Buddha), Jataka Tales, Buddhist beliefs and lineage of the Buddha. Deities popular among the Buddhists have also been included. J.B. has also picked up the traditional motifs commonly used along with the paintings and describe them in a meaningful way for the reader to get a better understanding of how they have been used.

Ranat 

Images out of sounds and settings

This exhibition held at the Paradise Road Galleries from January 11 -14, was provocatively titled Sounds of Nelum, and naturally, one wanted to know more about it.

The explanation given by Sue Pedley, the artist, makes sense; It's the sound of the ekel brooms the gardeners use in the beautiful Lunuganga garden at Bentota. It makes its own grainy music around the lotus pond every morning.

The sound and the setting have been an inspiration that produce images in her mind, many of which she has transposed most creatively on Vietnamese paper.

Her art is original and out of the ordinary, both in perception and interpretation. It has evolved from the earth and its rhythms and patterns is an amalgam of her own country's rich artistic heritage and her relationship with her present one-its community of people, their ways, their crafts and the materials with which they work.

The lotuses presented to her by the country folk, whose genuineness and friendliness she appreciates have given this artist the starting point for her Sri Lankan exhibit.

The patterns and nuances of daily life in Lunuganga have not only set her on her artistic journey of recording images on paper, but also motivated her with a whole orchestra of sound textures. These come from all parts of the garden, and it has been her delight to record them.

They will be edited and processed to form a background to the images for future exhibitions. Interesting too, were the blue prints (Cyanatypes), which use one of the oldest and most permanent of photo printing processes.

Sue points out that it works because of the sensitivity of the paper painted with a solution of Ferric Salts, to sunlight.

The exhibit featured cyanatypes of equal sized pieces of lotus stems forming a design, and lotuses from half open buds to full blown flowers, painted over with water colours.

Cyanatype, a nineteenth century technique was initially used as a means of copying intricate tables and charts and later architectural plans.

Sue has also used red acrylic wool to add colour and life to the brooms, the sound of which breathed new inspiration into her work.

Their brilliant red with mud from the lotus pond to give the handle a contrasting darkness, looked spectacular on the gallery walls. The wool has given them texture and shape.

Sue believes in the artistic strength of interacting with her surroundings in her work. Expression then is an act of the whole body, soul, strength, change of atmosphere and conceptualization.

Every exhibit was meticulously done, delicate, some of it lace- like especially the ones that displayed a weave, like rattan and its own circular patterns. She pays a tribute to nature, the beautiful environment in which she was placed, and processes like cyanatype.

She had used entrancing patterns of sunlight and shadow in the grouping of objects. She had projected the magic of the earthiness of the rare Lunuganga setting.

What pleasure there must be for this sort of artist when the moment of enlightenment greets her through the sun's probing eye, with its re-invention of an object. The artist in search of both the minutiae and the startling mysteries of every day life gratefully grasps what is hidden from the uninitiated. Then, something as commonplace as a sponge turns to a mass of white cloud in a cobalt sky.

Tasmanian born Sue Pedley is artist and lecturer, Insearch School of Design and Architecture, University of Technology. She has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Tasmanian School of Arts and a Post-Graduate diploma of fine art from Sydney College of the Arts. She has been a guest student at Stadelsctule, Frankfurt, Germany, and has a Master of Arts degree from the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales.

Up to now she has mounted some 23 exhibitions of her work in different parts of Australia, Germany, Vietnam and Sri Lanka. She has won many national and international awards, for her creativity.

Recently she exhibited a collaborative installation at the Canberra Art Space, exploring memory and family lineage. Among other notable exhibits was her participation in the Vietnamese Sculpture Symposium.

At Lunuganga she has found fulfilment in her out door work, discovering the rhythmic patterns of nature and every day life in the community around her.

Alfreda de Silva

Humour lights up informative book 

I have had the opportunity of reading this book again and again, each time with unbounded pleasure and profit in understanding affairs in the conduct of public administration in Sri Lanka. 

The book is a Memoir of V.L. Wirasinha's life during the years in which he served the Government of Ceylon/ Sri Lanka as an Officer of the Ceylon Civil Service and as Premanent Secretary.

The book is a fabric of several strands. The earliest is one of wit and humour beginning in the "Introduction" and continuing throughout the book. The writer says that an aunt of his was registered by the Registerar of Births as a male, to her own exasperation and the writer's own amusement, too gleefully expressed to keep him out of his aunt's displeasure.

This is follwed, in a later chapter, by an account of Lady Abrahams' calling him playfully an impertinet imp when he wished her husband, the Tiger ( her pet- name for him) sweet day- dreams as he apologetically discountinued the repairs to his car in a neighbouring grarage, which had disturbed the afternoon siesta of his Lordship.

The second strand is what is central to the book and provides its title, "No, Cousin, I'll to Fife", words spoken by Macduff to Ross in "Macbeth", affirming his resolve not to compromise his conscience by going to see Macbeth crowned, because he already suspected Macbeth of having killed the king, Duncan. Throughout the book the writer remains, as in life he did, steadfastly true to his convictions.

The third strand is closely knit to the second. It is one of anger. The writer is often an angry man, as he was in his book and in his life. What rouses him to anger, is want of intergrity, as in politicians who, having undertaken to promote Sri Lankan nationhood and democracy, betrayed the Donoughmore insights the moment the Comissioners' backs were turned, and went their several communal ways.

A fourth strand is that of the writer's brilliance as an administrator. He relates how he brought the Weights and Measures Administraion to dynamic activity from the torpor it was in by arranging for optimum disposition of Government motor vehicles available to Revenue Officers. He organised the Department for the Registration of Indian and Pakistani Residents from "Scratch", recruiting staff, devising forms in counsultation with the legal draftsman.

He presented well-thought-out proposals for giving up food rationing more than a decade before retioning was actually discontinued, but his proposals were unreasonably rejected. He presented proposals for the holding of the General Election to Parliament 1952 on a single day, which necessitated amendment of the electoral law to permit postal voting. Dilatoriness on the part of the Government in seeking legal amendment prevented fruition of the plan for 1952, but Wirasinha's proposals were accepted by a Parliamentary Committee, and passed into law, enabling postal voting at subsequent Elections. So were a number of other amendments proposed by Wirasinha, notably the Commissioner's independence from Ministerial control and direction.

Wirasinha was the first Commissioner of National Housing. The splendid achievement of the Department with notable contributions from staff and the public are recorded in the book

The fifth strand in the book is the writer's keen appreciation duly recorded, of help and support from various persons, relatives and friends, ministers superiors, colleagues staff and members of the public.

The book can be bought at the Lake House and Vijitha Yapa bookshops or direct from the author at 7, Chandralekha Mawatha, Borella. 

Little bit of this and that

By Prof. J.B. Disanayaka

this girl-the girl near me
that girl-the girl over there
Sinhala, on the other hand, divides space into four denoted by the following words:
me: this which is near the speaker
me: kella: the girl near me
me: pota: the book near me
oya:this which is near the listener
oya kella:the girl near you
oya pota: the book near you
ara: that which is away from both the speaker and listener and that which can be pointed at by the speaker's finger.
ara kella: the girl over there
ara pota:the book over there
e:that which is out of sight, that which we talked about earlier
e: kella: that girl whom we spoke about
e: pota that book we referred to earlier

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