2025 has been an intense year in many ways..

Usually the year end post is about the Projects and Gratitudes for all who supported the work. This time, as the nature of project shifts to ‘personal collaborations’, instead of volunteer group work, I get a chance to review my personal and others’ Art practice, its applications, observations, and feel Gratitude for the valuable Art experiences this year has presented.

This post is a tribute to those experiences and also might serve as a record to help support our Creative Inquiry project.

Sequence

- My own Art practice

- Prep for Art workshops

- Meeting Senior Professors

- Co-curating Water exhibit

- Artists i met

- Creative fun with family kids

- Observing kids' creativity

- Cards

Exploring the Color and form of Amaryllis

My own Art practice and applications

My year began by playing around with various mediums and materials.

Within the first 2 weeks there were sketchings, digital snowscapes (dedicated to California fires), paper collages, and finishing my experiments with natural paper dyeing. The natural dyeing was the most tedious of all but also an exciting experience!

By then the Amerillys started blooming. The RED was striking, and for the next couple weeks, i saw myself capturing it, trying hands on watercolors, gauche, digital scribbles and photography. While rendering there felt a connection to the Flower, the plant but most of all the Color- shades of vermillion + crimson and tones of maroon at the center with delicate highlights of chrome yellow

Colors affect us more than we realise? Or maybe we undervalue its presence in our bio-chemical/ psychological well-being?

Prep for Art Workshops

Mid-Jan hosted the first Art play date encouraging kids entries for the upcoming Asia Water exhibition in Spring.

There is something divine in watching kids draw, create. The emotions and thoughts translate unfiltered into spontaneous lines and forms!

Later in Jan, we were also working on handmade cards for Lunar New Year and Valentine's day, at home and at 4-H club meetings.. It was fun creating together with some music and chats and laughs!

Simple Handmade cards are a great way of inviting creativity into daily life and sharing that good jolly energy through those cards!

By early February preparations began for the upcoming Watercolor workshops that were to be co-hosted at AACC (Asian American Cultural Center.) While creating samples, I realised my style of seeing landscapes as forms, lines, colors, had not faded yet. But further work on that had to be kept for some other time, these samples were to support the purpose of workshops- Wellness through Art Expression and cultural, emotional links to our lands.

During workshops, was the same delightful experience watching the students create, this time with watercolors. Preparing the space, laying out the materials, setting up A/V links was part of that delight too!

Meeting Senior Professors

In Feb I had one of the most touching experiences of the year - visiting Dr Tam Wei. Her space was aesthetically charged! At 99 she was maintaining her space so beautifully and remembered the stories related to her books and furniture and Artworks. It is an honor to have met her, I continue to be inspired by her life and her work. Thanks to Nada for bringing us together!

Similarly at the start of March, I met Govindjee and Rajniji, the science couple 90+ years young! Talks with them added to my Awe about the process of Photosynthesis.Their enthusiasm and energetic lifestyle at that age was impressive but most inspiring was their work in the field of Photosynthesis. Govindjee is still active in publishing works in his field. Rajniji who was a pioneer women in science in her times, still reads and discusses books from various fields of her interest. My creative Inquiry will be driven by inspiration from them including my friend, Suči who graciously introduced us!

We are privileged to be in this small but enriching UIUC towns full of so many interesting personalities!

C0-Curate Water exhibit

In April came the 'Waters of Asia' collaborative exhibit at the AACC. I have enjoyed curating exhibits in their space, this time it was nice experience with help from AACC staff. Many Thanks to Amy Breslin for her cooperation and help throughout the process of prep, put up, pull down of this exhibit.

The Exhibit included entries from Art Workshops, entries from around campus , Ascend Art360 collaborative community mobile. The most important though for me, were the entries related to senior dignitaries 90+ years i had met earlier. Some more info about the exhibit on this page.

Meeting other Artists

April also brought some valuable Art experiences. With the Boneyard Art fest, it always is! I feel fortunate to be in a place that represents the fine quality of Art and Artists!

Thankful for the display

My friend and a fine Fabric Artist, Mohan Tracy invited me to be part of their OLLI Art venue.. I am much Thankful to Mohan Tracy and Charles Wisseman for this chance to exhibit with them and meet other artists. my display revolved around the process of my Art around leaves. It included paper mache, sketches, art with pressed leaves.

Mohan Tracy has been inspiring me as a Fabric Artist. With her refined skill and creative ideas, she has taken the Fabric Art to a new level! Last year, her ‘Circles’ spoke to me. This time she had geometric designs with a surprise factor.

Charles Wisseman.always bring in novel works using various types of materials. He continues to astonish us with his new experiments and huge body of creative works. This time his grand vertical standing piece was quite interesting.

There were several other artists whose art spoke to me. Maybe another post dedicated for that later!

Other venues

It had been a serendipitous year on several occasions.

Met an artist whom I had heard about hadn’t met till at the venue. She spoke about her display at another space called M2. The exhibits were nice but what touched me most was the contemporary space.

Some more venues and exhibits (pictures below) that I enjoyed as an Art lover.

We are fortunate to be surrounded by vibrant Art environment around! A big Thanks goes to 40 north for organising this big event that celebrates Arts of all genres. Also taking this chance to share my experience with them when I overlooked the mistakes in a write up several times, yet the staff was patient and kept making corrections 3 times without any word of complaint. Thank you!

Work soon started for taking part in the Sustainapalooza event. It was hosted by SECS (students for environmental concerns) to celebrate Earthday. Instead of a table we choose to just make a display with links for interested members to contact.

It’s impressive to see the next gen putting efforts for larger causes then just academics or professional developments.

Family time for creative fun!

The events were finished just in time to receive our family with twins 9 years of age. I could not do much art but enjoyed watching the kids create! We had fun with art gardening crafting creating stories and just chatting together!

Soon it was time to pull down the Exhibit.

Before which we could help Dr Wei to visit the exhibit! Her enthusiasm and energy made the exhibit even more livelier in my memory!

Many thanks to the director of AACC, David Chih and manager, Flordemina for receiving Dr Wei and taking her around to learn about the centre.

Around the same time in May, it was enriching experience to be part of the Asia exhibit focused group discussions at Spurlock museum. Big Thankyou to Beth Watkins and Ummeta Sadarangani for including me in this panel discussion!

While at Spurlock museum it was nice to visit the Kogei exhibit. It was interesting!

May was somehow active month on Art front.

I got to attend the spring concert of my favorite dance school, the Urbana fine arts lead by an artist who is my favorite dance teacher too!

I was going through some self reflections and after a long time made a self portrait. It’s a way of looking deep within myself. A short pause to self reflect goes a long way?!

The Spring exhibit was over by now but I was continuing to gather links related to Water and Leaves.

Feel thankful for a new friend, Nina Kshetry, who shared a meaningful book on ancient wisdom on Water. Our discussions feel incomplete but the book was a good stimuli! Thanks to Sowmya Anand for introducing us.

As we continued to create play chat with the sweet family twins, it would like to include the mention of my niece who shows a sparkle for possibly a great artist in making! She has immense interest in learning new things and the smartness to ask intelligent questions. It was another instance of feeling fortunate for the time spent together.

For summer outdoor activities grew. Though no art creation, savouring the beauty in nature felt equally pleasing.

Thought occasionally we would make some scribbles and sketches.

Meeting with Dr Wei continued to bring profound experience and inspirations

So also with Mrs Thiele who tirelessly helped the 4-H young members to finish their sewing projects for the Exhibit and judging in early July. Thanks to Mrs Thiele for help and being an inspiring leader.

After our family guest left, my sketching and drills resumed. The prairie in bloom was my fertile ground for study.

The summer vacation saw us fiddling with various mediums for working on household hobby projects. It was lighter way of including Arts in our daily lives.

End of July was the closing event for ‘Around the Block’ exhibit at Giertz gallery Parkland college campus. A bust sculpture enticed me the most! This gallery has been bringing in some interesting exhibits to the community! Their educational approach to hosting artist talks and discussions enhances understanding for Arts that too with free entry for the public.

In August I unexpectedly got a paid job for helping with after school kids. It’s been a period of new learning are schedules, new community to be with, a more fun and interesting and intelligent one at that with smart kids around. My Art projects took a back burner but Art and creativity was very much present in everyday experience! Again I felt fortunate for being placed in such a charged up space with very supportive community to work with!

Though so much goodness happened in 2025 it was also a challenge to face myself, realising I might have yo work on refining myself on all levels. Luck happens but work and integrity is an earning of different nature that one needs to be consistent with in whatever one does. I hope to be consistent moving into 2026 while thanking 2025.

Art experiences of 2025

What is an Environment