How two girls turned their homemaker mum into a kolam star on social media
Mangalam Srinivasan's Facebook page My Mom’s Art Gallery showcases her kolam designs and has gained her a fan following across the world.
She's winning hearts with her kolam, the traditional South Indian art of drawing rangoli. Mangalam Srinivasan, 51, is an online star these days with her Facebook page that showcases her kolam designs made of chalk powder/chalk/rice flour/rock powder during festivals and at auspicious occasions.
Hailing from Srirangam, Trichy, Tamil Nadu, Mangalam's Facebook page has 95,000 likes as of now. My Mom’s Art Gallery was created by her two daughters, Bhargavi and Aishwarya, in 2013. People from Malaysia, Dubai, US, and Europe are already a big fan of her art and are sending her friend requests to know more about her unique talent.
Mangalam makes kolam from rice flour and rangoli powder. Her kolam art ranges from a few inches to 11 feet in size. The largest kolam she made was of Lord Shiva (11 feet). A day after the demise of the late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, she drew her in kolam on the December 6 morning. She usually takes around 1-12 hours to work on a design; sometimes it's more than that. It all depends upon the final image of the art she wants to make, reports the Mums of Stories.
Mangalam learned the art of kolam from her mother during her childhood. She got an opportunity to learn Tanjore panting through the government of Tamil Nadu. On most days, her art was limited to her family and children. But her daughters decided to start a Facebook page to take her art to a wider audience.
Mangalam, who graduated at age of 20, got married to SV Srinivasan, now the General Manager at BHEL. Her husband shoots the entire kolam making procedure and uploads them on YouTube as mini tutorials. Both her daughters are married and now living with her.
Mangalam says that she often finds it tough to get the correct shade of the gold zari in the powder for her kolams, in an interview with The Better India. Over the years after several Tanjore painting-type designs, she has mastered the art of turning powder to the shade of gold - with a mix of lemon yellow, ochre (a form of clay), orange, and dark red.
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