For the last 25 years, danseuse Sharon Lowen was living in a barsati on the Barakhambha Road. But last December, she moved to a park-facing two-bedroom apartment in Jangpura Extension.
Since she is a self-confessed collector, the house reflects her collection of small and big artefacts, sculptures, jewellery, even wooden pillars and mementos from around the world. She says she doesn’t believe in the concept of designing a house. “When you are a collector, you can only think of a suitable place in your house to display your collection without worrying if it is in sync with the interiors,” she quips as she leads us to the balcony that has a Ganesh facing indoor, few other artefacts and a mosaic sculpture by Nek Chand.
Lowen says the Nek Chand’s sculpture in her balcony is the first gift from him after one of her initial performances in India. “I’m not acquisitive by nature but after getting this beautiful gudda, I looked forward to getting gifts from him,” she smiles.
She says that unlike her barsati where most of her collection was underplayed, this place offers room for better display. With more space available to her, she has got back things from her US home. “The things that I’ve got back are an interesting combination of those that I had taken back to the US from India in the late 70s, like Narendra Pratap and Santosh’s paintings, a portion of my Kutch embroidery collection, artefacts collected in Odisha and some inherited objects like chairs that have been in the family for many decades,” she says as she walks us around the home.
She shows us a table topped with a collection of badges collected during her school and college tours. Then, she takes us towards her bedroom adjoining which is a “family wall” with pictures of her, her daughter, her family and guru. The bedroom is decorated with an eclectic mix of objects — a Burmese bed, boxes bought from Nepal but with Madhubani paintings, her collection of puppets and masks displayed on the walls.
Her collection of Indonesian puppets were collected when she toured Indonesia in 1981. “When I told the delegates while performing that I’m a collector of puppets and masks, I got an immediate access to the finest puppeteers and mask-makers. I bought many but while I came to India, the puppets and masks were shipped to my US home. Most of the masks are still in America. However, I got the puppets to India,” she says.
Lowen distinctively remembers the stories and incidents associated with each piece that she owns. And she has found a solution to the problem of space crunch — she now buys smaller mementos.