MYSORE: Here is a lady who creates wonders out of sea shells and conches. Y Jayamma, 74, is an artist who breathes life into the shells and has created about 68 creations using different kinds of sea shells and conches of various sizes. A week ago, she completed a model of Lord Narasimha which is 39 inches tall and will be formally inaugurated next month. Presently, she is working on a replica of the famous playback singer Yesudas. She wants to invite him to Mysore and give him a replica of Goddess Kollur Mookambika. Apart from this, she is working on a model of Lord Ranganathaswamy of Srirangapatna and Goddess Kalikadevi of Sirsangi Kalika Temple near Hubli. She has made models of former President Dr A P J Abdul Kalam with a missile and the national emblem in the background; images of Chamundeshwari, Hanuman, Lakshmi; episodes from epics of Ramayana, Mahabharata and Srimad Bhagavatham, and several others. She has created buttons, teeth and tongues for her creations all out of shells and has pasted it using adhesives. Having worked as a teacher, after her retirement, she had invested lakhs of rupees from her pension fund into these creations. She purchases the shells from far-off places like Rameshwaram, Kanyakumari, Mangalore during visits there. Her residence on Irwin Road, Mysore, has been named the ‘Jaya Sea Shell Art Centre and Museum’. Jayamma learnt the art by herself and now creates models almost 70 feet tall. Hailing from an artist’s family, she is the grand-daughter of noted sculptors late T Yalakkachar and uncle Padmashri S N Swamy. She has planned to donate all her art works to Dharmasthala Dharmadhikari Dr Veerendra Heggade, as, in her own admission, there isn’t a single art gallery in Mysore to take care of artists’ exquisite works. “There is a desperate need for art galleries in Mysore,” Jayamma avers.
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