Lord Krishna sent me to paint

Jadurani dasi: This is Brahmananda, who is Gargamuni’s brother, and Prabhupada made him the first temple president and his brother the first temple treasurer. That’s me getting up to dance now. Prabhupada had them pose for my first Lord Nrisinghadev painting. He had one of them be Hiranyakasipu and the other be Lord Nrsinghadev, and he put one on the other one’s lap and he showed them how they should pose for Lord Nrisinghadev to rip apart the demon Hiranyakasipu. Prabhupada also posed for the painting, making his eyes crossed and showing himself ripping the demon with his hands and showing long nails.

This painting on the window of Matchless Gifts is from a copy of a print that Prabhupada gave me of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s sankirtan party, His performing sankirtan at the courtyard of the house of Srivasa Thakur. Prabhupada pointed out who the different personalities in the painting are – that’s Mukunda and his sons, that’s Haridasa Thakur, and who the Panca Tattva members are. That was my very first painting that I did for Prabhupada, and it was so bad. Everything was out of proportion – the feet were gigantic and the heads were small and a hand was coming out someplace that wasn’t connected to the body. But Prabhupada was so encouraging that when he saw the painting…all the devotees would always gather around him. So he said to everybody, “Krishna has sent…” Lord Krishna sent me to paint. Even though it was so bad, he was so encouraging. On that day, he also invited me to come and paint up in his quarters. So for the next months I was painting there, and he would often come into the room, which was the room that he said bells, and give instructions about the paintings.