Since the time I was a little girl – for as long as I can remember – I have found my serenity, joy, solace, meaning & spiritual quest nowhere else but in the continual honesty of nature.
And in one way or another, nature has saved me all my life.
As a little girl, I had to spend years away from my parents, making my childhood not so easy. I was lonely inside at a very tender age, but fortunately, I lived in a place where I was able to look at some great mountain peaks every day and wonder.
The yard around my home had big almond and mango trees that welcomed me to climb them and whom I considered my best friends and confidants. There were many flowering shrubs to seat curled up under, and enough chipmunks, parrots, bulbuls & mynas visited daily to keep me curious.
In the lap of this natural world, I felt fearless, protected, loved, and absolutely at home. Without realizing it, I had made a life-long bond with nature when I was less than ten years old.
While I have spent my childhood in India, as a grown up I have lived and traveled extensively in many places in Europe, as well as in America, where I am presently based.
But wherever I have been, I have felt the undeniable call of wild. Be it in the wilderness of forests and mountains or just standing still among the humble flora and fauna of my backyard, simply returning to nature, again and again, has remained my greatest source of intellectual stimulation and soul searching.
Whatever spark of goodness I gather from this endless source, find its way into one of my creative expressions – be it poetry, illustration, or articles.
My creative journey began—and has always been shaped—by looking at nature. I wrote poems about subjects like lions, birds and waterfalls when I was in elementary school. Later in life, I found the magic of nature photography. Eventually, the desire to express myself in a more raw, artistic way, compelled me to start illustrating, which evolved into surface pattern design.
Today, through both writing and art – I interpret the joy, wonder, and quiet wisdom present in the natural world. You can explore my artwork, at my design studio, pineconedream.com, and enjoy my nature writings here on gyaneshwaridave.com.
ABOUT PINECONEDREAM
When I thought to create an all-encompassing identity for all of my nature-inspired Writings & Art/Design, I wanted a simple yet powerful, and timeless symbol for nature that could speak of both her beauty and transcendence.
I first saw a Pinecone many years ago, on a beloved mountain. With that graceful geometrical design of spines spiraling in a Fibonacci sequence in both directions, I thought it was exquisite, and utterly fascinating. Pine trees are believed to be among the oldest plant species on earth and thus pinecones are rather ancient representatives of nature. Therefore, to me, it symbolized nature’s beauty, transcendence and creativity in a uniquely elegant and powerful, yet unassuming way . According to some age-old wisdom traditions, the dream about a pinecone is considered a divine omen – And, thus, I named my creative dream, well, a Pineconedream!
Pineconedream, that began as an umbrella identity for all my nature-inspired creative works, has since evolved into a boutique surface design studio. Through illustrating patterns, I aim to translate quiet moments of observing the natural world into art that lives gently within everyday spaces — sometimes whispering, and sometimes singing the reminders of a wild, precious, and often forgotten world beyond them.
