Date of Award
Spring 5-22-2026
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts (MFA)
Department
Painting
First Advisor
Yasi Alipour
Second Advisor
Meena Hasan
Third Advisor
Dana DeGiulio
Abstract
Teach me How to Write a Love Song
I catch a glimpse of my mother sitting on her bed in her bedroom from the bathroom mirror. What a rare occurrence! One I am not fortunate enough to witness as often as I would like. A moment that I know —even before it has occurred—will one day become my dearest desire for wanting to turn back time. This moment is a mirage. Once I return to my senses, after the passing of a twelve-hour lag, it will already be too late.
This is the place where I wish to work from. A place that is a constant reminder of my love. Simultaneously, it is to be a container that holds all my anxieties relating to the systems, places, boundaries, powers, labels, wars, and despots that try their best to keep me and my love separated. I cannot think about this love without thinking about the hurdles that come between us. For a brief period of time, I fooled myself into believing that I could. I thought I could paint something as simple as a picture of my lover without the distance between our nationalities becoming the subject.
The container I choose for my love is the love song I wish I could write. The kind of song that is easy to sing and is perhaps in the key of E. Why? Because I like the key of E and it suits my voice. Like most popular love songs my song will be about an ambivalent love. A universal love masquerading for a very specific type of love. A love dedicated to a special someone or something. A simple song that is suspiciously easy, an earworm that you have to pace yourself from listening to on repeat too often because you wish to preserve the feeling of hearing it for the first time.
My love song will be dumb and sappy. Full of flawed aspirations that made me fantasise about America as a child. The same ones that brought me here and at one point told me that nothing around me was worth painting because real paintings were relegated to the books containing European vistas. All of this is now for love. For love is my only inheritance from the man who wore suspenders alongside his belt and till this day I do not know which accessory was the one holding up his pants.
Recommended Citation
Vasan, Ricky, "My Mother the Mountain" (2026). Masters Theses. 1648.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/1648
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