Artist - Service Marathon

Ramesvara: In 1969, when starting the paintings for the Krishna book, during that time none of the books had paintings in them. They had painted the cover of Vishnu for Sri Ishopanisad, and the only other artwork that was going on for books were cartoon line drawings for Back to Godhead. The purpose of the painting department was to produce five paintings for every ISKCON center. Every temple needed the acharya paintings, then needed the Pancha-Tattva paintings, they needed Lord Chaitanya sankirtana paintings and they needed paintings of Radha-Krishna and the gopis. Prabhupada wanted all the temples to have those five paintings. Whoever had any art skill had been painting at their different temples, but when things became centralized in Boston the devotees who were inclined to paint were sent to Boston. They practiced painting these copies and these paintings were sent to the growing world of ISKCON temples, that’s twenty temples that had these paintings and that also times five. 

The artists that weren’t painting for the books produced approximately one hundred paintings that were shipped to temples all over the world. So that was their own marathon.