Chhaya Joshi, Alumnus (Class of 2014-15)
On the first day of the class I was enthusiastic and thrilled of course because I was passionate about arts and it was the first time I was venturing into it as a subject I would be examined on.
It was a phenomenal moment when I sat on the high stool and used the professional easel for the first time, sketched those beautiful yellow flowers in the bright sunlight near the basketball court sitting for hours on the green grass or sitting on stairs and sketching the palm leaves inside the school building.
There are people who can effortlessly sketch an object’s likeness, and people who struggle for hours just to get the angles and proportions right and our teacher told that it just takes ‘a lot of practice’ and ‘the right perspective’. By the end of the first span I had learnt how to stir my imagination and enthusiasm, to take risks and do what I was most afraid of doing, to widen my horizons and that being an artist is a full time job that demands all one’s efforts and concentration and my teacher made that easy for me to do.
Our teacher used the word ‘beautiful’ rather freely and that built up my faith in myself to expose the mini miracles in my paintings. I learnt how to see things through an artist’s eye – differently, and to represent not the outward appearance of things but their inner significance. It was a startling one year long exploration.
At the threshold of the next session in my continual learning I’ve realized that Art is all about metaphor. Art enables me to find myself and lose myself at the same time. It is a self-discovery and that I reflect who I am in my artwork. It washes away the dust of daily life off my soul. I enjoyed the captivating struggle for perfection throughout.
