What artists’ childhoods can tell us

From ‘Meera Mukherjee: Breaking Moulds’, published by Art1st and the KNMA.
From ‘Meera Mukherjee: Breaking Moulds’, published by Art1st and the KNMA.

Summary

Children might be able to relate to artists better if they know about their growing-up years

In the 2023 book, Meera Mukherjee: Breaking Moulds, there is a lovely anecdote about how the late sculptor’s tryst with art started. “It all began at the chaukhat of their home in Calcutta. Meera sat with her Maa to decorate the doorway with alponas while the rest of the house was bustling with the celebrations of Laxmi Pujo," writes author Vaishali Shroff in this book from Art1st Book’s Art Exploration series meant for kids aged eight-plus, illustrated beautifully by Shivam Choudhary. To Mukherjee, her mother’s designs represented something fantastical— how simple rice paste took the form of exquisite shapes. And thus began her lifelong preoccupation with creating sculptures out of simple materials.

It might be tough to imagine artists—modern or contemporary—as children. Did you know that S.H. Raza struggled with concentration while growing up in the town of Barbaria, Madhya Pradesh? What were the memories from Ganesh Pyne’s childhood that inspired his exaggerated, often dark, lurking creatures later in life? Children might have heard of these artists and know of their legacies, but more often than not, they view these personalities from a distance. But if they knew of the roller-coaster ride of unfettered freedom, inspiration, exasperation, loss and grief that these artists went through as kids, they might be able to relate to them better. And even more, they may come to realise that artistic expression need not be about finding perfection of form or technique, but ought to be a reflection of one’s true voice.

Today, publishers, galleries and institutions such as Akar Prakar, the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art and Emami Art are trying to create awareness about artists’ childhoods, a facet that was earlier left largely undocumented—sad, really, as the tapestries of their growing up years are just as vibrant and insightful as their later practices. I have seen kids, as young as five and six, all ears at Art Room, a collaborative studio space in Gurugram, as facilitators talk about moments of mischief and adventure that some of the leading artists of the world indulged in as children.

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Books such as Raza’s Bindu, Ambadas’s Dancing Brush and Ganesh Pyne’s Twilight Dreams from the Art Exploration series by Art1st—an organisation that seeks to strengthen visual literacy among children and educators—have helped preteens like my daughter and her friends develop greater empathy towards events such as Partition and the Bengal famine, which hugely impacted lives of artists like Somnath Hore. These have led kids, aged seven-plus, to form associations with the uncertainty of that time, and the resulting migration, with the events that unfolded during the covid-19 pandemic. A friend’s daughter, Myra Rastogi, an 11-year-old from the National Capital Region, shared recently about how sketching had a calming effect when her mother was in isolation during the pandemic.

Often parents might feel that dark works, populated with emaciated skeletal bodies, as seen in the art of Pyne and Hore, might leave kids scarred. However, children have greater resilience and understanding of the many forms that grief can take. This might prompt some of them, like Rastogi, to seek succour in art.

Ganesh Pyne’s Twilight Dreams, authored by Shroff and illustrated by Priya Kuriyan, reflects on art as an outlet for feelings of loss. The book looks at the images that would populate the artist’s mind after listening to stories from his thakurma or grandmother. “I was four when I got a new box of crayons. I couldn’t resist the urge to draw on a wall. It made me feel ecstatic. I drew everywhere," states the book. But everything changed when Pyne turned nine and witnessed gory scenes from the Partition. He lost his father soon after and his mind was filled with darkness. “Years went by and my only anchor snapped. Thakurma left too, to be in the same place as Baba," reads the book. “But her stories stayed with me. There were images in my mind that screamed for help. They begged to be let out." And suddenly the dam of feelings burst, and just like his childhood, he began to scribble everywhere. “My images were free. I finally saw beauty in all the sadness inside me," it further states.

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From 'Ganesh Pyne’s Twilight Dreams', authored by Vaishali Shroff and illustrated by Priya Kuriyan. Image: courtesy Art1st Books
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From 'Ganesh Pyne’s Twilight Dreams', authored by Vaishali Shroff and illustrated by Priya Kuriyan. Image: courtesy Art1st Books

Some of these stories also bring to the fore the serendipitous nature of life—of not knowing who or what might trigger that spark within. So, maybe, it might help children to step away from the screen for sometime and pay attention to sights, sounds and people around them. Contemporary visual artist Sameer Kulavoor, whose practice emerges from a way of decoding his surroundings, found that early inspiration in a neighbour, Sujaya Bangera, an art educator, during his childhood in Mumbai. He would often march into her home and browse through her sketchbook. “This was around 1989-90, and she used to teach at Children’s Academy, Kandivali. I remember going completely crazy looking at her sketchbook— how was it possible for someone to paint and draw like this. She used to experiment a lot too. In one instance, she had woven human hair into the artwork. She moved to another place after a year-and-a-half, but left me her diary and urged me to draw in it," reminisces Kulavoor. Though it didn’t feel momentous at that time, the interaction contributed a great deal to his journey into art.

It was while watching his father at work as a child that performance artist Debashish Paul decided on becoming an artist too. In an earlier conversation, Richa Agarwal, CEO, Emami Art, Kolkata reflected on the story of this young queer artist, who questions notions of identity in a society dominated by heterosexual norms. Paul, who hails from a family of kumhars, or potters, would see his father fashion toys out of simple clay in a village in Bengal. That got him interested in sculpture from a very young age, and today his multidisciplinary practice is deeply rooted in this art form.

Likla Lall, who has authored books like Somnath Hore: Wounds and runs PanicNot!,a collaborative storytelling community and collective, feels that such stories could be the start of art exploration for young people. “Conversations around artists are usually seen as the realm of adults. Strange, really, when children are natural artists. Even before verbal expression, they take to visual expression. So, when a young mind reads about another young mind, it leaves an impression," she adds. Take the story of Gond master Jangarh Singh Shyam, who was always creative at heart. Be it an occasion or a festival, if something artistic needed to be done, he was the child to call. There was no pressure on him about what he needed to do or not do. There was complete freedom to wander to the riverside, pick up clay and make something out of it. “This story is important for both children and their families. Creativity takes on a quality of its own when kids are not told that the face has to look a certain way, the line has to be drawn this way. Technique and form are found through exploration and learning," she says.

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A lot of stories of artists’ early years are about learning to find comfort in uncertainty—something that children struggle with these days, with changing social, familial and political structures. Take the instance of Mumbai-based Aditi Singh, who is known for her meditative paintings. Hailing from a family of achievers—from economists to political scientists—she was expected to follow suit. As a scholarship student of economics and political science in the US, she came across Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to Young Poet, musings on solitude, humanity, gender, and even the natural world, which was life-changing in a way. As a 17-year-old, the book made her think deeply on courage, and finding solace even when things weren’t all figured out. This one quote by Rilke still resonates with her: “We must accept our reality in all its immensity. Everything, even the unheard of, must be possible within it. This is, in the end, the only courage required of us: the courage to meet what is strangest and most awesome."

“I’ve always been more comfortable with the unknown and art seemed like a manifestation of that. That’s how painting became my life’s practice and not just a profession," says Singh. When children hear or read such anecdotes, they begin to think of art not just as an end result but as a process of healing, of a way out of the curveballs that life throws at you.

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