I am a software consultant based around Mumbai, India — who grew up in a small town where the one goal of your life was to “get settled” with a nice, salaried job and a family. And that is what we — me and all my peers — worked towards. This job was preferably STEM or Finance related, because that (and only that) would supposedly get you money, a feather in your cap called ‘onsite’ (read: outside India) experience and respect from your peers. Anything else was a hobby at best and at worst, a distraction that would make you a failure at life. Any other career choices somehow implied a lack of intelligence, skill or ability. When I was a kid, I did fairly well in school in the expected subjects. But I also loved 'drawing class’. Yeah we didn’t call it art — it was drawing class, and I knew that drawing class was considered a not-that-important, essentially free period by, well, almost everyone including the teacher at the time. I don’t blame him — no one thought ‘drawing’ was anything that needed teaching or that it had any importance. It was just something you did if you liked to and some people just did it better than others.
So if ever during school, I uttered ‘I want to learn art!’, it was met with 'What? And waste your potential? (of learning something more socially respected by the middle class, duh). Why would you want to learn art? B.A is for people who can’t get into Engineering or Commerce!’. ‘Learning’ art was just something that didn’t occur to many people back then in that dusty city (as I call it fondly) — nor did it occur to my kid-self that there was anything more than learning to draw pretty stuff — I just wanted to do it because I enjoyed it so much. My naïve self didn’t know any better so I believed what they said was for my own good. To be fair, they were partially right. We’ll come back to this.
Consequently, most of my life I wasn’t aware that 'Artist' is an actual profession or skill that people pursue seriously. Or that art doesn’t just involve traditional paints but also used in illustration, design, teaching, advertising etc. They get jobs too! They don’t just sit around painting and smoking and drinking, like they show in the movies? Whaaaat? You guys are getting paid?
I had this realization when I moved to Mumbai for work and started dabbling in art again after YEARS of ignoring my desire to paint. Imagine my despair as it dawned on me just how much learning, experimenting, people, books, avenues, experiences, pathways and more that I had missed out on simply because I had grown up in a small town and my social circle had NO ONE in ANY creative profession, let alone any type of visual artist. For a long time I just pitied myself. “What would that Priyanka be like?” I often wondered. Maybe more confident, funnier and free? It was a kind of self-loathing I wish I didn’t indulge in, purely because it wasted time.
When I slowly got back into painting, I was also handling a hectic job. It left little time for me to dive into art as much as I would like to — which resulted in another round of Priyanka’s special self-pity-despair cycle. BUT — I was now able to explore and actually BUY things I wanted to paint with, thanks to this job. I could invest money in learning and practicing and even buying art! So it turns out people were partially right about ‘getting a job is good for you’ bit. That made me feel a bit better but it took a while to understand that the learning curve is going to be stretched over several years instead of well, ‘as soon as I want it to’.
So I had a slow burn, slow learn process in front of me. And I had already spent quite a few years of my youth with something totally NOT related to art. It made me pause long enough to wonder if I really want to go through this process if it’s not all fun and games. It was a firm ‘Yes’. I was so happy to have one thing where I didn’t have any doubts or fears and I didn’t have to consult anybody. If you really want to do something, the next question pops up is “Why?”
Well. ‘I want to’ is a valid reason, to be very honest.
BUT I wanted something that I could prop up as a goal. Its easy to turn ‘I want to’ to ‘I don’t want to anymore ’ when things get tough. So I asked myself why I should make art and keep making art, when it is by our capitalistic society’s standard, not ‘productive’ or ‘useful’ or ‘valuable’ in the monetary sense (If you don’t believe this ask artists how many times they are asked if they can do something for free or ‘for exposure’ or aren’t paid on time or people haggle with them for even the lowest of prices or plain old steal their concepts and paintings). I asked this because I had internalized the ‘productivity’ bullshit message very deeply. It took a while to get out of this mindset and I’m still getting out of that mental quicksand (and there’s a whole different write up it deserves) but I did come to a purpose that felt right.
Coming to the answer, I look at art as a source and conduit for joy, introspection, heritage, legacy, culture, perspective, skill, storytelling, emotions and experiences for humankind. I think when people create something that mean SOME thing to even one person — it is valuable. It’s like music, but for your eyes and hands. And it is underrated as hell.
I want people to look at art like that.
I want people to look at folk art and realize and be awestruck at how OLD some art forms are. And how much effort it takes to ensure the art form isn’t forgotten.
To at least TRY to observe the beauty of what someone created for more than the 1 second it takes to double tap a post and scroll past it.
I want people to know and understand that creating art is HARD WORK. It’s a skill. I want no freaking discussions on this, especially ‘my kid can do this’. No. Your kid cannot. Stop lying.
I want art and artists to not just survive, but thrive.
I want proper, more inclusive and reachable art education for people. I didn’t even know where and how to start studying and that makes me so mad.
I want to be that one ‘creative/artist’ person for my social circle who they can reach out to if they need any pointers, the kind of person I didn’t know or have when I was growing up.
I want to lay down my thoughts on paper or screen, in a way that makes people want to believe in all the above.
I want to be confident with my strokes and thoughts. To be skilled at it, to be precise. I want to create things of beauty and meaning.
All of this needs a lot of education, work, learning and unlearning and practice. But I’m willing to do it. The goal might seem quite unrealistic or too grand or over the top to many people. But 1) No one asked them 2) a woman can work and dream on it, right?
It’s fine. It’s worth it.
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