“Art with Heart” expressed itself recently in the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS, Mumbai) at the Centre of Lifelong Learning. Here, students of ages ranging from 25 to 75 are immersed in courses in gerontology, youth development and counselling. This thoroughly participative and enthusiastic group had already been through two days of dance and storytelling. Diversity in age and background made them a remarkable mix of talent, deeply supportive and empathetic towards one another. The ‘art with heart’ team had a series of sessions planned through the day, intending to share how value-based Visual Art can be used as a tool for community engagement and development: How we use art to connect with one self, with one another in the classroom, and with friends and strangers outside the classroom.
 

Sitting on the floor, surrounded by paper and soft pastels, they drew their life as a tree. Roots being their core values, the trunk their strengths and skills and the branches and leaves, temporary things which need to be evaluated and changed. They slowly opened up to the idea of getting their hands messy with colours and textures. They loved it. One friend reflected how he always bought his 4 yr-old daughter toys to play; henceforth he would be buying her art supplies and enjoying them with her.

The next exercise was to create and write a postcard which we will never send: Use it to express a concealed emotion to anyone you have been long needing to reach out to. Mixed emotions of tears and joy came up, some anger. Put it down on paper and let go. An exercise in pairs explored how we think the world sees us and how the world actually sees us- bringing to light the hard-judgements and criticism we often put ourselves through. This exercise succeeded in bringing the group closer together on realising how much we are actually appreciated by others. It bred joyful camaraderie which made us then flow easily into the last session- which was about beauty, gratitude and prayer.
  Three groups made a gratitude tree which was adorned with gratitude notes written by people all over the campus; invoking joy, some questions and confusion and streaks of scepticism, prayer flags which strung hand-written prayers to disperse into the wind- hoping to reach far corners of our world- and a spontaneous, beautiful Rangoli in our space created from found leaves, flowers and other innovative found-objects.
When you attempt to let go of skill and perfection in your Art, engaging with it to communicate what your heart speaks, it opens a new channel of personal expression. Our friends that day stepped back into childhood- doing things their minds had stopped them from doing since art class in school (when you are often told you are not good enough, creating a mental block against It forever)
The quote, “an artist is not a special kind of person, every person is a special kind of artist” was alluded to and also deeply believed, that day.

Anita’s thoughts in the closing circle encapsulated what inspires “art with heart”. She says, “I experienced a stillness within when I drew the Life tree, the wordless kinds...that I had never experienced before. Thank you for opening new horizons for us to admire or walk in to”

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Posted by Lahar Mehta on Oct 1, 2014 | permalink