April 15, 2019
The magic of touching brush to canvas is something Sanya
Hameed had never thought she would ever experience as a visually
impaired person.
“I lost my vision when I was about seven years old and until then I had
never painted”, says Hameed, who is based in Hyderabad. “After I went
blind, I gave up on the idea completely. I didn’t think painting was meant
for people like me”.
So, when Hameed heard about a day-long painting workshop on the theme of
landscapes at the L V Prasad Eye Institute (LVPEI), she was
astonished. “Painting for visually impaired? Impossible, I thought.”
Sanya overcame that skepticism and signed up with a friend. The experience,
she says, was mind blowing.
“I had heard of creative people, but I never thought it could be me”, she
says the wonder evident in her voice nearly a year after she attended the
workshop. “I painted a landscape using tactile materials like a glue gun to
form mountains and trees. Just holding the brush and exploring with it felt
amazing, I didn’t even know there were different types of brushes!”
Bringing this experience alive in such rich and varied ways is the initiative
Anybody Can Paint the brainchild of Sameer and Harsha
Nagi. An avid painter in his spare time, Sameer and his wife decided
to give up their corporate careers to focus on helping people discover the
therapeutic side of art.
Sameer was always looking to give back to society, not just exhibit his
work but also decode the art of painting, while I wanted to leverage my
skills to do something creative, fun and insightful. We did a pilot where
we asked people to create art in 90 minutes as an exercise to help them
overcome self-limiting beliefs. We wanted to make people question those
beliefs and realize that given the right training, Anybody Can Paint. –
Harsha Nagi, Co-founder, Anybody Can Paint
After several corporate workshops, they decided to connect with the LVPI to
conduct a session with visually impaired people on a trial basis. “The aim
was to think out of the box and leverage some basic skills of empathy”,
says Harsha. ‘We realized that we can create an interesting twist to the
process and ideate on the canvas itself.”
This led to some interesting processes like using glue to create a surface on
canvas and using props to evoke a 3-D experience. The experiments have led to
some pretty amazing experiences.
“One such experiment done in the same week involved a group of techies from
Microsoft who created a certain painting and the same was created later by a
group of visually impaired girls from a school”, recalls Harsha. “It was
quite mind blowing how the girls listened to the instructions and logically
followed the process”.
These experiences have encouraged the Nagis to conduct such inclusive
workshops in partnership with government schools. “Apart from acrylic
colours, we use tactile materials like hot guns, thread, thermacol, etc. It
all depends on what the painting is about and which tactile form would suit
it best.”
The workshops have given T V Aishwarya, a late blind person,
the confidence to pick up the brush again. Unlike Sanya, Aishwarya was an
accomplished painter before she lost her vision at the age of 19. “I had
given up on the idea of painting and thought I would never be able to paint
again. After I met Sameer and Harsha, I understood I can still hold the brush
and start painting once again. They got me back to painting and a thank you
is just not enough.”
Aishwarya loves the little details that go into making the workshops such
enriching experiences. “Sameer and Harsha gave us an overview about the
colours and the meanings, even using fragrances for each colour, like lemon
for yellow, rose for red, etc.”
For both Sanya and Aishwarya, the workshops have opened doors to worlds they
never imagined, at the same time enabling and empowering them. “I feel
there is nothing in the world that visually impaired cannot do”, says
Sanya. “It has made me feel creative and independent”.
ALSO READ:Aishwarya, the self-taught blind painter, creates tactile works
that everyone can enjoy
Source: https://newzhook.com/story/21971
