Strokes of Faith

KOCHI: The smell of linseed oil pervades the air. Children splash colours on a page, blissfully unaware that their pink is the world’s red. Young adults coax their palettes to bless them with the perfect shade of crimson. And a nun in white watches over them as her ‘guardian angel’ self moves from picture to picture to lend that perfect touch.“I have always wanted to partake in God’s act of creation for that according to me is the greatest blessing”, says Sr Liguori CSN, as she sits at the Nazareth School of Arts, surrounded by numerous canvases that tell colourful tales. As someone who combined her love for art and her devotion to the creator in her paintings, Sr Liguori is a testimony to a generation that believes in passing on the legacy of art as it blesses both - the teacher and the student.As an institution begun in 1981, the Nazareth School of Arts has seen over 5000 students walk through its corridors and the tradition of faith and love endures to this day. Sr Liguori is one of the pioneers of the art movement who has been wielding the brush since 1984 and sharing lessons of love, laughter and myriad hues. Mornings find Sr Liguori hounded by a bunch of exuberant children as they want to hear what their teacher thinks of their latest masterpiece. “It is a bit difficult to teach young students as they don’t understand the intricate nuances of mixing colours or the different strokes. It is a struggle to get them to paint inside the picture as most believe the entire page is their playground,” she laughs. But it goes without saying that no one leaves the art school with a bad picture. On a serious note, she adds that parents no longer consider art as a passing means to kill time during vacations. Sister maintains that parents, today, are increasingly feeling the need to be present even in the little moments of children’s lives. And a picture painted by their little one goes a long way in adding joy to the bare walls of a house. In fact, art makes a house complete - it becomes a home, she dwells.Mention art and the artist in sister rises to the fore and her face lights up like no other. Talking of her profession, she shares, “Art is a divine calling. It is an instinct and the minute you act upon it, you will know that it was your destiny. And when I say art is sacred, I don’t sell my paintings or take orders. It is merely a way for me to share the goodness of a practice that I’m sure will only bring more meaning to life.”And with that, the clock strikes twelve, a church bell resounds and the sound of chairs being pushed back echoes in the room, almost as if validating the very essence of art. Silence falls and in that couple of minutes, everyone at the school thanks the heavens for having enabled them to paint moments frozen in time.Sr Liguori celebrates the relationship between the artist and his/her canvas as a fulfilling one. “When you paint, you hold the future of a picture in your hands. And in due course of time, you come to love it as your own and it becomes much more than a picture. You erase the blemishes and you toil away to give it your best,” she says with a twinkle in her eye.Referring to her students, sister says that many of them have taken up art as a means of livelihood as she stresses the therapeutic use of art with pregnant women. And the art school, she says with pride, has become a preferred destination solely by word of mouth.As sister rises from her seat to help a student mix the perfect shade of blue, I’m left thinking, “the earth without art is just eh.”