Why a 40-year-old art school does not give erasers to students

Dharap studied at the JJ School of Arts, Mumbai, and joined her father in 1985. The studio is open to children and adults. “Age is no bar, all you need is a love for art,” said Dharap.

Fondly called Suju Maushi by her students, Dharap has been teaching art at the studio for over 35 years and holds the philosophy that each individual has an innate artistic instinct. “I believe that as an art teacher, my role is to encourage the creative process in each individual to develop naturally and not be pressed into a particular system or curriculum,” she said.

Dharap traces this instinct back to the primitive human who began communication in pictorial form; she views art as a language, a medium of expression. Her fondness for children is what drew her to teaching art. “There is something genuine, spontaneous and true about children,” she added.

The pedagogy of Creative Club is rooted in instinctive responses of students to different mediums. Students dabble in drawing, painting, collages and clay modelling. However, Dharap has a rather unique teaching style. “We don’t give our students erasers because we believe that no idea should be erased; we want our students to be able to resolve their errors. Every line teaches you something,” explained Dharap.

The students are not given rulers either as Dharap attempts to shift art from a calculated and precisely measured process to one that is natural and free. Her method of teaching is one that aims to shape the form of thought instead of providing the content of thought; students are not taught what to think but how to think. “We never tell our students what to draw, or have them recreate a preexisting piece. Our role is to give them techniques and to teach them how to see, how to observe,” said Dharap. Instead of being limited by the rules and conventions of the world, students are encouraged to create unrecognisable figures, to express their thought as is.

Given the hands-on nature of the craft, Dharap was initially apprehensive about taking her art classes online but has made the shift to the digital medium. Creative Club has conducted an online workshop earlier this year on Impressionism, and has held a session for architecture students on ‘Line, Shape, Form and Colour’. They conduct their weekly kids’ batch, Satsun, virtually on the weekends and also have a weekly online session for adults.