My Journey

I am Arpita, an artist exploring different mediums and styles with joy and serendipity. Many of you know me and many don’t, so let me introduce myself a bit. I have turned from my academic career to a creative one quite late to in life as a way to deal with a lot of emotional upheavals. Like most kids, I loved creating and could do it for hours at a stretch. I learnt a lot during my initial years, lessons that I still find valuable and keep using today. But somewhere along the way, academics took over and I took to teaching after completing my Masters. Teaching is something I loved and did with a lot of ease, eagerly finding unconventional interactive methods and finding joy in my students’ progress. With two baby pearls coming into my life, I started teaching myself motherhood (quite a complicated topic for another day) and stopped teaching professionally. Travelling the seven seas and my offspring growing up and having longer school hours left me more time at hand, when I started contemplating taking up art as a hobby again, something which I have always loved to do and can do for hours without any tiredness.

There will be some frustrating moments when you reconnect with your hobby after almost 30 years and can’t draw a free hand line. One of my school friends who is a wonderful artist and with whom I connected with after a long time was quite persistent that I pick up the skill and don’t let my talent go in waste (this meant a lot to me, as she was the only one who spoke out I even had this talent).

Pro tip: Keep those authentic friends close, they stand by you and show you the way when you are not at your best.

She kept insisting that I should start somewhere, to the extent that she shared her own paintings with me for practice. That amount of trust compelled me to join a local art class from an artist whose work I appreciated a lot. Just when the ball started rolling, I moved back to India, but I was not ready to stop. I enrolled myself in courses at the JJ School of Art and many others online. I was never tired when it came to creating art, but you tell me to do some chores and you should see my face.

Swatching colours is an important step to understand values

The pandemic made it easier to connect with many eminent artists across the globe and learn from them. As I interacted and learned heaps everyday, one thing became clear. Everyone has different approaches for the same topic, and it doesn’t make one right or wrong. This, for me, was one of the fundamental teachings of my journey and my artistic outlook even today. Being open to new ideas helped me explore new mediums and experiment a lot that nurtured my soul and creative skills.

Welcome into my creative space and I hope it inspires you to create something for yourself first. Let’s start this journey of mindfully creating, living in each moment in this beautiful chaotic world together. I’m looking forward to embarking on a new creative journey with you, my lovely audience, on this blog.

Much love,

Arpita