HYDERABAD: Sarted by Bankupalli Ganesh Shastry, Justart has two connotations — ‘Just start’ and ‘Just art’. “That is what we’re trying to do here. There are many people/children who actually have the skill and/or the interest but are too shy. This is an informal platform where all one needs to do is just start doing art,” says Ganesh Shastry. Justart conducts classes every Sunday at CDM for the children of the officers training there. These classes are conducted in two batches — for children below the age of 10 and those above. Shastry exercises their imagination by giving them storyboards to fill out, incomplete pictures, an alphabet to draw around or about and so on. In the class conducted on July 24, children were given a page filled with the alphabet T and were asked to draw figures around it, like an ice-candy. They were later taken outside the classroom, given a frame and asked to compose a picture from the things they could see around them. There were also given a 10-frame storyboard with the middle frame filled out instead of the first, which is usually the case. Explains Shastry, “This way, children are pushed outside the usual comfort space and are led to think more radically.” The 48-year-old who is a creative supervisor at J Walter Thompson (JWT) Mindset, an advertising agency, has been conducting classes of this sort for the past four years, around the time he started Justart. A graduate in Fine Arts from Jawaharlal Nehru Technology University (JNTU), Shastry has been with JWT since 2006. As a part of Justart, Shastry conducts classes for the government school children as he strongly believes that art should become a mainstream subject like math and sciences. “The boundaries that art explores are like none other. Some of the children’s imagination is just inspiring. They think so wildly and have not been conditioned to think othewise. So there is a lot of potential that is tapped into.” Also, art is an excellent form of communication that helps to connect with special children. Explains Shastry, whose wife, an instructor herself, deals with special children, “We were once approached by a parent of an autistic child. My wife took the restless ward under her wing who, we realised, loved drawing. In a few weeks time, we saw a sea of change. The child became more stable and patient. All we did was let art do the talking.” Thus, Justart has just started to make a difference in the lives of the children and others who come to their classes. Those interested in taking up classes may contact Ganesh Shastry on 9441254686.
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