Retirement gave John Bosco Mary what 34 years of service as a Mathematics teacher and headmistress in Government schools couldn’t: the leisure to finally develop the talent for drawing and painting that had lain hidden behind the everyday concerns of balancing a family and a career.
“I used to draw from a very young age. But my father didn’t encourage me to take up art classes because in those days, girls weren’t sent out of the house unnecessarily. And the fine arts weren’t given much importance then, just formal school education,” says Mrs Mary, who retired as the headmistress of Government High School, Rachandar Tirumalai in Karur in 2003.
Born in a hamlet near Velankanni on September 12, 1944 as the eldest of five children, Mary got her unusual name in memory of Saint John (also known as Don) Bosco, the Italian Roman Catholic priest, educator and writer of the 19th century.
Her father S Soosai Kannu, taught Tamil at the Roman Catholic Higher Secondary School, in Tiruchi. He was, Mrs Mary remembers, a strict disciplinarian.
“I didn’t have the courage to draw in his presence. But in my free time, I would always be lost in my paintings, for hours together. Maybe if I had got some encouragement, my life may have taken a different path,” she says.
Early talent
Her father may have disapproved, but there were others who recognised her talent, says Mrs Mary. As a student of St Philomena Higher Secondary School, Tiruchi in the 1950s and ’60s, she excelled in Mathematics. But it was her drawing notebook that would invariably be shown around to senior pupils. “My Art teacher was used to take my sketches to the higher classes, to scold the older students into putting some effort in their work,” she says with a chuckle.
After gaining a Bachelors degree in Mathematics from the Holy Cross College, Tiruchi, the young Mary did her B.Ed at the Stella Matutina College of Education in Mylapore, Madras in the late-1960s.
“These portraits were displayed there on the noticeboard,” says Mrs Mary as she shows us a selection of pencil drawings of famous film personalities of the day. “I would take any picture in the newspaper, and then enlarge it using squares as a template,” she says. Drawn with just a basic HB pencil on standard school-issue 2-anna sketchbooks, the portraits of actresses K R Vijaya, Saroja Devi and former Chief Minister M G Ramachandran, among others, have a luminosity that shines through even today.
Tryst with oil
Her first brush with formal art training was in response to an advertisement for classes in Thanjavur painting. But while she attended the course for 15 days, she found the traditional art difficult to practice without assistance. “So I dropped Thanjavur painting, but returned to the master with my watercolour paintings and asked him for advice.”
The master suggested she should switch over to oil painting, as her samples showed her fine eye for colour and composition.
“I was totally ignorant about oil painting, but my teacher set my doubts to rest and gifted me a couple of brushes, some linseed oil and paints. My task was to redraw the picture of a flower.”
Pleased with the result of the test, the teacher asked her to perfect her nascent skill with continuous practice. “So I started out by redrawing pictures done by famous artists like Raja Ravi Varma, M F Husain and (Iranian artist) Iman Maleki. Unlike watercolours, oil paintings take time to create. I found that while the picture could emerge in a matter of days, the real depth comes from adding layers of paint, for over three weeks. These master painters and their paintings were my real teachers,” says Mrs Mary.
Towards perfection
She has no studio, and tends to work late into the night in different nooks of her home in Crawford, whose walls are decorated with her work.
“I can’t sleep if I make a mistake in the painting,” she says. “Sometimes, I get up mid-way to doodle a bit and then go back to bed. It’s an obsession to get it right.”
Her early talent for portraiture has developed into a style that echoes Hyperrealism: a method of painting that makes pictures assume the quality of a high-resolution photograph.
“My first portrait in this style was of Mother Teresa,” says Mrs Mary, who recently showcased it in an art exhibition in the city. “Finding the pastel shades to convey her pale skin tone was the toughest part, but otherwise I’m glad it came out well.”
In another of her ‘Notable Women’ series, actress Aishwarya Rai’s glossy tresses are the highlight of the realistic portrait.
“I usually start a painting when I’m challenged by my sons to recreate a particular effect,” says Mrs Mary. “I did Raja Ravi Varma’s Kadambari chiefly because my son wanted to see if I could get the shine and folds of the subject’s silk sari realistically. It’s not the same as that of the great artist, but I’m happy with the result,” she adds.
Grateful for the support of her spouse, former professor and singer P Peter Natesan, Mrs Mary hopes one day to create her own original works. “I’m still learning,” says the 73-year-old, “there’s so much more to know about Art.”
Resource :http://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/art/painting-her-passion/article23334590.ece
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