Session 1: Mentor’s Journey (Part 1)
This was an intimate conversation session, where Jagmohan Bangani, (the mentor) shared his personal journey of growing up in a remote village in Uttarkashi, narrating stories around the challenges he faced while pursuing education. He also mentioned various balancing acts that were essential in moving from one goal post to another. His experiences resonated well with the participants and there was an immediate connect since each fellow could relate to one or the other dimension of his own state.
The narrative highlighted how his lifelong pursuit of art was never easy. It was rife with obstacles and challenges in getting education, overcoming family expectations and pushing himself to move forward towards fulfilling his passion for art, one step at a time, without losing hope. From early childhood, he found joy in sketching, learned photography, and even began doing small, odd jobs like writing slogans on wall, painting banners or cover designs to support himself. Later these skills helped him not only to retain some financial independence when he moved from the village, to town, to other cities in securing education but also provided consistency in his connect with the art itself.
At this point, the sharing became a bit intense. So, a break was provided for the participants to be with their thoughts and if need be, they can share among themselves, the relevance of what they heard and how it resonated within their own personal lives.
After the break, Jagmohan continued sharing his experiences in Delhi, where he found himself entering the world of Art. One takeaway from his story was his intense drive to learn, that time, he often spent hours sketching at railway stations and bus stands, sometimes creating up to 150 sketches in a single night. His routines suggested that dedication and hard work are required to master skills and once one is comfortable, one can extend, explore and achieve perfection in their craft.
Session 2: Art Journey (Part 1)
In this technical session, Jagmohan Bangani presented a slideshow depicting his evolution as an Artist. Using pictures from each year, the presentation brilliantly depicted shifts in his art works overtime, from his early days of sketching, figurative works, and portraits to more complex works between 2001 and 2005. The participants could see how he grew as an artist, how his personal exposure to readings, other artist’s work, his own mental states, and struggles influenced him and could see its reflection in his Art.
He also drew the attention of participants to the possible conflicts within the artists. Beginning from the purpose of creating, ascribing meanings, and finding balance between the needs of market and self-expression.
He underscored the need to have a research mind at this stage of getting comfortable with skill, form and medium, to explore what others have done, look at their body of work, avoid falling in the trap of spending all energy into perfecting something, that had already been explored, and finally to arrive at something different.
This insightful presentation allowed participants to witness an artist’s growth over time in a clear and engaging manner and left them motivated enough to pick up their pencils.
