Saphale gets a paint-job

Girale Nagave Pargaon Lalthane Tandulwadi and Saphale are six small dots on the Palghar district map They all came to life last week when 75 artists from Mumbai most of them students of Sir JJ School of Art got together for a landscape and installation workshop in the wilderness Camping in the midst of the Sahyadris the artists followed a simple brief mdash ldquoLock the greenrdquo mdash which came from their senior and JJ alumnus Ashutosh Apte who is currently archiving rural landscape paintings by urban artists Apte is working on a database of artistsrsquo frames that capture river streams plateaus forts dams salt mounds beaches people hamlets and animal life in villages mdash scenes labelled lsquoremotersquo by the cityrsquos art world The next event is planned for FebruaryRenowned painter Vasudev Kamat conducts a watercolour demonstration for citybased art students at Girale village He painted a scene of bullocks being put to work to draw water for which he drew inspiration from his surroundings belowAround 200 landscape paintings have emerged from the latest workshop held with art students and established artists In fact the Saphale gram panchayat is getting ready to display select vignettes on railway platforms municipal schools and public squares Educational institutions in the region have also shown interest in buying some water and poster colour works which immortalise their region One primary school will be the venue for the next landscape painting camp in which students from Saphale will be taught by faculty from arts schools in Mumbai Nasik and ThaneApte 54 and wife Rajshree KarkeraApte 53 who relocated to Saphale four years ago mdash have been waiting for such a community response to their visual literacy experiments In their mission to interlink Mumbaibased artists with the surrounding villages of Thane Palghar and Nasik districts within a radius of 90 kilometres which they term ldquojust a small commuterdquo Saphale is the latest junctionThey have done similar landscape painting camps in Thane Devrukh Savarde and Kolhapur where the main intent was to associate urban artists with rural life ldquoSaphale is one junction in our journey of building ruralurban connections We want villagers to see painters in action and we want artists to spend time with the village ecosystem while they work with their coloursrdquo says Apte who is happy to get support from local sponsors NGOs like Pragati Pratishthan the sarpanch office and civil society representatives in Saphale a town that sits 98 kms from Mumbai It was for the first time that artists from six of the statersquos art schools were present in Saphale at the same timeA painting by wellknown artist Manoj SakaleldquoA visual arts culture grows when art school students get an audience outside a limited circuit Our latest workshops were attended by village residents who had never visited an art gallery or seen oil and poster colours This could happen only because the painters became their neighbours for four daysrdquo he adds The camp enjoyed patronage from a wide crosssection mdash right from the art school teacher at Girale to the general medical practitioner at Saphale and the grocery store owner in Varai not to mention Tandulwadirsquos neera seller whose beverage added another dimension to the art appreciation demos Apte intends to integrate food stalls in future painting camps so that local culinary skills can also be showcasedAshutosh and Rajshree Apte moved to Saphale four years ago with the aim of introducing Mumbaibased artists to the countrysideThe highlight of the landscape painting camp however lies in another level of integration Just as the camp involves lecture demonstrations of known artists from the world of fine arts mdash Vasudev Kamat Anil Naik Surendra Jagtap Manoj Sakale Gajanan Kabade mdash it also ropes in voices from the world of music dance architecture films contemporary philosophy mass media and poetry A seemingly distinct perspective was presented at the latest workshop by Lieutenant Colonel Kedar Bapat also a painter As he compared artistic precision and military exactitude common villagers asked probing questions about the place of fine arts in the current terrorstruck environment What followed was a multidisciplinary exchange the kind that the Aptes were seeking As guest speaker poetphilopsopher Sridhar Tilve said ldquoExposure defines a landscape painter Unless the painter has an ear for music and an eye for other visual arts and a mind for the philosophical streams his or her work will lack the lifelike qualityrdquo Tilve who specialises in personality growth modules has been a stable faculty member at many painting workshops conducted by Apte His favourite existential theory mdash ldquoan artist is not an artist if he or she doesnrsquot have two native elements a village and a languagerdquo mdash got several takers in SaphaleProf Vishwanath Sable the dean of Sir JJ School of Art who is also involved in Aptersquos landscape painting camp initiative echoed similar sentiments He said Apte does not promise ldquojust another rural outreachrdquo where the artist uses the village green as a transit stopldquoHe offers an experience in which the artists and the villagers together explore the life around them From climate change to suburban trains from chikoo plantations to language skills mdash the workshop embraces fresh aspects in a sequential orderrdquoThe Aptes feel that landscape paintings are an underrated source of documentation which need to be given their due ldquoThe wilderness of the six villages that we selected is usually not recorded in popular art form It is factored into a revenue department file of 712 notifications But we want these sylvan scenes to be a part of our everyday aesthetic experience more so since the water and forest assets in Thane and Palghar are draining You never know when we will lose itrdquo adds Rajshree who feels that environment conservation takes off only when there is an audit and a stocktaking of what existsWhile the Aptes currently differ on the format of the lsquothank yoursquo letters posted on social media they are united in one immediate goal mdash training their dog Janhavi to double up as a resource tool Since she is a family member she can offer herself as a subject for a painting or pose with her 10 siblings the Aptes have 11 dogs two cats and one tortoise at the next workshop To start with they have started a Facebook account for her