“Against the Grain: Teaching Printmaking In India” (TEDx Talk)

I was invited to give a TED Talk in 2015 at Stony Brook University about my experience teaching printmaking in India on a U.S. Scholar Senior Fulbright Award. The title of my talk was, “Against the Grain: Teaching Printmaking in India.”

For nearly 6 months, I taught printmaking and drawing in India on a U.S. Scholar Senior Fulbright Award. There were monsoons and flooding, there was no electricity, and there was a curriculum that lacked structure. By the end of my Fulbright, I had set up a new curriculum, established an annual printmaking scholarship and organized an international exchange printmaking exhibition where students sold their prints and saw first-hand the commercial success possible with a fine arts career.

The students at the college that I taught at in India came from varied backgrounds. Some had very little in terms of materials things. Their parents had hoped they would study to become a doctor or engineer, not an artist, as fine arts was never viewed as a lucrative profession. These students of mine had already gone “against the grain”, breaking strict culturally accepted norms. These students were all incredibly dedicated to their studies. There was one special student by the name of Vijay Pichumani whom I will always remember. Vijay was homeless at the time I was teaching him. He was surviving by cooking a meal with other students at the college in an empty room where there was an electric outlet. As soon as I found out about Vijay, I took him and his class mates to a big buffet lunch every day at the hotel across the street where they stuffed themselves very happily!. Vijay absolutely blossomed in my class and developed a passion for the medium of wood and the woodcut. He has since become one of India’s most successful printmakers, specializing in woodcut.

Vijay is just one of several success stories I was humbled to help inspire. There are several other students from Vijay’s class that year who also went on to achieve great success; they completed their masters degree and are now teaching art all over India. They are successful artists in the field of printmaking and woodcut, who have proven to their families and communities, against all odds, that success was possible. Their names are: Yuvarjan Shanmugan, Ashoke Pachaiyappan, Prabu Sivalingam, and Ambeth Periasamy.