Proper Women?

#MyThursdayThing

I am currently listening to an audio book, Broad Strokes, 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History (in That  Order) by Bridget Quinn. Listening? Yes, a few months back my cousin introduced me to Audible by Amazon and I found listening to books a great experience (since I am an extremely slow reader).  However, Audible is not the point of my post today and I digressed. Coming back to the book, it talks about the lives and art of 15 women artist and in the second chapter I came across this sentence, “ … Regardless, in seventeenth-century Holland, needlework was something all proper women, highborn or low, should do well. Something a well-brought-up woman took pride in…” This sentence took me back several years to my childhood, my school, my art journey and I decided to speak  about this meandering,  triggered  by this one sentence in this book by Bridget Quinn.

Some years back, when someone asked me, if I had painted and played with colours as a child? I realised, actually no. I asked my mother, if I had painted, scribbled with crayons as a child. (I am the eldest of three sisters and I had no memory of ever seeing anything that my parents showed me that this was made by me as a child.) My mother confirmed that any such experiences with colour would only have happened back in preschool. She did remember me bringing home a lot of play dough and making things with it. I thought backto my school and wondered if art was ever taught in our school? Only to get the same answer again—no.

I studied in a convent—St. Mary’s Convent, Kanpur—till class tenth. The best years of my life, the best school one could have possibly gone to in a city like Kanpur. I loved my school and I still do. I have the best friends from my school that I am still in touch with. We often (especially since the lockdown started) chat on Zoom with one another and talk fondly of our days back then. Having said this, my school for all its infrastructure, its brilliance, the teachers, the sisters, the playgrounds, did not have an art room or art classes or even art as a subject. We had an SUPW period (socially useful productive work). We had to often make craft with waste material and take it to school but all that had to be done at home… As far as I remember, most SUPW periods were used up for either annual day concert, choir practice or for sports or basketball. As part of a class and as part of houses we had to spruce up the bulletin boards in classes and corridors but usually those were in the form of collages. No art as such. Given this background, when one reached middle school and one was given homework to draw maps, biology diagrams etc, how could one do it? I started to believe, looking at my diagrams that I can never draw, I am not a creative person. Any latent possibility of being an artist got killed by the grades on the biology file, till I discovered my creative side in Pune, while pursuing my MBA.

Coming back to SMC, my school as it was called. It had a fabulous needlework room and a great teacher in Sr. Agnes. When we reached class fourth we started to do some of these ‘homely’ creative activities like knitting a muffler. I still remember I made a dark blue and light blue coloured muffler for my grandfather.  In the years that followed, I made cross stitch landscape that was huge, 24”x30” and which hung in the drawing room of our house till the last day that we were there. I made a gown, and several other things that I don’t remember now… we learnt all the different kinds of stitches—satin stitch, chain stitch, French knot, hemming, piping etc. Our needle work room was huge and very peaceful. There used to be pin-drop silence in that room as Sr. Agnes was a terrorbut in a nice way… she would not see the front of your embroidery, but the back. If you had not knotted your threads and or cut the threads neatly, you would get a whack on your knuckles. Thanks to her, I still remember all my stitches and I can mend my clothes and re-tack my broken buttons. The other day, on our Zoom call, we all remembered Sr. Agnes and how her training had stood the test of time and we still remember our embroidery lessons.

However, the line …needlework was something all proper women, highborn or low, should do well. Something a well-brought-up woman took pride in… by Bridget Quinn, in her book Broad Strokes made me sit up and wonder. Why would a school otherwise so brilliant, looking after the all-round development of the girls (sports, debates, singing, theatre, LTS etc) not include art in their curriculum and rather have needle work as compulsory subject till class eighth or ninth?The answer probably lies in the statement above. The school was probably in consultation with and maybe based on the demands of the society was preparing young girls to be “Proper Women”. Needlework definitely qualified as a requisite for being a proper woman, not sure about art. 

I remember an incident when Sr. Christina our English teacher in one of the senior classes, scolded all of us in the assembly because the notes of the national anthem were wrongly sung by a few. She punished all of us and in her anger said, “I know why you girls come to this school, not to study or learn music or life skills, but just to get a certificate of a convent educated English speaking girl.” We all just giggled at that time, but later when I grew up and my parents also stepped in the marriage market to find a suitable groom for their daughter, I often heard this statement, from them, or relatives or in matrimonial ads  etc…  “convent educated English speaking girl”, and then I would always remember Sr. Christina and how right she was.

I found my calling by accident. I was 22 years old and pursuing my MBA course, in Pune, when I made my first painting, sitting on the Chatturshingi Hill, inspired by the dramatic sunset. I never looked back. In 2016, I went to Kanpur, 13 years after we had shifted lock, stock and barrel from the city and I visited my school. It was still the same, bulletin boards in corridors, the quiet and peaceful needlework room, huge music room with many pianos. Sr. Agnes was no more and many teachers had retired; some had even passed over to another world. I met Sr. Divya, the then Principal, and gifted her a painting for the school. I am not sure if I am the only professional artist from the school but I was definitely the only one who had gifted a painting to the school as per Sr.Divya.

The school still did not have an art room or art as part of syllabus… However as I happen to glance at one timetable on a bulletin board I realised SUPW and needle work still remain…

©Shubhra
#3  June 11, 2020

#MyThursdayThing will be published every Thursday, on my blog https://shubhrathoughts.blogspot.com/  and shared on my social media handles.