Let's Get Creative: A Passionate Artist on Building An Art Academy For All Ages, The Power of Art Education, and Finding Artistic Expression in 2021
“Little did I know when I started teaching a few students at my home, that teaching and spreading the love for art would grow into an entire arts academy.” Today’s woman dreamer, Java Joshi, is an Art Entrepreneur. Upon seeing a need for quality arts education for her own kids, as “necessity is the mother of invention”, she shares how she and her husband built the Academy of Creative Arts, teaching students and budding artists of all ages, 3-73. Looking to explore your artistic side in 2021? Java highlights the power of art and art education. From stimulating the imagination to reducing stress and building self esteem, Java shares some exciting ways to get creative this year!
1) You were originally teaching weekly classes, and now have created an entire Arts Academy. What inspired you to pursue this? What was the need you saw?
Little did I know when I started teaching a few students (mostly friends and neighbors’ kids) at my home, that teaching and spreading the love for art would grow into an entire arts academy. There were multiple factors that contributed to and inspired the growth and formation of Academy of Creative Arts which started with just me teaching Art to now 30 different art forms that are all taught under one roof at our Academy.
Most of us South Asian parents focus on academics that mainly deal with left brain development. Our entire generation has grown up being forced to either become doctor or an engineer. Even today, most parents are pushing kids to focus on English, Math, Science & Robotics etc. which is good, but what makes kids more successful is the right balance between left brain and right brain development. EQ is valued much higher than IQ in todays world and unfortunately, there are very limited options if you want your kids to engage in activities that focus on right brain development.
Having 2 kids of my own that were in Lexington elementary and middle schools at that time, I myself was having a hard time getting creative & performing art education for my kids. My husband and I were both fortunate to have parents who allowed and encouraged us to explore the world of arts and that defined and made us what we are today. We are all greedy parents who want the best for our kids. We got frustrated not finding good quality creative & performing art programs that we wanted for our kids.
As they say, necessity is mother of invention. We basically took it upon ourselves to create a platform that can bring passionate artists/teachers (who don’t have avenues to share their art/passion) and parents (who are seeking right brain development activities) together.
So what started as a quest for our own kids, then became a mission to do it for all the parents and kids in our community so our next generation has access to programs that are focused on creative & performing arts education.
2) Why do you think art education is important for kids?
Art education is critical for the success and wellbeing of our kids. The creative process involved in art education enhances and strengthens critical thinking skills for kids. Visually learning through drawing, sculpting, and painting develops visual-spatial skills. This teaches kids how to interpret and use visual information.
Art stimulates the imagination…
Art opens the heart and mind to possibilities and fuels the imagination...
Art makes you more observant...
Art enhances problem-solving skills...
Art boosts self-esteem and provides a sense of accomplishment ...
Art reduces stress.
What parents don’t often realize is that art education complements and strengthens the learning ability in kids. It helps with focus and imagination which are critical elements no matter what subject the kid is learning. Art not only helps kids, but it also helps as adults and in life, as art in any form can give people emotions that lift-up their moods and help lead a “happy” life.
3) Tell us about your journey and how you have built it into a state of the art facility for kids and adults.
Just like any other kid, I was also just pushing myself to become an engineer like other kids including my brother. Its so easy to follow the herd and not break out.
I have also been involved with theatre since childhood, I was fortunate to be born in a family that has been active in promoting and actively pursuing performing arts for last 50+ years. My father (Satish Mehta) is an accomplished national award winning writer and theatre director, my mother (Jyotsna Mehta) & uncle (Smit Mehta) are award winning theatre artists and my brother (Ameeya Mehta) is also doing theatre in New Jersey.
I started painting at an early age, and my family encouraged and pushed me to pursue and focus on art. I resisted pursuing Fine Arts until after my Bachelor of Science in Mathematics. I realized after my graduation that art is my passion, art is what makes me happy and allows me to express myself. I finally decided to pursue and finished my master’s degree in fine arts with a gold medal and then earned my PhD in Fine Arts. I got an opportunity to exhibit my work in various art festivals such as Kalidas Samaroh and at prestigious galleries across India doing both solo and group art shows.
I then came to Art Institute of Atlanta to pursue my degree in Multimedia and Web design.
In 2003, I got married and moved to Boston. I started working for an ad agency in Boston and almost got sucked into the corporate world of working women. But fortunately, Hetal (my husband) convinced me to quit the job and focus on my passion of painting just when we had our first child. I started painting and exhibiting my work again both locally and across various galleries in US. I was the only south asian artist amongst artists from 80+ countries that got select to showcase my work in Parallex International art show in New York. Seeing my work and background in art some of my friends then pulled me into sharing my passion through teaching.
Call it a coincidence or sheer luck, I was even further blessed to be married to a guy who also was equally passionate about arts and had a theatre background. Both of us grew up in India, studied and were working in the corporate world here wanted our kids to get exposure to our arts and culture. After frantically looking for avenues to expose our kids to various forms or art and our culture, we realized there weren’t really any good options or platforms locally. It is then we decided that we had to do something to promote our own art and culture.
We always think about the underprivileged in India and how to give back… but often forget that our own kids who are born and growing up here are deprived, of good quality art education, exposure to our traditional art forms, exposure to our vibrant and colorful culture. Me and Hetal made it our mission to create a platform that allowed us to bring all forms of art together under ONE roof here in US so our next generation gets access to various forms of creative & performing arts right here in our own backyard.
We didn’t want to build just another institution that lacked quality and focus – high quality education and state of the art facilities were critical for us to be able to create an environment that fosters the love for the art. We basically put all our savings, even sold our house to ultimately create a new 18000 sq.ft. state of the art facility which is home for all families in the community and called it the Academy of Creative Arts.
We feel blessed to be the chosen ones by God to having gotten the opportunity to create something that can benefit our community and help entire next generation get access to quality art education.
4) How has COVID 19 impacted the Academy and how have you made your classes work in this new environment?
Covid-19 significantly impacted our ability to impart art education effectively.
Many forms of art require in person classes and one-on-one attention, teaching most art forms online is next to impossible. For example – I teach art to each student based on their skill level. Each student creates something different based on their skill, medium and interest – its not just following what I draw/paint, but rather I guide and help them leverage the right tools & techniques so they can express themselves through art most effectively – be it any medium, water color, acrylic or oil. Now this is not possible for me to do justice virtually. So we essentially stopped all programs where we could not do justice to the art form. Similarly musical instruments – they are best learnt in person so we had to cancel most art and music programs due to Covid.
However, there are some art forms such as Dance and Vocal (singing) that we were able to adapt and continue teaching online. From a technology perspective we and our teachers quickly adapted and that opened up a set of whole new avenues – now we have students from all across the US joining our dance and singing classes and we are not restricted to students from the New England area…
So all in all Covid-19 has had a tremendous impact on our Academy both positive and negative… while we had to stop many of our programs to have in-person classes creating a significant revenue loss, on the other hand we expanded our student base to include and serve students from all across US.
Although challenging as it is for most businesses to survive – we are learning and adapting every day.
5) What types of art classes are becoming more popular? What classes do you want to offer in the future and what are your future plans for the academy?
During Covid times – we have learnt that dancing and singing amongst adults has become very popular. Covid gave a lot of people time to explore their hidden interests and do what their heart desired, they have time and can focus on learning dance or music that they have always wanted to and have not had the time.
As for the future plans, we will live in a new world post Covid. We are changing and adapting our curriculum and programs to attract students from all across the globe. Why keep it only limited to local and new England area if we can share the passion though online platforms with all art enthusiasts across the globe. We are in the middle of defining a new operating model of the future for our Academy.
6) What is the most rewarding part of the job?
When you see the parents and grand parents eyes light up seeing creations and/or performances from their kids / grand kids, there is no better feeling of gratification.
Art brings people close to god. We have had parents and grandparents come to us, thanking us for creating a platform that allowed their kids to get access to learning many such dying & traditional art forms. We have seen their eyes wet as they had tears of joy seeing their little ones use their creativity to express and create something of their own. Its those blessings from our community of students and parents that makes it most rewarding and keeps us going.
When we started the Academy, we had said, “If we can create one artist or can impact one student to make them a better and more considerate human being, our purpose of life will be served”. We feel fortunate to have created a positive impact now on hundreds of students from 3 to 73 years who have been a part of Academy family.
One of the most shocking moment for us was when we heard that a family moved from New Hampshire to MA so they can be close to the Academy – not because one of the parents changed jobs or anything, but their daughter loved to be at the Academy so much and wanted to attend many different programs on different days that parents instead of driving 3 hours everytime for each class, decided to move near Academy. Now what can be more rewarding than knowing that our Academy is a consideration in our students/parents life decisions. This puts even more pressure to do things right for our Academy family of students, parents and teachers.
All we can say is myself and Hetal are blessed to be the chosen ones as a medium to promote proliferation of our arts and cultural education for our next generation.
7) What is coming up for 2021? Any Exciting Art / Education Opportunities?
We are close to launching Dance classes with Sandeep Soparrkar - one of the finest and acclaimed Bollywood Choreographer & Dancer.
We have also been talking to Shankar Mahadevaniji - 2 new things - one is doing a fundraiser for poor and dying musicians with him and also launching new online vocal learning programs in collaboration with him thru ACA
Finally, we are bringing 2 new programs to help kids/parents with College Admissions including college admissions advisory and standardized test prep.
Thank You Java for sharing your inspiring and artistic journey with us! We are excited to have you in our empowered women’s network!
Bio: Born in India at a young age Java earned several accolades in addition to earning Masters in Fine Arts and Ph.D. in Drawing & Painting from India and Masters in Multimedia and Web design from Art Institute of Atlanta USA. Java loves to share her passion of art through teaching. Her objective is to spread the love of art among children and create the next generation of artists. To achieve her mission for spreading the love for art and enabling the next generation, Java started Academy of Creative Arts which is a school where more than 35 different creative and performing art programs are taught under one roof in Burlington. Java is the Founder and CEO of Academy of Creative Arts and actively teaches art to students ranging from 3 to 73 years. Java currently stays in Lexington, MA with her husband Hetal and two kids Arth (son) and Anaya (daughter)