Q: Could you tell something about what it was like to work in the art department with children?
Well that was a very exciting time for me, especially during the first headmaster who was extremely kind-hearted, generous, person who helped me in every way. He was headmaster for nine years and I must say that was the best time of my life working for him and for the children. He realized that I really liked the children. He gave me all the assistance and help, to get the right materials and, to help me with the various difficulties that one had unfortunately face with sick children in the various departments. And I had various.... critics, not critics..., various ailments to deal with there were medical cases, orthopedic cases those days the children stayed in for...various surgeries sometimes for nine months, they were granted proper education and examination possibilities. I had the age groups starting from 5 up to 18, and I had to visit the wards with the equipments and every child was individually catered for because obviously because of the age range and the handicaps.
It was a hard time but a very happy time. After the, after my headmaster left education expenses were getting less and less. Life became a little bit harder, but I still stuck it out for a further... eight years.
Q: Can you tell me... what kind of material did you use for your arts?
Well, that's a very sweet question, because we had quite a few exhibitions by the children and one of my colleagues who was very very excited about what they saw in the art room, made a list of the materials he'd been using and I can't remember but it was over two pages. We did drawing, painting, fabric printing, tie-and-dye, sculpture, pottery… and you name it, we did it.
So a nice incident was that in the orthopedic ward the children who were that were bed-bound for months on end, I arrived with some red tie-dye in buckets and we were doing tie-and-dye in the whole ward and when the consultant came to visit them were all hanging up and drying. It looked like a bloodbath but they were very happy that the children were able to do ordinary things, so their mind is taken away from their aches and pain. It was a very nice time for me.
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