It's wicked to grade talent, let the children do as they please

By Anne Abayasekara

It was in 1955 that I first met Cora Abraham. Our 5-year-old son who had been through a severe illness before he started school, had difficulty forming the letters of the alphabet. His wise Kindergarten teacher suggested to us that attendance at Cora Abraham's "Melbourne Art Classes" might help him and give him confidence. We took her advice, although with some trepidation. Our Rohan had not shown any signs of an artistic-bent and I wondered what this unknown quantity of an art teacher would say when she learned the reason why we were bringing the boy to her. At our first meeting with her, we recognised that Cora Abraham was one who loved and understood children.

Whatever else happened, it was clear that our son was going to have fun under her tutelage. He did. He blossomed - not quite into an artist, but into a boy who enjoyed handling paints and clay and quickly overcame his disability as regards writing. We were so pleased that his three younger brothers were all duly enrolled at the MAC in their turn and every one of them had a whale of a time.

Cora Abraham (nee Blacker), was a teacher of Mathematics. We have Alfreda de Silva's word for it that she was also a spell-binding teacher of English. But Maths was her special subject and she was teaching it at the Good Shepherd Convent in Kotahena when she happened to go on a holiday to India.

Browsing in a library there one day, she picked up a book about child art and read words which lit up her mind and stayed there like a fixed flash of illumination. Here was someone pointing out that the creative urge is deep within every child and should be allowed free and spontaneous expression without interference from adults. It was as if she had seen a great light and heard a genuine voice speak a word of truth to her. The way she described the moment in later years was, 'I became enlightened.''

Cora returned to Sri Lanka burning with a desire to communicate her vision to others and to try out with children the new ideas that were teeming in her brain. She coaxed the school authorities to permit her to start an art class with a few girls.

On May13,1949, Cora Abraham opened the Melbourne Art Classes in a redecorated garage in Melbourne Avenue, Bambalapitiya. She was ably assisted by Sita Kulasekera and Richard Gabriel and they began with four pupils. Being the kind of person she was, Cora was able to communicate to others her fervent conviction about the right way to nurture the aesthetic sense in children, so that her vision did not die with her but is still glowingly translated into practice 50 years later, in the school she created. Only the premises where the art classes are held, and the name, have changed. The present principal is a former pupil who later joined the staff. Nalini Weerasinghe, an artist of no mean ability herself, subscribes wholeheartedly to Mrs. Abraham's views about encouraging children to develop their creativity through free expression. There is no formal teaching or correction of work. The main idea is to foster each child's highly individualistic approach to the world around her/him, kindle the imagination and retain childhood's spontaneity.

It's all wrong - "wicked", Mrs. Abraham would say - to compel children to conform in their drawing and painting and modelling to some adult's idea of how the finished work should look. This, 50 years ago, was a revolutionary idea in our country where formal instruction in art was very much in vogue and children were exhorted to reproduce faithful likenesses of flowers and fruits, animals and people. Competitions, grading of work, prize givings, never had a place in her art school. "It's ridiculous to grade talent," she once said. "How can one ever have the nerve to grade creative work?" Cora believed that art could serve as a fine therapy. "Creating something can give a child a real sense of accomplishment and well-being. Free use of materials and tools also help a child to gain, not merely the technical know-how of using equipment, but self-confidence.

Today, the Cora Abraham Art Classes are held at No.10, Skelton Road, Colombo 5. There are around 300 children attending, ages ranging from 4 years to 18. On May 13 this year, a special exhibition - "Education Through Art" - will open at the Lionel Wendt Art Gallery and will continue until May 18. This exhibition is designed to illustrate Cora Abraham's teaching methods to parents and teachers in particular, and to the general public, of course. In addition to the souvenir catalogue, there will also be on sale a limited number of a "Year 2000 Calendar" printed on handmade paper.

Cora Abraham is surely the patron saint of child art in Sri Lanka. She had no children of her own, but in the course of the 50 years during which her school has fostered and fanned the divine spark in our young, there are many, many children who will rise up and call her blessed.

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