When her 7-year-old grandson wanted to paint a leopard, local artist Nanda Patel watched him freeze.
“I don’t know how,” he told her.
To her, the answer wasn’t teaching him how to copy someone else’s work. Instead, she handed him a blank sheet of paper and asked what he wanted to create.
“A robot,” he said.
The resulting drawing became a reminder of something Patel fears many children are losing: the freedom to imagine.
While Patel’s newest exhibit explores spirituality, identity and human connection, the veteran artist says one of her greatest concerns lies beyond the gallery walls. She worries that children are losing opportunities to imagine, create and think independently in a world increasingly shaped by screens and instant answers.
“I can’t teach 500 students how to draw, but I can teach 500 students how to think of drawing,” Patel said.
Before coming to the United States, Patel lived in Kenya, India and England, experiences shaped by political change and the lingering effects of colonialism, she said.
She remembers being a first-grader in Kenya, where she would spend afternoons painting murals for her school. Teachers gave her access to paints, brushes and space to create, allowing her imagination to flourish.
When her family moved to the U.S., she studied art before and during her time at Indiana University, but her husband’s medical practice brought the family to Gadsden. Raising children became the priority.
For more than two decades, Patel worked in hospitality and hotel management, teaching others and serving on industry committees as her children were growing up. It wasn’t until 2007, when Bobby Welch, former Gadsden Museum of Art director, saw a painting she had made for one of her hotels, that she would return to the art she had set aside for years.
“He said, ‘Why don’t you paint more?’ I said, ‘For whom, what am I going to get out of it?” Patel said. “He said, ‘I will let you have that answer, just paint.’ So, I met Mario Gallardo that day and the rest is history.”
Patel credits Gallardo with giving her permission to move beyond realism and tell her own stories through her art. That philosophy is reflected in Karmic Circles, her newest exhibit at the Meadows Art Gallery at Gadsden State Community College.
In a world of quick answers and endless scrolling, Patel spent three years creating a body of work that asks viewers to slow down and reflect. It is the same lesson she hopes young people will learn through art, not how to replicate what someone else has created, but how to develop their own perspective.
“I want people to experience (Karmic Circles). It’s because we blame,” Patel said. “The whole exhibit is about blame. It’s about people saying, ‘My mother did this,’ and’ That one did that,’ and ‘That president did that,’ and ‘The storm came.’ No. Stick to the goodness of your soul, and goodness will come, but this is what your story is.”
Using acrylics, oils, watercolors and heirloom saris, Patel explores themes of spirituality, responsibility and the interconnectedness of people.
More than a collection of paintings, Patel sees Karmic Circles as an invitation to slow down, reflect and develop one’s own viewpoint of the world, skills she believes are increasingly important for young people.
Children are often taught to follow examples rather than develop their own ideas, she said.
“You don’t have to do what John does,” Patel said. “In fact, you’re better off not doing what John does.”
Karmic Circles is an example of what can happen when a person spends a lifetime asking questions, exploring ideas and developing their own perspective.
“Every child is creative,” Patel said. “The challenge is keeping that creativity alive… When a child says, ‘I can’t draw that,’ my question is, ‘What do you want to draw?’”
For Patel, the goal is not to teach children how to draw a leopard. It is to give them the confidence to imagine a robot instead.
“I help them be motivated to draw what’s in their mind,” Patel said. “I want that… And it only comes when it’s quiet.
