Many, many years ago we at Mylapore Times supported for about a year a few small projects at the Corporation school behind our office complex.

The schools run by Chennai Corporation are now called Chennai Schools in wake of the branding make-over carried out by the city’s civic body.

When the school reopened after the summer holidays, we gathered a few students to paint the outer wall of the school with images of their choice. Tigers and cats, flowers and the sun, grass and peacocks.

Our link with that school snapped for various reasons but every time I used to drive down the road where the school is located I stared at the works of art which survived the grease of the streetside auto shops and the stains of uncouth men.

Recently, I broke journey on Cathedral Road to watch the ­students of Stella Maris’s College give the final touches to a series of paintings they had created on a section of the college wall.

You too should do the same. For, the girls have done a wonderful job. Each piece stands out and draws us in – if we care to look long and deep.

Now these works are part of the Art Chennai season. Art Chennai is a big effort by an art collector and businessman, Sanjay Tulsyan, to showcase the best of Indian artists in our city and to take art into the city so that more people begin to soak in it.

This season, I managed to be at a few Art Chennai shows. But my focus was on how the shows in the public spaces engaged people. The art mela held at Cholamandal on a weekend was a big hit – people could watch 30 artists create small works and offer them for just 500 rupees. It wasn't the cost of art that mattered; what did was artists willing to interact with people.

Having theme shows on Elliot’s Beach also worked. The large space allowed people to take in a set of old images of our city or the images of women screaming which were part of a theme show.

Looking at the Stella Maris’s work took me to the time when the civic body under one regime got artists to paint the walls alongside arterial roads and paint them extensively. And the next regime had most of these works whitewashed – and these were mere scenery images – folk artistes, hills and dales, countryside and musicians.

Does the State tolerate art? Or does it want us to be suffocated with vinyl banners? – (Courtesy: Mylapore Times).

-Vincent D’Souza