Deepa Menon Is Founder and Artist Director of the Netra Center for Arts
As art businesses rebuild and recover following the pandemic, the Netra Center for Arts and Civilisation, founded by Deepa Menon, is back offering a unique fine art infinite for Foster City residents to express their creativity and passion.
"I want this to be a hub for the city where art is concerned," Menon said.
Menon, a professional artist trained in several fields, is the founder and operator of the Netra Center. Located in Foster City at 750 Alma Lane, suite 110, it serves as a home for her Canvas and Cafe plan, where students take classes on cartoon and painting. It also works equally a dance studio featuring several styles and as an after-school program space for elementary school kids to teach about art and other school subjects. An art gallery for her and others' work also hangs inside, and the infinite likewise hosts corporate events.
Menon said there are express fine art galleries and studios for people to visit and enjoy in Foster Metropolis, something she wants to alter. She envisions the space as an fine art gallery along with a hub for trip the light fantastic toe, education and relaxation.
Menon has a degree in graphic design from Toronto and graduated from the Academy of Art University, San Francisco. She teaches drawing and painting in all mediums, dry and wet, and other artistic mediums based on student needs, with other instructors besides available. She is a contemporary abstract painter simply teaches bones realism to students to start. Her hope is fine art will no longer be taken for granted and recognized for its importance. This would include having a whole art department in the schools outset in kindergarten, one of the reasons she wanted to have after-school programs that focus on art.
"For mental peace and happiness, you lot demand art. You need art everywhere. In schools, they desire art," Menon said.
Later moving out of Charter Square Shopping Center, she moved to Alma Lane in March of 2019. The business started slowly in 2019 before picking up steam, but momentum was lost afterward information technology airtight in March 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions. She initially only expected to be closed for a couple of weeks and did not think information technology would last, particularly as example counts were low. After a stop and start closure and opening, the Netra Center remained closed for several months.
"It was a steep pass up," Menon said.
Deepa Menon instructing a student during her Sunday kids painting grade at Netra Studio in Foster Metropolis.
She enjoyed beingness dwelling with her daughter and having fourth dimension for herself but somewhen became restless most the length of the closure around the third month. The financial stress of beingness airtight during the pandemic besides weighed on her. The rent combined with utilities is more than than $9,000 a month. Even with rent relief, she still paid thousands of dollars a month in utilities. She got help through grants but had to dip into savings to get past every bit she also paid her instructors throughout the pandemic with fiscal help from the city fifty-fifty though her space was airtight. She planned to reopen in June 2021 only prolonged the closure due to the delta variant. She is nonetheless trying to steady financially, with hopes the new school year will bring people back.
"We are still in the middle of it. Information technology's not like nosotros are completely there yet. We thought vaccinations would assist. It helped to a certain extent, simply and then the delta came, which was even worse," Menon said.
She is optimistic things will meliorate, relying on her highs and lows equally an creative person to come across her through. Her art center continues to expand, and she has seen teenagers return to dance and painting classes, with children probable to return when vaccines are given to younger ones.
"Aye, the pandemic happened. I take all these bug going effectually, but I have ever been a very optimistic person," Menon said.
Her long-term goal is to revive the business and in the city at the Netra Center. In the long term, she wants the space to be a center for fine art in Foster City, having an open studio to involve the public and bring different styles of teaching to her later on-schoolhouse program.
"I want to bring the community together through art," Menon said.
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Source: https://www.smdailyjournal.com/news/local/foster-citys-netra-center-for-arts-rebounds/article_a26a367e-41e1-11ec-b386-5b581d9c7a39.html
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