Art students follow in South Fayette teacher’s footsteps

Students enjoy hearing encouragement from their teachers, even if it comes with more than a hint of humility.

“When they grow up, they’ll be much better than I am,” Selva Priya Sahadevan said. “Even now, I see kids doing much better than me.”

Yes, her Priya Arts students tend to display considerable talent, as confirmed by a recent show of their work at the municipal building in South Fayette.

But as an artist, Priya knows what she’s doing, too.

In a series of accolades dating back to her childhood in India, the latest is her painting “Appalachian Girl” winning the People’s Choice Award for the 2022 Three Rivers Arts Festival Juried Visual Arts Exhibition, which continues through July 31 at SPACE Gallery in Pittsburgh’s Cultural District.

She likes to provide her students with similar opportunities for viewing audiences, and the latest took place in South Fayette’s senior center community room, where the walls were covered with hundreds of colorful paintings by artists as young as 5.

“This art show was supposed to happen during the pandemic last year, but it got canceled,” Priya said, thanking township officials and South Fayette library staff members for rescheduling. “They were kind of enough to give space for the show, because they want to encourage and motivate the kids.”

Part of the encouragement was allowing students to sell their pieces, if they wanted to attach a price tag. But many of the youngsters opted to go another route.

“Most of them are giving some of their paintings for free or almost free,” Priya said. “They want to give back to the community and share their artwork with everybody.”

For example, student Kavinaya Murali explained her motivation for producing a painting featuring snow-capped mountains under a bright sun.

“This is the scenery that I would imagine that someone would be putting in their house. So this was specifically made for someone to hang up,” she said.

She selected the message “Save water” as the subject of another of her pieces.

“We learn a lot about it in school, and it’s what gives it life,” Kavinaya said. “So I decided to make a painting about it, and it shows on one side of the earth struggling for water and on the other side, people wasting it.”

As would be expected, she had kind words for her teacher:

“She makes it really fun, and she helps us learn a lot.”

Priya’s twin daughters, Kavya and Oviya Yuvaraj, are among her students, and they already are following in Mom’s footsteps by achieving recognition for their work.

“Whenever I do my painting, they want to do something, as well,” Priya said, with the girls joining her in creating new works of art.

She started Priya Arts in 2019, teaching in a sizable studio inside her South Fayette home, and along with art lessons comes an emphasis on helping to brighten the lives of others. For example, she has arranged for her students’ work to be displayed in a variety of places, from senior residential communities to UPMC’s Magee-Womens Hospital and Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.

Priya intends such projects to inspire a strong motivational factor for her protégés.

“They know art is making others happy when it is shared,” Priya said. “So they want to do a lot more.”