BURLINGTON, MA—Java Joshi did her Ph. D. in drawing & painting from India and a Masters in Multimedia and Web design from Art Institute of Atlanta. Her husband, Hetal Joshi, came to US for his master’s in computer information systems from Bentley University.
Destiny brought them together, and later the husband-and-wife team co-founded the Academy of Creative Arts in Burlington, MA. The Academy, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, currently offers over 30 classes, ranging from art, music, and dance to culture, among others.
“First of all, we are parents who are in quest of giving the right foundation, creative education and values to our kids,” the couple says. “With this mission in mind we formed this academy.”
On Nov. 15, the couple will be honored with the Art & Culture Award at the New England Choice Awards gala at Burlington Marriott Hotel in Burlington, MA. The event will be attended by over 400 community and business leaders.
To buy your tickets, please click here.
Early in her career (at age of 13) Java was influenced by Intuitive Abstract Impressionism and started doing solo and group shows of her paintings. She has also been involved with theatre since childhood and has acted in more than 200 plays, award winning short films, TV plays/shows etc. She comes from a theatre family and her parents have been doing theatre for over 50 years in India.
Java has been involved with both painting and performing arts. A large portion of her work reflects relationship between art of painting and theatre with paintings based on themes of “Plays/theatre from across the world”. She has created multiple themed series’ such as “Indian Villages”, “Indian Folk Dances” and her most recent collection created during the Covid-19 lockdown titled “Dispositions 2020” that focuses on paintings based on the state of mind during confinement and dealing with racial inequality.
Java has exhibited her work both nationally and internationally in Boston, Atlanta, Mumbai and at prestigious shows such as Parallax New York, Louvre Museum Paris etc. Java was also nominated and honored by India New England News’ Outstanding Women Award in 2013 for her contributions in the field of art. Java has also been honored by Gurjar, VFS, UAINE, South Asian Center Cambridge and many other community organizations for notable contributions and promotion of art. Java was specially invited to India and felicitated by legendary music maestro Shankar Mahadevan for spreading the love for art in the next generation.
Java’s husband, Hetal, holds a diploma in Performing Arts (Dramatics) from India and has also been involved in theatre from his childhood days. He has won many best actor awards for his acting at various national level theater festivals. He has acted in over 50 plays, five short films and has written and directed many comedies plays, skits, mimes etc.
Hetal’s educational background is in business and marketing management and came to US for his master’s in computer information systems from Bentley University. Hetal started his career in consulting with Deloitte and has been doing strategy consulting for about 20 years. After Deloitte, Hetal was involved with a couple of start-up ventures, led Customer Experience Strategy Business Consulting Practice for Cognizant (NA & APAC regions), as VP of Global Services led Kuebix (SaaS based TMS software) through successful acquisition and currently serves as Vice President of Professional Services for an Austin based Healthcare AI startup ClosedLoop.ai.
Here is a Q/A with the Joshi couple.
INDIA New England News: Who has influenced you most in your personal and professional life?
Joshis: Our parents… the largest impact anyone has in the formative years of their lives is their parents. We were blessed with parents who gave us our value system, taught us how to conduct ourselves with dignity and always be there for anyone who needs help. They taught us how to find the balance between success and happiness – not to run after money but rather do what makes us happy and success will follow. They taught us to work hard and remain humble – do not take things for granted but rather create opportunities for ourselves and the people around us. Be kind and respectful to every person no matter what strata of life they belong to.
One of the key things both our parents said was “never try to achieve professional success at the cost of personal & family life” – always focus on family and kids first – as that will bring joy and happiness that no other professional achievement will ever match up to. And it’s absolutely true – the Academy allowed us to create a social enterprise that our entire family, including both our kids Arth and Anaya are involved and engaged in. There is no better joy than spending time as a family building an enterprise from the ground up.
INE: Your two favorite quotes or sayings?
Joshis: My father Late Anant Joshi always said – “Dig a hole larger than you think you can fill, and you will find the strength and courage to fill & climb out of it”. What he meant was to stretch yourself outside your comfort zone – sign up for more than what you think you are capable of, and you will be surprised when you manage to achieve that and more. Humans are capable of a lot more than they think they are – you only have to put yourself out of your comfort zone and magically things start coming together., says Hetal.
“Let your work speak for itself… When you are gone from this world – it will be your personality and work that will remain and be remembered,” said my mother Jyotsna Mehta. The second most important thing my father, Prof Satish Mehta, said was “It’s important how you prioritize and utilize your time effectively – try to make 48 hours from the 24 hours you have – and you can do that by staying organized and get more done in the same amount of time” and I have lived by these philosophies all my life,” added Java.
INE: Your hobby
Joshis: “Theater & acting has been my hobby ever since I can remember. I performed on stage for the first time when I was 3 years old. I pretty much grew up backstage of a theater – as both my parents have been actively involved in theater for over 50 years. Theater runs in our family as my father was a very well known writer and director, mother Jyotsna Mehta is a national award winning actor, uncle Smit Mehta also an award winning actor/director & my brother Ameeya Mehta is also a successful director in NJ. Everyone around was just super involved with theater – so there could have been no other hobby for me than doing theater and being on stage. I had the opportunity to perform in over 200+ stage productions and many TV shows and award winning short films.
In fact, it’s our hobbies that connected Hetal and I to become partners in life as he also came here to study but was super passionate about theater and acting.” said Java. “I am one of the lucky ones to pursue my passion as my profession and its Art.”
Hetal said, “My hobby and passion are the same – It’s Theater. I was very shy as a kid, and my dad, being in advertising had many theater connections – so he introduced me to his friend who ran a children’s theater group. Theater gave me confidence and exposure that changed my personality from being an introvert / shy kid who wouldn’t speak a word to someone who now wouldn’t shut-up. I later even pursued a Diploma in Performing Arts (Drama). Theater helped me both personally to gain confidence and make me who I am and professionally in the field of consulting to become a successful business leader. Java and I still stay involved with local theater in New England and are also involved in making a few short films etc. just so that we can keep that creative spirit alive and kicking in us.”
INE: Why do you do what you do?
Joshi: Because we love and are passionate about what we do.
When we do anything for and at the academy – the drive comes from within – it doesn’t feel like work – we crave for that creative satisfaction which keeps us motivated and driven to do what we do.
The best thing about being an entrepreneur is that you get to do it all, you make great choices – you make mistakes – you own up and learn along the way. We don’t have to ask for permission from anyone nor do we seek anyone’s approval – if our heart says it’s the right thing to do – we do it, even if it’s risky and we know that it makes no financial sense. We are the CEO’s & Founders executing things and at the same time, after our recitals we have painted our walls, cleaned and mopped the floors – no job is above or beneath us – we enjoy and love doing it all.
INE: Do you support any non-profit organizations and why?
Joshis: It’s not just one – we support pretty much every non-profit organization in the New England area. As each non-profit is focused and geared towards helping and supporting a different social cause – all these causes and problems are different and need to be addressed.
The organizations that we have actively gotten involved with and supported over the years include Ekal Vidyalaya, Saheli, Desai Foundation, Akshaya Patra, AIF, IAGB, Hindi Manch, SETU, Off Kendrik, Shishu Bharati, NEMA, GURJAR, NEMM, KANE, NEKK, Tamil Makkad, Prabasi, Bangla O Biswa, IAL, IAB, Paschim Project, IIT AGNE, VFS, HSS, DAY etc. and the list goes on.
INE: If you get a second chance, what will you choose as your new career and why?
Joshis: We wouldn’t change a thing. We are what we are because of our upbringing and all the experiences we gained growing up. We feel we are blessed to be the chosen ones to do what we do in promoting our arts and culture in the next generation. In fact we feel that this one life may not be enough to do everything we want to do – rather give us another chance to continue what we have just started and make our academy a global phenomenon rather than an entity just serving the New England community.
INE: How do you manage your personal and professional life?
Jishis: Fortunately, we are blessed with two wonderful kids Arth (now 19 and pursuing film making) and Anaya (now 16 an actor/singer/creator) who have allowed us to do so many things without complaining. They in fact blurred the lines between personal and professional life by always being there with us and contributing to the academy. Many times our kids were up till 4-5am with us when we were in early stages of the academy – be it setting up for our recitals or painting damaged walls after our art shows – they were there doing it all, helping us all along and at times they would get tired and sleep on the floor while Hetal & I kept doing chores for the Academy.
When we started the academy, it was a team of us two who took the initiative for our two kids and now we have become a team of 4 with both our kids involved in helping us and the academy achieve much more.
INE: How did you come up with the idea of the Academy of Creative Arts?
Joshis: We locked ourselves into a room for a week to brainstorm ideas and came up with this brilliant idea of the Academy of Creative Arts… No, nothing of that sort happened 🙂
It was purely organic and just evolved based on our need, desire and hunger to get our children exposed to different forms of our arts and culture.
We both grew up in India and had a very creative upbringing. We both came here to do our master’s and started working in corporate environments. Java was working for an advertising agency in Boston when we were expecting our first child Arth. She took a break and started painting and exhibiting her work again – some friends came to the shows and were like “you are an artist, have a PhD in Fine Arts – then why don’t you teach?” This started Java’s teaching journey with a few kids on the dining table then into a small 800 sq.ft. studio 6 months later.
Later we wanted our daughter Anaya to learn Kathak and we drove 45 mins for a 30 min class and were often 20 mins late to the 30 min class due to traffic etc. So out of laziness & not wanting to drive – we requested the Kathak teacher to see if she would be open to teaching at Java’s studio in Burlington, as some of her art students may also benefit from learning both art and Kathak one after the other in the same studio. Soon everything we wanted our kids to learn and get exposed to become a program at the academy, and our kids were the guinea pigs for each program. Being greedy parents, we only wanted the best teachers for our kids – slowly we started getting passionate dancers and teachers approached us, as they also wanted to teach and share their passion with students. Since the school was Java Joshi Creative Arts then – we thought we needed a neutral and appropriate entity that encompasses the vision we started forming of having all forms of creative and performing arts under one roof. This is how the Academy of Creative Arts was born.
We moved from a 800 sq.ft studio to a 3000 sq.ft studio in 6 months and then from 3000 to 18000 sq.ft studio in the next 2 years – this was a big move as Academy was only 2 years old – but our vision was to bring all forms of art under one roof and we needed a large enough roof to accommodate our vision. With everyone’s blessings and support we just completed 10 years for the Academy – something that started with teaching a few kids on our dining table is now serving thousands of students every year and exposing them to so many of the 30 plus creative & performing art programs we offer at the Academy of Creative Arts.
