Serenity & Ceramics: How Auroville’s Potters Come up With Their World-Famous Art

Posted On Jan 18, 2020 By admin With Comments Off

For many of us, ceramic necessitates tableware like cups, saucers, containers, vases, or layers. One peep into potters’ bhattis( kilns) in and around Auroville and Puducherry will change this misconception.

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You will be blown away by the experimentation and the deliver uniqueness of each creation coming out of these kilns. If you aren’t told that they are glazed ceramic or stoneware products, you will certainly mistake them for modern artwork, sculptures, or some other peculiar pieces.

Artworks from Adil Writer’s’ Sweet Dreams’ succession. Personas Courtesy: Marco Saroldi, Auroville

Master potter Sandeep Manchekar of Anvi Pottery near Mumbai, justifies, “Puducherry is the Kashi of ceramic pottery. Nearly five decades ago, the modern world of pottery or stoneware began there, last-minute spreading to different parts of India.”

In fact, when we think of good ceramics, the idol that comes to mind is of simple earth or ash-coloured handmade elite tableware. They are so stylish that every city dweller with coin in their kitten to pursue efforts to own at least a couple of such coffee pots if not the entire regalium of such handmade tableware. They all come from the Union Territory of Puducherry and its neighbouring town, Auroville. It’s their candour which has got them a worldwide market.

In fact, outside of this region, they are sold only in shops or high-end shops.

Puducherry now has a parallel niche of studio potters, who of course, still move the usual tableware “for sustenance” as they laughingly admit, but the government has stepped out of their convenience zones to indulge their inventive sides.

Not merely do they try different determines and sizes, but they likewise experiment with textures, colourings and shooting procedures to come up with unique fragments. The final product looks like abstract art that sometimes makes a social or political declaration but majorly helps to enhance interiors.

anvi pottery Rakhee Kane

In India, there are only a couple of pottery hubs acclaimed for their unique pottery. From the South, the century-old red clay terracotta concoctions straddle from small household components to the large Iyengar ponies; in Rajasthan, the Jaipur pottery is famous for its off-color decorative vases, containers, wall layers; and then there is the ornamentally covered tableware from Banaras.

Besides these main pottery hubs, there is also a small hub of potters in the north-east state of Manipur. These commodities are different from the rest of India. They are black and make for amazing tableware.

The domination of Puducherry and Auroville pottery has an interesting story. It began somewhere in the early 1970 s with Deborah Smith, a alumnu in the Japanese word, who studied pottery in the US.

Later, while in Japan to enhance her aircraft, she engaged pottery for more than two years. She was an ardent follower of spiritual guru Sri Aurobindo and his adherent, Mirra Alfassa. When Deborah followed Mirra to India, she was asked to start a workmanship which would involve the local people of Puducherry and give them a nice livelihood.

Deborah thought of pottery as the locals were skilled in traditional terracotta. So, in 1971, along with Ray Meeker, another American ceramic potter, she lay out Golden Bridge Pottery( GBP) in Puducherry.

GBP changed the pottery stage in India. It was from here that the wander of many present-day potters began. For the first time, Indian potters understood high-temperature firing, gas burning, soda firing, besides the traditional timber firing kilns and glazing.

At present, countless potters too join in community firings of large-scale Anagama( Japanese mode of shooting) kilns.

“I can safely say that if Ray and Deborah hadn’t seeded their beginnings in Puducherry with GBP, the flourish stage of studio ceramics and functional stoneware wouldn’t be around, ” proclaims Auroville-based Adil Writer of Mandala Studio.

Art Adil Writer. Image Courtesy: Shuchi Kapoor

A former architect and interior designer from Mumbai, Adil decided to add pottery to his the competences and affiliated a seven-month course at GBP in 1998. Since then, the potter’s clay has him fastened. Working, learning, experimenting at this studio for three more years, he decided to join Mandala Pottery in Auroville, generating more supernatural with clay.

No more a professional architect, Adil’s starts still have an architectural way to them. But his latest sequences of baby-faced figurines named’ Sweet Dreams’ is more of a statue, where ceramic dolls are created in different poses and grouped with several objectives. Though he doesn’t like to admit it, many of his starts do strong social observations and statements.

In fact, just as every craftsman has a signature line name their works, even studio potters have a mark of their own. Like Rakhee Kane of Aavartan Studio Pottery in Auroville. If you find ceramic pottery with a marbled texture or a glazed make with big drawn ornaments, you can be sure the pottery has come from her.

An alumna of Industrial Ceramics at National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, Rakhee brings to her drives her civilize as a painter. She is very interested in the pottery made and used in rural India, peculiarly the design and terrain of Rajasthan. Her ceramic plaques are really big and resemble the large brass illustrations from the desert district, use either as table or wall medallions. She admits she adores to decorate and meets different surfaces on her pottery.

auroville Rakhee Kane with her pottery

Her recent slog, named’ Shifting Identities’, has been highly appreciated. It has three-dimensional ceramic walls in raw multi-coloured clay.

After NID and a few years of work, Rakhee more registered GBP in 2005, to enhance her ceramic pottery abilities. Laughingly, she admits that nearly every studio potter in and around Auroville is a product of GBP. “We come to learn from GBP and get so enchanted by the pottery and the contributing feeling that we stay put there.”

“And why not? ” asks Sandeep. “More than 100 potters get a chance to stay close to each other, exchange ideas and interact with visiting potters, both Indian and foreign. Naturally, Auroville has become a great place for studio potters and a practise centre for many.”

To this, Rakhee adds that people trained in Aavartan and Auroville have started their own studios. Even if they are not highly innovative, they make good utilitarian commodities, which are in demand. Adil says that it contributes to a immense and healthy expanse of ceramic work.

“Another important conclude for potters to stay put in this region is the easy availability of all raw materials( clay, timber ), along with a ready-made market. Puducherry and Auroville are notorious for pottery, so purchasers from all over come aiming the americans and our concoctions. We rarely need to go out, ” says Indrani Singh Cassime of Phoenix Potteries and Studio.

deborah smith Indrani Singh Cassime’s works

A Visual Art Graduate, this Delhite was chased to Puducherry by her then-boyfriend and now husband. She is another brilliant product of GBP who specialises in murals, practicality, and illuminating concoctions. Indrani is an independent studio potter and isn’t connected with Auroville, although her studio is located close by.

In her Anagama kiln, she shells bigger pottery items resembling centuries-old stone relics may be in archaeological places. Her chirpy self sees similarity in her ceramic lamps which are fragile, examination sublime and are highly decorative. In her studio, she maintains residencies for potters from all over.

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One can be envious of these studio potters who pas a extremely contented life–they have huge rooms for their studios, where three or four kilns can be easily positioned, with clay being sourced from the nearby sizable Ousteri Lake ( 800 hectares said that he shared both Tamil Nadu and Puducherry ). The lumber to fire comes from Casuarina trees which are grown as cash crops in and around this Union Territory.

Plus, they have an added advantage of the ready-made market for the sale of their products. What more can any studio potter or creator ask for?

( Edited by Shruti Singhal)

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