Clay Jottings - India 2003
The tall chimneys of brick kilns belching out black smoke are a familiar sight in rural India. They are not usually visited by tourists so the workers were taken by surprise when we landed by boat from a river trip. They were even more surprised when I took a keen interest in all that was going on. The place was a hive of activity with clay being dug from a huge pit, dry clay being pounded into small pieces and clay being handmoulded into bricks using individual moulds. Acres of bricks were spread out to dry in the sun. The brick workers were very poor, living and working around the kiln. A line of small shacks with a communal well were the living quarters. Small children and clothes were being washed at the well. The huge kiln was dug into the ground with a central chimney. It would be stacked with the unfired bricks leaving channels for the heat to circulate from the brushwood fuel.
We were visiting the home village of a friend in Calcutta. The village was two hours inland and we were touched by the welcome we were given. We were only in Calcutta for three days so there was no time to see any traditional potters this time.
An eighteen hour Raj style train journey took us to Delhi. Ten years ago I had visited the traditional potters there. This time I met some studio potters. When in conversation with Richard Dewer at the Southern Ceramic Show I had learnt about an international exhibition called 'Peace and Harmony' to which he was contributing. The exhibition was going to be held at the Delhi Habitat centre in the New Year which was where we were attending a medical conference. The organiser of the exhibition, Anuradha Ravindranath kindly met me and took me to her gallery which is attached to her house. She was busy organising a private view of a local potter to which many Delhi studio potters attended. I had a very interesting evening chatting to them.
Anuradha is involved with the Delhi Blue Pottery Trust which was started by the late Sardar Gurcharan Singh who pioneered studio pottery in India. A lifelong friend of Bernard Leach he trained generations of studio potters including his son Mansimran whom I met at the private view. Anuradha has published a wonderful book about pottery in India and the life of Gurcharan Singh. She is keen to promote Indian studio pottery but also to champion the traditional potters and try and bridge the gap between them.
I visited the National Museum in Delhi which has an excellent gallery devoted to the Harappan or Indus Valley Civilisation. (3000 - 1500 BC). Information was available on a computer screen as well as good maps and photographs of key sites. Having previously visited Harappa and Mohoenjodaro I found this period of fine ceramics fascinating especially since we have very few examples in this country. Many beautiful pots, clay toys and seals were on show.
Once again our trip ended in Goa where I spent time in the potters' village behind our hotel. My friend Luizinha is one of two potters left and neither is making many pots now. I am helping compile a history of the village before the kiln is fired for the last time.
Our hosts at the hotel were keen to take me to see two studio potters they had met over the last year. The Portuguese had traditionally imported their tableware and so there has not been a culture of studio potters in Goa. Verodina at the Keramos Pottery Studio uses traditional red earthenware clay to make beautiful sculptures. Her larger works are in the public domain in Panjim, the capital city of Goa. She also makes traditional animal forms and is training local people in the craft. Her kiln is a simple Fred Olsen design, fired with wood in four hours to earthenware temperature. She is hoping to change to gas as it is more eco-friendly. Her workshop is part of a complex which contains metal workers, antique restorers and a glass painter, her husband, all centred around an old house in the countryside. In using local clay and traditional methods but making modern forms, Verodina is bridging the gap between traditional and studio potters.
The other potter I met, Gauri Divan is a studio potter working in stoneware who trained in New Delhi. She is also a paediatrician but at the moment is concentrating on ceramics. Gauri lives and works in a beautifully restored old house on the banks of the Mandovi river near Panjim and makes functional stoneware fired in a gas kiln. She gave me a copy of "The Potter's Newsletter" which has recently been published by a potter in Bangalore whom I met a few years ago. This two page magazine aims to bring together studio potters in India and also to heighten awareness of the struggling potters of villages.
On my next visit I hope to spend some time with these two potters. As usual it was a privilege to meet fellow potters from a different world.