Friday, February 1, 2008

Potters at work

I am having a ball;) Sixteen potters got together for three days under the tutelage of this awesome couple Pollie & Garry Uttley from UK. Well, I was one of them. Pollie & Garry were both heads of art department in Derbyshire and took an early retirement at the age of 50. They are both drawn to clay, more towards patterns & textures than the form. And have years of experience when it comes to clay.

They first visited India in 1995 and fell in love with the country. This was their 11th visit. Their work is heavily influenced by the tribal textiles of Rajasthan, Gujarat & Karnataka. Pollie does these gorgeous ceramic garments and Garry does a lot of Zardozi ceramic platters. You can see their work on
www.polliegarryceramics.com

We were with them for 3 days and they were kind enough to take us through their work and the techniques they used. They are both sixty plus and what energy and enthusiasm. If I half of that when I am sixty I will be more than glad ;) They love to travel and teach. Garry is the quieter of the two and it’s really nice to see the couple work and understand each other completely. It was a lot of fun, each potter with her own concept of design and together we worked on one big mural where all our creations came together. It looked beautiful. We are waiting for it to dry and then it will be fired. We are all meeting on the 20th of Feb again to install the same.
It was a great experience meeting so many talented potters. I had so much to learn from each one and we all intend to keep in touch;) Meanwhile Pollie and Garry have left for a little vacation to Gwalior, Khajuraho, Amritsar and some other places. I wish them a great holiday and really looking forward to seeing them again.

3 comments:

Bibbi said...

There really seems to be good workshops available for you.
It's so nice to meet people like that, working alongside and learn from each other. Hope next time will be great too!

Bhavna Bhatnagar said...

This sure seems like fun!I love the clay tile collage...so inspiring and interesting to work with creative people around :)

bird's eye view said...

That sounds like fun - i've been wanting to design crockery for ages