Journey through clay - 2011

All you studio pottery lovers are in for a big treat. 

On the 115th birth anniversary of Late Padmashri Sardar Gurcharan Singh, Delhi Blue Pottery Trust is holding an exhibition; Journey through Clay-2011.

Be there!


Images : Delhi Blue

Foodface!

Am I the only one who wants this more for herself than getting one for a certain Ms. Sara who thinks eating is a complete waste of time & energy?

I am totally in love with these ceramic food face platters. Mashed potatoes with beans & peas anyone?

Image : here via here

Potty about Pots Series

Handcrafted ceramic leaf

I made this some time back, actually I made many of these ;) Do you think it will look good on the wall just like this or should I frame it?

Image : Personal Album

Potty about Pots Series

I recently made a set of 6 square platters using crystalline glaze.The flowery crystals that you see here are because of the glaze. To see more of my pottery click here.

Potty about Pots Series

Yes I am still alive!! And I am back with a platter...anyone for some kebabs and dips !!

Painted Platters

Remember few days back I did a post on tablescapes with white china. All of you actually left comments saying your white tableware is still resting in the box that it came in. So when I stumbled upon these pictures I had to share this with you, hoping it will inspire the artist in all of us and convince us to air that white tableware NOW!

The story is that 1000 kg of porcelain crockery produced by the famous tuscan factory of Richard Ginori (since 1735) were put into the hands of the Italian designer Paola Navone. And this is what she did it with it!! Yes! she painted each piece and created art. And now these renewed "Seconds" are being sold by weight...yes you heard it right by kilos!!!

I'd like five kilos of the bowls and ten of the plates please ;)

Seriously, how gorgeous are these? I just love the casually painted look on these platters and of course the bright hues. And just check out the porcelain tablemat. I think I am going to have to buy some white tableware ONLY to paint it like this...hmm..I MUST ;) The ones featured above are my favorite...retaining the white and adding some color, which ones do you like?

Images : Metropolitan home

Potty about Pots Series

Alright ! Technically this is not a POT but since its part of my handcrafted ceramics collection, its here ;) Its a wall piece which I intend to get framed someday.

Wall art : Made by slab and coil work. Fired at 1200 degrees in a Gas kiln

Image : Personal Collection

Celebrations = Decor + Food + Family ;)

Yes,celebrations for me are simply three things, Doing up my home, Cooking everything from scratch for the people i love and Spending lots of lovely moments with them. Diwali was just that. And this time around it was just oh-so-special as it was our daughter's first diwali ;)

I had loads of fun lighting up each little nook and corner of my home, putting numerous fairy lights all around and getting the entire stock of the flower-wala inside our home! Of course,the preparations started much before that, with me deciding to make the entire tableware with the help of my two little paws and my potter's wheel ! Yes, yes i know you think i am mad, my sister thinks the same...but well i am a little crazy when it comes to doing stuff for my home...

Since Diwali came a little too early this year and its still so very hot at Delhi...i decided not to use any orange, pink or gold...i felt just too hot looking at these bright colors...the theme had to be cream and white...that would go perfectly with the deep brown and cream handcrafted studio pottery i had made especially for the big day...Have put together some snaps for all of you...i hope you enjoy looking at them as much i enjoyed putting it all together!!

Tealight holders: Cylinders made on the wheel and later cut by hand & brushed with tenmoku.Tilted bowl wheel thrown, outside tenmoku and inside a crystalline glaze.

Deep brown bottle-flower vase : Wheel thrown and later flattened. And Another handcrafted tall tealight holder...The tall cream mug like thing that you see is actually a 1.5 litre huge beer mug my husband picked from Germany...i thought it went with the cream and brown theme...he ofcourse was very disturbed seeing flowers in it instead of beer ;)

Rectangular plates made by using a hump mould and glazed crystalline. The bowl in the background was wheel thrown and glazed using Bryanston. And thats a little coaster that you can see behind the glasses...these were made by the slab method.

Finally the entire tablescape : Dinner plates again wheel thrown.Can you see the platter i showed you earlier here ? ;) Everything was wood fired at 1280 degrees.

How can i miss the food...huh!!!

I hope each one of you had a lovely Diwali...lots and lots of good wishes for the rest of the year !! More pics later ;)

Images : All from our album

Potty about Pots : II

Leaving you with a platter that i made. I like it for its many many layers that come together to make the platter and for its different and intricate patterns on each of its layers. I handbuilt it, sponged tenmoku all over and then wiped it off. It was fired at 1200 degrees. Enjoy your long weekend.

Sharing DIY home decor

The last post made me think of all of the lovely DIY projects we do at home. Lets all share them at purplehomes for lots and lots of home décor inspiration.

Starting this month, I will share my own DIY projects and would love to hear from all of you too. Drop me a message in the comments section about mailing it across ( just to make sure i check my mail the minute you send it across ;) ) and I will showcase it here.

Small or big, décor or function, done now or earlier, send them all in. And it will be wonderful if you can include simple instructions for the rest of the us to try out the same.

Mail me at purplehomes.blogspot@gmail.com

Image:a ceramic vase i had thrown on the wheel sometime back, more about it in another post.

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.

A partnership with clay

Last Saturday I met this very passionate and talented lady, Ms. Bronwynne Cornish. A little background about her, she is a ceramic sculptor and has come down from New Zealand to India for a month to practice the art here. Her interest lies in hand-building methods and she was kind enough to demonstrate the techniques that she uses to small group of ten on this really chilly and windy Saturday morning ;)

I had a chance to chat up with her post the workshop and I must say I have never met someone who talks so beautifully and lovingly about clay. She has been practicing this art since she was twenty and is now in her sixties and has the enthusiasm of a child. She has been traveling all across the world to learn and get inspired and let me share this with you, India is one of her favorites ;)

She says “I love to partner with clay and not work against it. There are so many times we try and force the clay to a shape that we want, even though the clay is clearly telling us to stop working on it. So one must obey the clay and listen to it”. Now that is so true and so beautiful. Nature inspires her and her work has these gorgeous textures stolen from the earth. Just look at the picture below, she used the bark of the tree to get this yum texture and later made a mask out of it.

She also says “I see animals in each one of us and so I enjoy making lots of these trans-animals (animal-man and animal-woman) pieces where the animal characteristics are brought out. (Now that is so very true, how many times has my ex-boss reminded me of an ass! I would love to do an ass-boss one day ;)) Check out this rat woman she created in minutes.

Do I need to say that after meeting her I came back a happy girl, completely in love with her spirit.

Her work is available at the Masterworks Gallery, Auckland and Mary Newton Gallery, Wellington. So if anyone gets a chance to see her work, please do share it with all of us. It’s her birthday on the 17th of Jan and I’d like to wish her a very happy birthday and lots of creative years ahead.

Pottery wheel blues

I am really annoyed today. My potters’ electric wheel was to come in last week and there is no sign of it even this week. And the guy who is to deliver the same just laughs and tell me..he he he..madam abhi bhi nahi aaya hai. Since I can’t create my own pottery at home I will just sit and ogle at some blue pottery from Jaipur and continue with my series of posts on crafts from Rajasthan.

Image : From indiasite

It is called blue pottery, because of the Persian blue green dye that is used to color the clay, which is glazed and then fired at a low temperature. The blue color stems from the use of cobalt oxide and the green is from copper oxide. There is a very fascinating tale on how it actually entered Rajasthan. The city of Jaipur was found in 1727 by Sawai Jai Singh I and he encouraged craftsmen from all over the country to come and practice their craft in Jaipur. As a result of this by the beginning of the 19th century the city was established as a crafts centre. In keeping with the traditions of his forefathers, Sawai Ram Singh II (1835-1880) set up a school of art and continued to invite artists and craftsmen. While attending a kite flying session one day he saw his kite masters lose every game to these two brothers from Achnera (Near Agra).He decided to ask them the secret of their skills and discovered that the brothers were actually potters and had coated their kite strings with very same Blue green glaze that they glazed their pots with. Sawai Ram Singh was so impressed that he invited them to stay back in Jaipur and teach their craft at his new school.

Jaipur blue pottery traditionally uses animal, bird & flower motifs.There is lot that one can create with the readymade pieces of blue pottery bought from the market. These days other than the regular urns, flower pots, plates, etc potters are making ash trays, animals and birds, door knobs and many other objects.

Ash trays & Animal figures

• Ash trays can easily be filled with wax, just dip a wick in and you have your very own blue pottery candle ready.
• Smaller and flatter animal pieces like the tortoise and door knobs can be used to make beautiful art pieces. Put a few of them together and get it framed or better still fix a mirror on a piece of plywood (ply to be slightly bigger than the mirror). Paint the plywood in colors that compliment Blue & Green and stick the animals/door knobs on it. You could also add tiny mirrors in various shapes around. Get your carpenter to drill holes in the ply to hang the mirror and it’s done!
  
  

Leaving you with some pieces that I had thrown on the wheel some months back, (not blue pottery though)

I hope I get my wheel soon :)