Sunday, April 12, 2009

workshops at GBP








the best part of being in gbp is that the world comes to u. there are visitors all the time, some potters some who are interested in pottery- well thats how i ended up there first as a visitor who later switched profession, all the old students say once u r in gbp ur life changes forever. mine has. for the better.
gbp had many potters work for short times but left behind much in terms of quality work. betty woodman, sandy brown, mike dodd, peter biseker, peter thompson who helped ray revive the anagama kiln and the list goes on. we had sarah walton come this year for two days give a demo and a presentation, i will make that into a different entry.
last year, in 2008 we had onya from scotland who came visiting and ended up taking a workshop for us on mould making and slip catsing. ray asked us to bring things from the pondy sunday market to make moulds, a form which cant be thrown on the wheel- he said it could be funny...
i ended up with a egg holder and a toy sword. a whole new dimension to clay work. based on that experienec am working on making a mould for the sculpture i am making. with the help of the mould i will be able to try various kinds of clay. its amazing how many other disciplines can be combined with clay work.
same year rakhee kane from auroville took us a handbuilding workshop. rakhee is like a champion in handbuilding , she mainly works with slabs, its fascinating to watch her roll huge slabs and manipulate them and give them shapes. it suddenly felt like an indepence which one strives for , reaching a comfort zone with the material. then the material and the hands that u work with look so much in synch with one another. we made trial piece to get a feel of the new technique and its come to help now after many months.

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