1 shanti road gallery

my course was over. before i realised. i had about 100 pots with me after i gave away nearly 60 pots as gifts to friends and family. ray liked some of my work and said i should think of selling them, "at least it would bring back what u hv spent, there is no one sitting here giving u money, and they are good pieces, put them together call family and friends dont overprice let them go, u don want to be sitting on ur pots do u?". he was right. there was no sugar daddy. my grandfather wasnt rich. and there was just enough money to eat the basic and pay the course fee and rent. well thats one of the reasons why it took me so many years to get into pottery, everyone said its an expensive profession to be in u need some knind of support, till i realised i am anyway not earning any money out of dance. i wasnt taking any risk, i was used to living with hand to mouth situation!
suresh jayaram , an old friend who taught art history, now ran a gallery in his own house in bangalore. his whole house anyway looks like gallery. he said i could sell my work there.
it all happened in ten days. two days to pack, two days to send, three days to unpack and set up, two days the actual show, one last day to realise all the pots were sold!
my friend and support malavika came from madras and did all the work- starting from arranging the tabels, claening the wooden surface with waste and warnish, arranging the pots, drawing a funny price list (which peopel wanted to take along with the pots so we had to make some 250 copies).
we set it up at 1 shanti road. suresh's house is known for parties and people. when i used to live in blore i was one of the permanent fixtures there, if one was passing by richmond town u could not not go to suresh's house. even if he wasnt there u knew where the house keys would be. and there was always something to eat in his fridge! and if suresh was around then u stayed there for hours, smoking hving ten cups of coffee and gossipping about the art world (well about dancers then, me and suresh found it extremely funny that many dancers believe all the mythological stories so literally, we would even spend considerable time enacting different dancers!)
so the days of the show, saturday and sunday, suresh made a big jug of fruit punch (and peopel added enough and more vodka and rum into it) bought chips and made dips and people partied and saw pots and bought them...
more than the selling (well selling was good it brought back the money i put into firings and also some extra for the course fee) it was a great feeling to go back to blore with my work.
so that was my first show, totally unexpected!