jeff shapiro workshop 2012

Beginning of the year 2012 I returned back to my newly built house, soon after the cyclone, to find the whole house in water and nearly 250 roof tiles blown away. Rakhee and her workers came to help me, so the house was dry in a day, but there was no water for the rest of the month as there was no electricity. I bought two tanker full of water, hired a generator to pump it up to my tank- all I wanted to do was to be in my new house. All I wanted to do was to hide from people and not talk about the cyclone. But it was a bad time to hide. We were gearing up to a very important workshop at golden bridge pottery, a workshop happening after nearly ten years. Jeff shapiro’s workshop. I was waiting for it to happen from the last one year, and when it finally was near, all I could think of was to run away from everything and everyone. Somehow all the works I had made at Rakhee’s studio before the cyclone had survived, that gave me a little courage. Rakhee and me finished bisque firing all those pots. Still no electricity in auroville area, I had to buy a small solar panel so that I could stay in my house. To look back now, it was the best decision Ray took to continue with the workshop, I guess everyone helped each other emotionally and just went through with all the events and by the end of the workshop, we were warmed up to do the actual firing. Ray’s gallery at 25 rue dumas was opened during this time., demos and presentations during the day, an exhibition of all the works by the participants at kalakendra, three days of south india tour, the ten days went by real fast. As the kiln floor was still wet, we could not do the firing when jeff was around. Here is a detail write up on the firing: http://earthwithantra.blogspot.com/2012/03/anagama-firing-jeff-shapiro-workshop_5952.html the kiln saw some beautiful results. I think the salt results are so far the best out of all the previous firings we have had. And also in terms of how much variation one could see from one part of the kiln to another was fascinating