Earthenware Frog Bowl by Mirta Morigi
Wood fired stoneware, low fired earthenware, reptiles on tableware, orange peel soda fired pots, local terracotta, porcelain jewellery and techniques of working with clay and glazes, the 6th edition of the International Potters’ Market scheduled to begin on January 26 at Auroville’s Visitors Centre will have it all.
“It’s going to be the most adventurous one,” says ceramic artist Adil Writer. According to him all the potters this time have “raised the game” and the market is going to be full of beautiful ceramics. Meanwhile Sabrina Srinivas is “living, breathing and eating pottery”, she says with a laugh. The Auroville-based potter who assisted well-known ceramicist Ange Peter to start Potters’ Market, in Auroville, in 2015, is neck deep in creating products for the event as with the organising.
“This edition is bigger than before,” she says explaining that this time 40 potters will sell their products at 40 tables, as against previous years when the entries were limited to only 30. A separate exhibition area where potters will display “their best piece”, day-long on the wheel demos or hand building by artistes, a children’s clay-play corner and the presence of international potters from Italy, Poland and Russia will be other highlights at the event that has made a mark in the pottery circuit globally.
Functional and aesthetic
Writer’s studio Mandala Pottery will offer colourful tableware created using a specific soda firing technique that lends his pots a “luscious, drippy, mottled, orange peel” effect. Co-created with architect and potter Tosha Parmar, their line will be a range of glazed functional table ware with niche aesthetics. “It’s a fallacy that Auroville pottery is largely monochromatic. Every studio will bring something different to the table, from glossy to matt finishes, the quiet Scandinavian looks and pieces with signature embellishments.”
Italian potter Mirta Morigi
Italian potter Mirta Morigi of Faenza is known for her line of vibrant colourful earthenware. A self-proclaimed Indophile Mirta will be at the market with her “delicious things” like lady bugs, frogs and chameleons. She will give a demonstration on how she quickly makes her fun reptilian creatures.
Sabrina who loves “exploring glazes” will exhibit functional ware, from sake and coffee cups to the vase form she loves. She uses the reduction firing technique where the kiln is starved of oxygen and the flame draws iron out of the clay body imparting a reddish blush to the surface.
Pottery is the new Yoga
Puducherry-based Ranjita Bora identifies herself as a “functional potter” and now works with gas, at temperatures as high as 1300 degrees centigrade. “Pottery is the new yoga,” she says on its growing popularity and adds that “people are more accepting of working with clay.” Adil concurs, “Post the lockdown a whole new demographic group of Indians is now wanting to see beauty on their dining tables, in their kitchens, on their walls, this time not for visiting guests, but for themselves, in their own house. Matching this fervor is the demand for people to come and get dirty with clay! Some potters in Auroville who teach ceramics are swamped with requests from “corporates” who see the necessity for a break, or like was in my situation, a switch in careers from architecture to ceramics!”
The Potter’s Market group in 2019
Supriya Menon Meneghetti, curator of the exhibition, has already started helping participants to select a work for the show. “This is interesting as one can see sculptural works and senses the personal in-depth of the artist through their work,” she says. The event, she adds will showcase works made with different clay bodies like earthenware, stoneware and porcelain, also different decorating styles and glazes. “Visitors will also see results of the different ways of firing pots —like with wood, gas or electricity. Also, Raku (a low temperature quick firing) and anagama (fired for around three days),” she says.
Supriya heads Maroma, a Home Fragrance and Body Care Unit of Auroville, which also produces ceramic items to complement their aromatherapy products.
The first potter
The first kiln at Kottakkarai village in Auroville in 1981
| Photo Credit:
Lisbeth
Auroville’s “first potter” Roy Chvat built and fired the first kiln in Auroville in Kottakkarai village in 1981. He will be inaugurating the Potter’s Market this year.
