RESIDENCY AT SANSKRITI KENDRA

CERAMIC RESIDENCY in DELHI - Feb to April 2009

Ok, so now you've read about my travels and influences leading up to my Residency at Sanskriti Kendra in New Delhi, here's the juicy bits about my time in residence....

FEBRUARY 20 - I arrived back in Delhi to a warm welcome by staff and artists in residence. I was immediately struck by how beautiful and serene the grounds of Sanskriti Kendra were! It was going to be a sanctuary for me just outside crazy Delhi, where I was to create work and experiment with new ideas and methods.

Right from the day that I arrived, there was a big ceramic exhibition happening at the Habitat Centre in the city, called MAATI. It was perfect timing, as I had arrived just in time for the opening! This exhibition was of 100 potters both from India and other countries, and the focus of the show was for all the artists to try their hands at working with terracotta. Later, several of the internationals mentioned to me what a hard time they had had working with this clay too, so I praise the traditional Indian potters who have worked with it for centuries! MAATI continued for the whole week with additional demonstrations and lectures taking place each day - so my first week in residence was actually spent mingling with other potters and absorbing many different styles to go back to my studio and play with. I met some wonderful people and was even invited to share in a paper kiln firing with a lovely women called Usha Garodia.

This was all really exciting and I had gotten used to travelling into the city and back every day, but after a week it was time to get down to business. My reason for doing this residency, to experiment with my own work!

My studio was amazing. It had my workspace on the bottom level and my bedroom and bathroom was up the stairs on the top level. I had plenty of space and great neighbours in the block of 4 studios that I was in. It was time to get to work...

I started to make houses. Not just any houses though, they were village type houses made from coiling, carving, incising and moulding the clay. I was combining the different decorational techniques I had been influenced by into the roofs and walls of the houses and finishing them off with some thrown decoration from the trusty kick wheels in the ceramic centre! Some examples:

It was only after I had made all these, and was talking with Princess, a writer from France/Nigeria staying in the studio next to mine, that she questioned where the doors were?! Princess, with the biggest phobia of lizards I had ever known, had a straight up and practical way of thinking...usually. She screamed for her life every time she caught a glimpse of the cute little lizards that were living with us and had them shooed out of her studio... straight into mine. Being originally from Nigeria, I guess she believed that they were bad luck and would drain the life out of her. However in India, they are believed to be good luck. One lucky artist even had a lizard couple staying in her studio. How romantic.

Hmm, so as I realised that I had been making these cottage houses with no doors, I also enjoyed the fact that it meant that I was really indulging in sculpture for the sake of sculpture! I also loved that with the weather sunny and warm every single day, I was able to work outside if I wanted to sometimes.

In between making things, listening for the bell which indicated food time (not to be missed!), discussing art related and non art related things with other residents and reading books, I also attended several cultural music and dance events happening around Delhi. Delhi is a buzzing place filled with art and cultural festivals and exhibitions. If I saw everything that was going on - I would never have got any work done!

Some of the things I attended were a Bharat Natyam dance performance by Rama Vaidyanathan and a  festival where I witnessed Tibeten Monks creating a large Sand Mandala which was to be destroyed at the end of the week. The Sufi Qawwali music performance by Chand Nizami was in a tucked away mosque in the heart of Delhi. The entrance was via a long narrow winding lane which led from what seemed like the outside world, into the inside world of the hidden and intimate mosque. It was a magical place covered in golden arches and pillers. It was worth the trip through the many open muslim butchers which lined the lane into the center. For a vegetarian who hadn't even caught or smelt a glimpse of meat for the past 5 weeks though, it was tough!

There were always events being held for various people and organisations in the grounds of Sanskriti Kendra. The embassies of different countries in particular were always held high in the respect of the staff of Sanskriti, as they encouraged us to meet and share our work with the representatives of our respective embassies. Leoni, a photographer and textile artist from Holland however, was snubbed by her own dutch embassy during an event, and I even found that some of the Australians just couldn't care less. Hmm, whats it all about anyway?! At least I usually managed to have them give us some free wine to share amongst the artists afterwards, which I think I attained a bit of a reputation for. After every event, everyone would be looking at me and wondering where I'd stashed it. I found that the most beautiful things that came from these meetings however, were how the workers of Sanskriti decorated the grounds. Here are some examples from different events:

 

 

MARCH 11 - It was Holy Festival whilst I was in residency. It begins with a bonfire the night before, which the workers held at midnight. Of course being a lover of fire and believing in its power of transcendence from one thing to another, I stayed up with Jane, a writer from England to watch the bonfire take place at the back of Sanskriti. Quite funny really, as we were the only 2 artists there amongst a big group of the workers who were absolutely stoked that we had waited up for this event!

This festival holds many symbolic meanings, but to me, the most important one is that for 1 day in the year, all the society class barriers are broken down by the throwing of colour pigment at one another. This means, yes I got covered in various different coloured dyes (took a week for the green to come out of my hair!), and yes it was mostly due to the workers at Sanskriti Kendra who would otherwise never be allowed to interact with me in this way! They had fun, and so did we!

And then I was taken to a party by Leoni and her Indian friend Koka, along with Kris and Corina, a photographer and fashion designer from Germany. It was the Holy Cow festival, and Holy Cow it was a mess! Sponsored by Jagermeister and in someone's farmhouse, it was covered in coloured natural dye, water sprinklers and foam. It was interesting, fun and gross all at the same time!

The following week was a big one for me as I was to fire my work first in the gas kiln to bisque it, and then in the wood kiln with glaze. It turned out to be less easy than I had thought as I ran out of gas, then couldn't get the appropriate glaze materials, and then ran out of wood towards the end of the firing of the wood kiln!

I through a Potter's Party at the woodkiln during my firing, so that I had the artists for company for a bit of the night. My hired help didn't speak a word of English, which made for the most interesting communal firing I will probably ever be involved in! During the Party, vodka, wine and beer was shared along with a few tales. Kris, who never really had an interest in ceramics before this, couldn't seem to keep away from wanting to stoke the firebox. I guess Fire will hold the attention of any man, or any potter for that matter! When the artists all went to bed, I was left to the exhaustive task of firing till 5am with my Indian helper, Bablu, and thank god he knew his kiln or we would have been there till 5pm the next day!

Argh, it sure was testing, and I certainly learnt a few things from it all! The main thing being that in future residencies, I should try and work in the way of the local traditions and not try and do what I do back home. It just simply doesn't work as planned in such a different environment. In the end, I didn't really have any successful work come out of the kiln, which in ceramics, can happen a lot. The main thing however is that I enjoyed my time exploring new processes and discovering where things can go wrong!

 

Whilst I was there, there were also 3 South Indian Potters from Tamil Nadu. They had taken part in the MAATI Exhibition and had stayed on at Sanskriti to complete some orders. They were a fine example of the traditional works and firing methods used in India. They are the sole makers of the famous Terracotta Horses and Bulls which in traditional times were placed at the entrance of every South Indian Village to ward off evil from entering the town. I spent time admiring the processes of these potters and perhaps I should have gone by their example during my time in residency. Although, they did fire really fast, stack the kiln extremely precariously and glue all their work back together at the end! However, they were still highly respected by all except the upper classes of India.

 

During this same time, I also went to my new friend Usha's house to take part in her Paper Kiln firing, which I had never done before. Its essentially a pit firing, but you have to wrap the pots up like little presents before you stack them in rings of newspaper and set alight. Inside the wrapped surprises, we put in mixtures of different materials such as copper, iron and salt. I had saved a couple of my little houses for this. The thing that truly amazed me the most about doing this firing, was that we didn't actually do any of the firing! We watched as Usha's servants built the brick kiln around our pots then she suggested that we have a glass of wine and watch the fire whilst her servants managed the wood and flame.

Aah, wouldn't it be wonderful if we all had people to help us out whilst firing! Secretly, I think they really enjoyed this part of their job.

I also took part in a Raku Workshop that was being held over a few days at Sanskriti Kendra for a group of local potters. It was held by a couple of members/organisers of the Delhi Blue Pottery Trust and was another fun way of meeting several of the Delhi potters. There were many different Raku techniques being explored, so I took the opportunity to slip in a few of my little houses!

 

To conclude this phase of my residency, a group of 5 of us artists from all different countries and arts practices, held an exhibition at Sanskriti Kendra of the work made whilst in residence. Except as most of my work had been an experimental disaster, I had chosen to show a projection of my work, past and present.  This seemed to actually be the way to go, as visitors to the exhibition actually got to see probably more of my work than anyone else's! After slightly stressful times, it really was a nice break to have people appreciating the work I had done both in residence and previous to.

 

Whilst all this is going on, there was also all the unexpected things that become part of the experience. The group of artists that were there at the same time as me all got along really well, and we had some good times and many laughs. Over the last couple of weeks leading up to the exhibition, there were things happening almost every day with always someone different to make us laugh. The eccentricities of individual artists combined made for an eventful and always interesting stay. Thanks to Devena for keeping me sane!

STAY TUNED for the last segment of my residency where I visited the original potters village in Delhi, Nek Chand's magical Rock Garden in Chandigargh and colourful Rajasthan!

MY FIRST POST!

Hi and Welcome to my first post on my first Blog page!

I'm excited to be here and I hope that my posts will make you excited to be here too.
I guess I have a bit of backtracking to do on this year, as its been a really busy year so far and I don't want you to miss out on anything.

I will start by sharing a bit of my time in India at the beginning of this year, for all those who haven't yet encountered my tales and photos. On January 26th 2009 (Yes, I flew out of Australia on Australia Day of all days), I left for my Indian adventure and Arts Residency for 3 months. Meeting up with my good friend Melissa, who's currently living in Los Angeles, we were all set to travel a bit of India and see some sites for the first 3-4 weeks. This time was not only a much deserved holiday, but also a really good introduction to settling into an Indian lifestyle for awhile. Along the way, I was photographing inspirational sights and objects that I would later use in my experimental work whilst in residency.

So, we started with a few days in busy Delhi, which I was later to return too. After seeing some temples, the Crafts Museum, getting locked in our hotel room by the doorknob being jammed, and discovering a beautiful women's textile market which later mysteriousely disappeared, we were ready to head to Agra.

Now, while most people just catch the day train to and from Agra to see the Taj Mahal in one day, we decided to spend 3 days there to take our time. We stayed in a place with lush green gardens right outside the east gate of the Taj. It was really only less than 500m to the entrance. Each night we dined in the rooftop restaurants that have a stunning view of the Taj Mahal. As the sun set over the Taj each night, we would listen to the surrounding Muslim prayers calling from the streets below. Just magical. I walked to the Agra Fort on our middle day, and marvelled at the intricate carving of the red sandstone which complemented the inlaid jewel marble so beautifully. You can see from my photo, the amount of care and time spent on this carving. As I saw more places throughout India, I was amazed more and more at the complexity of the work put into the architecture!

After Agra, we headed down to Aurangabad which is about 8 hours inland from Mumbai. Its also where the World Heritage listed Ajanta and Ellora caves are found. It was my birthday while we were here and I was especially excited to visit these caves. Don't worry, my birthday was not forgotten. I was treated to presents, a hotel room upgrade and a specially made black forest cake from the staff at the Lemontree Hotel. What a performance, by the way! So, on the way to the Ajanta caves which are a 2-3 hour drive each way from aurangabad, I was given a wet seat (??) which the driver only laughed about and a panic attack as we swerved in and out of traffic for the whole 3 hours. Thankyou Mel, for saving my life and sitting in the front seat! For anyone that knows me, knows how nervy I get in the passenger seat. The driver had a good laugh at all the strange noices coming out of my mouth, including the straw and even the turkey. Anyhow, we made it and the caves were something really quite special. The next day, we requested the same driver, as he was already now familiar with my strange antics and knew to drive slower than usual. However, as we left the hotel and got only round the corner, the police started chasing us.....and he didn't stop! I honestly thought that we were about to embark in a high speed chase IN INDIA of all places! I begged for him to pull over, and he finally agreed. The police pulled him out of the car and refused to give him back to us, explaining that our driver had in fact no license. So, we just sat there, in the car, in the heat, and waited for him to get us another. Hmm, anyhow we made it to the Ellora caves which we every bit as special as the others and also a little bigger.

After aurangabad, we trained it to Mumbai where we spent a day and night. Didn't think Mumbai had quite the character of Delhi, but we still enjoyed it indulging in a wonderful shopping guide who we picked up on the street. He was really sweet and we really enjoyed for a day the upper class shopping experience where we were shown where to go and given plenty of chai, air conditioning and seats and they paraded many garments and pashmena's in front of us for our selection. We had a ball! Later, we settled into a Gold Class style cinema to watch Slumdog Millionaire, which started by all 10 or so of us standing for the National Anthem.

On arriving at the airport the next day in time for our carefully selected group of flights to get us down to Kerala at a reasonable price, we discovered that they had changed the time of flight without telling us and we had missed our first connection. Mel went off putting on her fake ugly american act to see what she could do for us while I sat and explored our other options. She returned some minutes later informing me that we had been requested to leave the airport. Me, being me, actually believed her and my mouth dropped open wondering just how far she had gone with the act to get that response! However, it wasn't true and we ended up with even cheaper flights than before, but had to wait and then catch a long local train after the flight.

In the end we got to Kovalam Beach in the south of India, and were absolutely ready for a good 10 days enjoying paradise. We ate, we drank, we lazed on the beach under our umbrellas (it was soooo hot!) and of course we shopped. As part of our time in Kerala, we invested in a 24 hour houseboat along the backwaters. This was just magical and probably one of my most influential moments during this holiday part of my trip. It was a chance to get into the quiet and reality of the backwater village life.

On the houseboat we were given the best food I had in all of India and and enjoyed the serenity and calmness of the river. As we went in from the bottom end of the backwaters, there was hardly anyone else around. We also got off this boat onto a smaller canoe like boat to delve even further into the narrow warren of backwaters that the villages are built around. It was here, that I found many inspirations and noticed the repitition of the circle patterns more common. You will notice how I have used the idea of having the rings as windows in my houses, and the loose village like structure as a form.

Back on land again, I had to say goodbye to my travelling buddy as we went our separate ways. Mel was heading back to LA to work, and I was heading across to the other side of the country to explore an ongoing experiment in Human Unity.....auroville.

Auroville is a purpose built town of currently about 2000 residents. It is 6kms from the french town of Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu. Also south of India. I had discovered this place whilst randomly looking at profiles of Ceramic Artists in India. Adil Writer's work, I admire for its loose sculptural and woodfired appeal, and combination of traditional themes with contemporary political views. He lives in auroville and works at Mandala Pottery, also in auroville. This is a fascinating place, and the best thing I can suggest if you are at all interested, is simply to click on the link and find out more info for yourself. However, I will give you a brief as I learnt a lot from attending a free seminar each day given by someone who's lived there since the beginning. Each day was a different topic, such as its economy and alternative monetry system, architecture and planning and education. I stayed in auroville for a week and enjoyed getting to know what works and what doesn't about living in an alternative societal structure. Aurovile was created by someone referred to as the mother, back in the 1960's. It was a land that was desolute and bare except for the villages nearby who had learnt to adapt to the dryness of this area. Through developing a sustainable structure of agriculture, architecture and transport, about 200 people from countries all over the world made a plan. A plan to live in harmony and be recognised by the Indian government and UNESCO as a separate entity away freed from the structure of the rest of the world. The plan is to have 50,000 people live here in a sustainable environment. They have a central temple which is called the matri mandir and surrounding grounds in which the locals go to concentrate with the energy of a single beam of light hitting a huge glass ball in the centre of the structure. Its a peaceful place and the plan of auroville is built around it. The town flows out in circular bands around this round domed temple, with separate zones for residential, business and agriculture. Anyhow, interesting place but I don't think its for me. Too many steming problems which I don't see solved in a lifetime. However, I do agree with many of their systems.

So finally, after all this discovery and inspiration, I went off to start my residency back in Delhi at the SANSKRITI KENDRA! Stay tuned......