Shilpayan was a beautiful attempt in getting the contemporary designs, techniques and the traditional potters together. The idea was to have five contemporary studio potters as experts, five traditional potters and 100 potters from different districts of M.P. It was a ten day workshop organized by Madhya Pradesh Vigyan Evam Prodyogiki Parishad and Indira GandhiManav Sangrahalaya, Bhopal. The five studio potters called in as experts were Shantanu Jena, Arun Kumar Sharma, Devilal Patidar, Jyotsana Bhatt and me. It was an awesome experience to be working with them all….Shantanu da with his infectious energy and a fantastic sense of humour kept us all laughing, he amazed me with his knowledge of the medium and the simplicity of his personality…. And hats off to Shampa di, she seemed like one super woman… managing everything as a host…. between work, paper work , the potters and our requirements and then her little ‘superman’ Tuka…who would worry everyone by being in the sun all the time :)

I was thrilled when Shampa di (Shampa Shah) told me that Rashtriya Indira Gandhi Manav Sangrahalaya was doing a workshop with hundred traditional potters and five contemporary studio potters as experts and that I’m invited as one of the experts. At the same time I was a little skeptical about the outcome of this workshop. But nevertheless the thought of working with craftsmen has always fascinated me and the fact that Shampa di was involved made me think this would be different….I have always wondered how they manage to create forms and objects which are so original and characteristic of their surroundings, it reflects their belief, their gods and goddess and their social and economical structure, each district would have a style of their own which reflects their surroundings and way of living.…it seems effortlessly done without any intellectual talk just their tradition and folklore coming to them through generations and assimilated within them.

The times are changing and so are the needs of the individuals along with their social structure. The demand of what the potters make has gone down as other materials have replaced the market. Therefore the need arises to create objects which are used more often and regularly in the contemporary lifestyle so that the market for these products increase. Our aim in this workshop was to interact with them, see the methods they are using, understand the work they have been doing and then give them ideas to develop new products keeping the characteristics of their work and designs intact. Also to sort any problems regarding the techniques they are using and introduce some new ones.

Shampa di’s understanding of the traditional crafts and the craftsmen is so deep that it works as a bridge between them and us…..I refer to this subject as “them and us” as this was something I have always felt while working with any traditional crafts person.…. Many times in such workshops the potters end up feeling that what they have been doing so far is not good enough or on the other extreme might block all ideas thinking ‘what will these ‘shahari’ people know about how we work and what we do’ which I feel is very natural. There was an interesting situation in case of one group that had come from Morena. I felt I was being checked out thoroughly before they started listening to what I had to say….It was a lovely feeling though, had they just heard me out without any cross questioning I would have felt they are hardly listening but since they put all sorts of tricky technical questions and even challenged me on certain topics, I knew I was being tested. By the time they were satisfied we had developed a lovely relationship of respect and understanding. They even sang songs in their native language curiously those songs were not folk songs but songs based on folk tunes and wording spoke of the contemporary changes in their village. There was one which described the famine they had and one which was a sarcastic take on their younger generation women wearing high heals….;) It was lovely to be a part of them.

After the first two days they left behind their awkwardness and we had a good and open interaction. We did one low temperature glaze firing, a raku firing and a smoke firing, made three different kinds of kilns and the techniques of slip trailing, mocha and resist in smoke firing were also introduced … they were all very keen to learn the new techniques and also teach us some of their own, we also ended up comparing notes and figuring out the possibilities of each others materials. By then they became very open about their interests and problems and accepted us as one of their own which was a huge honour.

I left Bhopal with a positive feeling but the only thing I was wondering was that while speaking to them I really felt they lacked confidence in going beyond their village and locality…. They feel almost lost when you ask them to go in search of a wider market. Probably experiences like taking their work to a craft mela or for them to interact directly with a lager and more varied customer would help in developing their confidence. But in just ten days we were successful in raising their curiosity about the possibilities of the medium. It did bring a new zeal in the potters and they were keen to go home and try these techniques on their own which in itself was a huge accomplishment.