Making clay pay

When Rekha Goyal turned 18, she came to a point in life where she had to choose between the road widely travelled and the one no had taken.  Her father, an engineer, wanted daughter dearest to be the one to carry forward his legacy and, quite obviously, pointed to the well worn out road.

But come crunch time, Goyal chose the path no one had travelled; preferring to get her hands dirty with clay than greasing her hands toying with the nuts and bolts of engineering. 

“There’s something about working with clay. It’s a high when you shape a lump of clay into something that your heart desires,” says the 28-year-old Goyal. Desires, no doubt, but ceramic art also makes good economic sense.  

“The change has been rapid. Art itself in India, over the years, has gone from the art galleries to public spaces and its application from education to therapy,” says Goyal. 
Goyal is – to derive inspiration from Everett Rogers – an innovator, who is now among the few at the head of a growing pack. “Ceramic art has spread across all sections of society,” says Goyal. “The craft is not niche and its art, even though not mass, is gaining popularity.”

The boom, so to speak, is not just confined to Mumbai. Take the case of Sovan Kumar who entered the world of ceramics around the same time as Goyal did. Today he has set up the first-ever ceramic studio of Orissa at Bhubaneswar. 

“Every one wants an exclusive piece for their home,” says the 36-year-old Kumar. “Ceramic art does pay, however, like other fields it’s often a matter of perseverance and opportunity.” 

Kumar’s studio has also turned out to be a platform to save the dying art of traditional pottery. “Orissa has the best fire-clay in Asia,” he says. “Despite being rich in minerals and other raw materials required for ceramic pottery, the tradition was dying here.”

Kumar rents out his studio to traditional potters to make their ceramic art pieces and helps them market it. “Clay doesn’t have much value but the design has,” he says. “A little style to your handmade pottery can help it sell at astronomical prices. While you pay approximately Rs100 for an imported tile, you pay anything between Rs3,500 and Rs4,500 per square feet of mural.”

For 29-year-old ceramic sculptor Shashank Bhagat, the feeling of working with clay is the same as that of “a poet while writing poetry”. His contemporary Vinay Patankar is no different. “I give complete creative freedom to my work,” says Patankar, a teacher at Udyachal Primary School in Vikhroli and a freelance ceramic artist.  

Goyal, Kumar, Bhagat and Patankar are part of a new pack of GenXers who are thinking beyond the ordinary when it comes to making a living. “People are more aware today and ceramic is one of the career choices among people. Of course, it can never hope to compete with mainstream choices, but it is quite popular,” says Pervin Malhotra, Director, Career Guidance India. 

So popular is it for some that they get a master’s degree in mathematics from Oxford and still decide to play with clay. Way back in 1974, Angad Vohra, even after an Oxford education, decided that a regular 9-to-5 job was not his cup of tea. A chance meeting with Ray Meeker and Deborah of Golden Bridge Pottery in Auroville and Vohra was a convert, and has been so for over 35 years now. 

“Deborah was instrumental in making me take up the potter’s wheel. Within three days of meeting them, I took up the wheel. And three days after that, I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life!” says Vohra, who owns Mantra Handmade Pottery in Auroville. “I don’t want anybody to buy my pottery and just leave it on a shelf. It gives me great pleasure if they put it some use.”

Priya Kulkarni, Creative Head, Hobby Ideas and former teacher at JJ School of Arts, points out that ceramics has evolved from a utilitarian product to being an integral aesthetic element in an urban décor. “Handmade pottery is significant now. One can easily make Rs60,000 to Rs70,000 a month depending on the assignments. And the figure is only escalating,” she says.

Curator Niyati Shinde agrees with Kulkarni. “Recently I bought a ceramic bowl for Rs7000. The same bowl wouldn’t have fetched more than Rs1,000 for the artist,” she says. “The value of a ceramic art show has also grown from Rs50,000 to Rs100,000 in recent years.”

Ceramic art borders between the realm of art and craft and that, says Shinde, is both an advantage and disadvantage. “It is a disadvantage since ceramic art is still not considered completely art, and it’s an advantage because its utilitarian value enhances its marketability,” she says.

For Patankar working on the wheel is also very therapeutic. “It’s something different and very magical. It involves your body and mind; you craft philosophy,” he says. Ceramics, nevertheless, is a difficult medium to work with. “With ceramics, you need to develop your craftsmanship. It’s like learning the alphabets, then a line and then composing poetry,” he says. 

One needs to understand clay and study its nature thoroughly before venturing into it. “The number of years you spend with clay doesn’t matter. You can never be cent per cent sure of what comes out the kiln,” says Goyal. 

It is precisely the medium’s unpredictability that got Bhagat to take up the challenge. “I extended my vision of art and started making sculptures,” he says. Today he is only one in Maharashtra to have stepped into the difficult field of ceramic sculpting

So, is it really worth ‘dirtying’ your hands in clay? “I think those people who can work with mud are very fortunate because that’s the earth, the very substance that creates us,” says Shinde, signing off.