return to ceramic heaven (Cj)

Steve and I are going to briefly talk as part of the Pairings Symposium at MMU (UK) tomorrow, Friday 22nd October, about our 'pairing' / collaboration with Amanda out here in Ahmedabad - and give a small insight into some of the work we've been doing. A daunting prospect given that none of us have actually finished anything just yet!!
We hope too that the technology doesn't let us down and Skype helps us to communicate clearly, without delays, from India to Special Collections...

So I returned to Laxmi, and fired all of the cups decorated by the children in the Pol, which were amazing...  Watching as they were fed into the mouth of the furnace, I felt anxious, scared that something may go wrong, worried about how the pieces seemed to be precariously balanced on top of one another, wondering again what is it that drew me to work in this way...

Whilst waiting for the kiln to work it's magic, we chatted with Deepak about all manner of subjects from the differences in ceramic materials used by different religious groups in India to telepathy, but my mind was constantly returning to the kiln, and thoughts of the kids faces if something went wrong...

And, telepathically or not, I asked if I could check on the kiln and the pieces had just started to re appear on the chainmail belt, shiny, glistening and renewed...

And so, with cups packed beautifully, and armed with yet more pieces to decorate, we returned to Arts Reverie once more, with just a small delay caused by an altercation with some striking rickshaw drivers...

more images from the return to ceramic heaven here...