My clay journey has always been guided by the desire to make aesthetically pleasing pots grounded in functionality. Apart from being well crafted, they need to serve as perfectly functioning objects, that means they need to have a well balanced weight, comfortable handle, good pour, be durable, dishwasher safe, in other words technically sound pieces that invite daily use. Of all the forms that I make, my favorite is definitely the yunomi, a Japanese tea cup meant for everyday tea drinking. It is generally taller than it is wider and has a trimmed foot. Personally I feel, the way this form nestles in one’s cupped hands makes for a most intimate experience. I love making and collecting yunomis and I have close to seventy or more yunomis by different artists that we use regularly. These pieces are what I like to call functional art.
For those familiar with my work, might be aware of how I incorporate wild soils on my yunomis, soils usually collected during my travels. A couple of months ago I got to visit my hometown of Dharamshala, a city nestled in the Himalayas. Of course I had to pick up some soil from there. Upon return I tested the material and applied it on two of my yunomis. As I unloaded the glaze kiln, out of the entire batch, I found my gaze constantly going back to these two cups and I realized that I just couldn’t stop touching them. They didn’t look dramatically different from the rest of the cups but to me they were exceptionally stunning. As my fingers explored the contours of the cup, every ridge, every undulation, every splash of color, felt like a reminder of a landscape that I fondly remembered as home. These cups were more than just well crafted objects meant to hold liquid. The alchemy of the soil from my hometown had transformed them into a vessel that held precious childhood memories of the carefree, happy summers spent in the lap of these majestic mountains.
I have always approached functionality of objects from the standpoint of technicality but this experience made me look at things from a different lens. If an object serves as a carrier of memories isn’t that serving a function in itself? My younger self would have probably scoffed at such sentimentality but that, I guess, is a perspective that comes with age and with having lived life. I find myself looking at functionality in a new light, interestingly just in time for utilitarian clay Symposium!
