Pottery has long fascinated me. I sat with village potters on the outskirts of Pune in India in the 1980s and tried my hand at their amazing wheels rotated with simple sticks.
However, it was not until I went to live in the US in the 1990s, with both my children away in college, that I was able to apply myself fully to learn the intricacies of pottery and ceramics. I enrolled myself at the Decordova Museum School of Arts in Lincoln, Massachusetts. There I met my mentor and teacher, Mokoto Yabe. Mokotosan was a great teacher. He taught without teaching. He helped each one of his pupils to discover and pursue their own styles, thus inculcating the love of ceramics, and a desire to continuously learn and evolve. Encouraged by Mokotosan, I moved to the Radcliffe Ceramics Studio in Harvard University, where too he taught. There, for ten years, I learned a lot interacting with potters from many countries with their different styles.
My style has gradually evolved into more sculptural work. I start a piece with an idea in my mind which evolves as I work through the stages of its creation. Over the last few years, many birds have begun to appear along with my sculptural figures, and my stretch pots are rough like the barks of trees, evoking my love for nature and a vision of human beings living in harmony with it.
