I’m sure you would think twice before having idli-dosa in the dish that I’ve crafted,’’ says 27-year old Abhay Pandit, with an impish smile. No doubt. The finely ridged and fluted stoneware dish, bathed in aquamarine blue, hardly invites something as plebian as dosa. Maybe a nice red dot (that says sold) and a handsome price is more like it? After all, pottery, as much as a painting on the wall, is art that can be enjoyed. A one-time graphic designer, Abhay grew up watching his father, senior potter B Pandit, turn the wheel. Abhay may be a torch-bearer for the new generation of ‘ceramic artists’. ‘‘Potters have always been a reclusive lot. Today, though, they are willing to become more accessible,’’ says Mumbai art collector Phiroza Godrej, who has supported pottery exhibitions for almost 12 years now. On the cusp of utility and art, studio potters often find themselves bracketed with craftspersons. Senior potters like Jyotsna Bhatt, 56, and Angad Vohra, 52, don’t necessarily consider this a disadvantage. ‘‘Good craftsmanship is absolutely necessary,’’ says Vadodara-based Bhatt. Vohra says, ‘‘The beauty about pottery is the unknown identity of the craftsperson. One kills ego and becomes a vehicle for the magical creation of a pot.’’ Pondicherry’s Vohra, who leads a hermit-like existence, has had two gallery exhibitions in his 12-year career as a studio potter. He’s typical of the older generation of potters who hesitate to ‘come out’ of a famously reclusive sub-community within the art clique. ‘‘It was under Meeker and Smith that I evolved as an artist,’’ says Vindo Daroz, 32, who combined motifs culled from his family’s jewellery tradition with his training in sculpture to create pots combining design and utility. The training in Pondicherry made his art more cerebral, and brought in a narrative element to his designs in clay, he explains. When Madhavi Subramanyan, 40, started her career as a studio potter in Mumbai in the 1990s, the tag line of her invitations read: ‘Wood-fired, hand-made and created with one aim in mind—utility’. Now her pots are far from merely functional, and are enshrined in collectors’ houses with the same dimmed lighting that any other art work would receive. ‘‘Indian potters are yet to get the kind of recognition that they have in the West,’’ says Jiloo Billimoria, 40. But, she adds, ‘‘It’s great that the avenues have opened up for potters like Abhay. While his father Panditji had to struggle a lot, he’s tasting fame at an early age.’’ We’ll raise our ceramic mugs to that.
