Potter's tales

A pottery studio in the heart of Gurgaon is a treasure trove of design ideas.

Look here,” she points her finger to the ceiling of her home, a command to which we obediently respond. Anju Kumar, a potter and painter by profession, is showing us her plush three-floor home, including the basement, where she works close to 20 hours every day to supply pottery products to blue-chip companies, corporate houses, hospitality chains and residences. Breaking the monotony of the walls is a glass structure, a panel, encased in which is a gorgeous leaf motif. “These are dried leaves from the garden that I pressed together between glass and fitted on the ceiling,” Kumar adds. Smart design move.

 

Though we have a quick dekko of Kumar’s home, it’s the studio that we have officially been invited to see. But on our way there, it’s not difficult to notice Kumar’s genius strokes: A Kerala saree zari border, for instance, which the artist had procured from a neighbourhood bazaar, finds its way on to the doors and windows of her home, pressed neatly between glass. The technique can be seen used in different portions of her home. Looking at it, I’m already thinking of an old dupatta which has been lying in my cupboard. Pressed between two glasses, it could work as a coffee table top. Oh, and just before we’re climbing down into the basement studio, Kumar asks us to check out a rich-looking panel that has been placed on a living room wall. “It’s in stone?” I ask. “No,” replies Kumar, explaining that she made a pattern on a medium density fibreboard (MDF) and coloured it with acrylic paint in faded brown. Once again, a unique idea, an unusual concept.

In that sense, Kumar’s place is a treasure trove of ideas that can be replicated — without spending a fortune — with ease. In fact, her studio, where we are now seated, is also a space (Kumar’s favourite, by the way) where a lot of textures merge together to create an area where she can not only work but also display her creations. One notices, for instance, an incomplete wall in the space. Basically, the smooth plaster of paris finished in off-white doesn’t come all the way down. Instead, it reaches halfway and from there one only sees a layer of cement which has been brushed simply with a broomstick. “My folks thought I was crazy. I mean, one hears of bare walls but who on earth leaves them unfinished? The workers and my family members were stunned when I asked them to stop working on the wall midway,” she quips. But Kumar had clearly seen what others hadn’t. Her vast collection of vases and tall terracotta lamps is juxtaposed against the incomplete wall to complete a fabulous look.

Armed with the foresight to “see the overall picture of different spaces even at the first stage of work”, Kumar, much to the chagrin of her family members (“barring my husband”), purchased a truckload of sleeper wood at an auction, “I loved the uneven texture of the wood. At the same time, it has optimum strength. Textures,” she adds, “fascinate me.” Planks of “old railway sleeper wood” have been assembled, brushed and stroked with linseed oil for a brilliant finish. The wood has been spread in different parts of the studio, which, in itself, is spread over 1,000 sq ft. It’s been cut and assembled as uneven shelves in one part of the studio. In another section, the same sleeper wood emerges as panels, resting on which are numerous terracotta masks. It also emerges as part of a pillar bang in the middle of the studio area. Simply put: Much like the sleeper wood, the entire studio, which Kumar regards as an “extension of my identity”, is uneven, different elements sprouting suddenly but merging, nonetheless, into a unified vision. Fireclay tiles have been assembled in an area where she has — in accordance with Feng-shui principles perhaps — a water area. In another section, the flooring gets a break, what with a low-levelled pulpit that has been created to display some of Kumar’s creations. She’s created wooden podiums (blocks of left-over sleeper wood have been used as table tops too) on which other creations are displayed. Her abstract paintings — she mixes acrylic colours with ceramic and also uses gold leaf patra work on them — are also displayed on the painting line, which runs through the walls of the studio. While there are spotlights for paintings, the rest of the studio makes use of alcove lighting.

“My vision for the studio was simple: I wanted to create an earthy feel. The space had to be simple, clean, straight lined,” she says, while showing us her pottery work in mixed media, including wrought iron, jute and glass.

Kumar’s studio, in her own words, is also her meditating ground. It’s not difficult to understand why.