Your favorite Bowls

I introduced these bowls last year and have gotten a great response from customers. Handbuilt and slip decorated with different washes and color accents, each lands up being distinctive and unique. A very similar process goes for my mugs too. On doing shows last year, I noticed that there were some people who liked the intricate patterns, some liked more negative spaces in the pattern, some liked the color accents, some just preferred the wash etc. I just got super curious to get all this data and see what I would find.

That is when I decoded to get this data from my fans on facebook. I posted the following picture and asked everyone to vote for their favorite in each row. So, there were three votes from everyone, a favorite from the honey gold glaze, a favorite from the Soft Green Glaze and a favorite from the Blue glaze.

I had an overwhelming response. Approx 180 votes. It was great to get this input and I thank you all for voting. And here are the results. Pretty much even across the board, except for one of the blue bowls that got significantly low votes. And looking closely you can see that the bowls with the color accents and the wash combination and negative spaces did get more votes in each case. (HG3, S2, B1) Thank you all for your input. This gives me a good idea to what to send to galleries that carry my workas well. Do you agree with the favorites? Do you have your own favorite? Do tell.

     

Making a bust for the first time

As several of you reading my blog know that my work is very influenced by fabrics. I do tend to make something functional and have done my sculptural dancing divas too. Also did some shoes last year. This time I thought why not make a torso or bust featuring some beautiful indian prints just as they are meant to be on fabric. This is a larger scale of sculpture that I am used to but thoroughly enjoyed the process.

Here it is handbuilt and slip decorated with buttons. Had to dry it really slowly and went a little crazy supporting the insides and keeping the form.

And here it is all decorated with layers of underglazes which really enhance the texture and pattern. It is approximately 18"x 18" and goes up on the wall. I will be taking it to the summer shows and hope to make more pieces in this series.

It was a great experience to get out of my comfort zone and try something new. What have you wanted to create pushing your limits? Do share.

     

The friends of Asian Art Association

Spring is in the air... Fresh blooms, new leaves on trees, sun shinning with color popping everywhere. This is always my favorite time of the year. And I am very glad that this year my parents were visiting and we could enjoy this colorful season together.

With my mom at the Tulip Festival in Washington State. A great way to celebrate a Pre-Mother's Day

Talking about mom, don't forget "Mother's Day" is right around the corner. Check out my new mugs and other Mom favorites in my Etsy shop Mother's Day Special Get a FREE sample of Jaipur Avenue Chai with every purchase till supplies last. If you have wondered of what true Indian Masala Chai Tea tastes like then you have got to try this.

Pictured here are some of my new variations in my mugs photographed and staged by a very talented photographer Archana Srinivas. She is passionate about interior design, travel, rustic food photography, her cups of 'chai' & capturing the beauty of everyday life... Check out her facebook page and you will be amazed.

Moravian Pottery and Tile works

When I went to Philadelphia for the Buyers Market Show in February I made it a point to have an additional day to visit the Moravian Pottery and Tile works in Doylestown, PA. It is a 1.5 hour train ride with 1/2 hour walk from the train station to the studio, but worth every minute and much more.

Seeing the video of the history of how these tiles acme about was great with so much great insight to some simple processes that still in use there.

Check out the number of tiles a worker had to produce in a day. That is a lot of freaking tiles!!!

It was great to get an in depth look into process with one of the artists there (Eric, don't recall his last name). He was grateful to answer all my questions and also gave me a ride back to the train station in the freezing rain. I was amazed to see that the tiles were all physically pressed by hand with simple tools till date and he mentioned that the tile press was used for mostly open faced tiles. A very basic tile press and plans of making one are in Frank Giorgini's book "Handmade Tiles"

This I think was one of the most genius things I saw there. Their boards for storing tiles during making, decorating and glazing was so simple. Just a board with small 1x2s attached at the end that just stack and make a cool inbuilt shelving system. They have been using this system for years and some of those boards are really old. Some of the simplest ideas are the greatest.

Of course going there has me inspired t do some tile work. I have had it at the back of my mind for years, but going to this place has really got me thinking again. I have already started working on some prototypes, so hopefully I will have new products during the summer shows. What places or workplaces have you visited that have inspired you?

     

Slip Decoration Madness Video

As many of you know, Slip decoration is big part of my work. And my work is highly influenced by Indian fabrics colors and embroidery. At first instance people assume I am imprinting a piece of fabric on my clay and then make my forms.
That is not the case and the pieces get slip decorated individually making each one unique. I try to keep adding new patterns and designs and since each piece gets its own unique touch, each one lands up being one of a kind.
Here is a short video clip (speeded up, of course) showing a typical day in my studio. I wish I could decorate at that speed. I enjoy this part of the process, but have heard comments that it is just madness.
So call me crazy, but I LOVE it!
To see other pieces of my work slip decorated visit my website

Do you think this is Madness?

     

How to organize digital images?

Don't we all just love the digital world we live in? The amount of time and money we save by just clicking our digital cameras and taking as many pictures as we need is just awesome. No more taking pictures on film, wondering if you got the perfect shot, then spending money on developing them and realizing that you messed up color balance or focus or something else. I am talking from mostly the point of view of taking pictures of my pottery, which is great for keeping records, seeing how your work progresses, applying for shows, posting on Facebook, blog, websitesetc... One big issue I have had is with the excess of pictures and trying to organize and find what you need. They land up going in multiple locations. For every purpose resolutions change, website and blogs need low res, show applications need high res but of a certain size. Sometimes color correction is required. I just had to come up with something that would save me the frustration of finding the picture I want. I posted this question on Facebook and got some great tips. I adopted some of them and modified them to suit my needs. I wanted to share this on my blog as I am sure there are several of you who would be dealing with this situation. One option was to name images as per date, resolution, kind of product and many adopted this method. However this would be a nightmare for me with the current pictures I have. And because I am always in a rush, spending more time after taking pictures naming each one would just sink my time. I came up with a folder solution which was a combination of suggestions by two of my Facebook friends, James Young and Kristen Kieffer At first all images get downloaded from my camera to a folder called "Sort". In this folder, all bad shots are deleted and everything is moved to the "Originals" folder. And within the "Originals" there is a sub folder for every year, 2008, 2009, 2010... So at the end of it the "Sort" folder should be empty to receive new images the next time around. From the "Originals" folder things get really sorted. Based on where and what I use my images for this is the structure I use. Images are "copied" to the respective folders and edited as per resolution needed and cleaned up. A copy of the originals in the "Originals" folder stays intact. Blog Website Show submissions Press Submissions Studio Facebook Videos Wholesale Catalog Etsy Inspiration And each of these folders has subfolders of years in them, i.e. each folder has a 2008, 2009... 2013 folder in them. It took me 3 days to clean up all the images I had, but I feel so much better now as I know exactly where an image goes and where I can find it. I hope this helps other as well. What tips do you have for organizing your digital pictures???