Stars get their hands dirty

They believe it’s a perfect medium to convey one’s imagination, encompassing sensual, textural, and cognitive activities.
Manu Randhawa, a ceramic artist who works mainly in stoneware and has recently explored terracotta, is someone who swears by pottery. When she was in midlife, she felt a little lost. Manu tried many different things to alleviate that feeling.

“I was always a sports enthusiast, so I started running marathons! People complimented me on my writing skills, which led me to attempt writing for a collection of short stories. Finally, I ventured into the world of pottery. I never thought I had a creative bone in my body, but the first time I sat on the wheel, I knew I had found my peace,” smiles Manu.

Centring the clay came easily to her, and she slowly felt her soul calming peace. “The touch of the clay and the focus that it required to center the piece created a sort of calmness. She says, "I slowly felt my anxiety fade away, and I became hooked for life."

Her ceramics feature unique textures, along with a mix of colors and organic forms. “Clay has a therapeutic effect on the body, mind, and soul, and I am proof of that fact. No wonder it’s become the hottest passion for all the lost souls of the world,” she says.

Artist Mudita Bhandari echos similar views. Being an artist whose medium is ceramics, she strongly feels pottery helps her be in sync with life. “Any creative or organic process, whether it's gardening, dancing, or cooking, can be extremely de-stressing and healing, and yet when one is working with clay, it seems to somehow feel like you are directly communicating with your subconscious intuitive self,” she says.

Clay is one of the most basic natural materials which has its own process of maturing, it responds to all the weathers just like we humans do. “It will absorb the moisture from the air in rainy season and dry very slwoly and would dry really fast in the summers. Short cuts dont work with it.” She says, clay has a character of its own and it responds beautifully when you work with it and not try to control it. “Working with clay and life has many parallels. Just like in life you try contolling something it never works but when you let go and work with it spontaniously, one encounters the most amazing experiences,” informs Mudita.

For her, everything about the process of working with clay resonates with a very basic and organic life lesson. “The material is direct in a very subtle way and tactile. Whatever you make, your hand impression of that moment in time is recorded along with your subcouncious feelings of that moment. It helps me go inwards peacefully away from the hustle bustle of this world,” she adds.