Lucknow has been famous for its various handicrafts for as long as anyone can remember. Zardozi is one of the most exquisite ones. It is extensively practised in Old Lucknow where a lot of craftsmen live and work. I visited one of the add as where it is done and in no time made a bond with them. This project is an attempt to understand the nuances of the craft and its people, get a glimpse of their life and know them better. Each day marks a different experience, a stronger bond and a deeper layer of insight. In the course of this visual ethnographic study, I begin to enjoy the rhythm of everyday activities and evolve in a way that is intangible.

“Pottery is not just an art form, it is a therapy.” An AIFACS awardee, Meena Vohra believes “Its never too late to learn.” She had her first brush with clay at the age of 50. She has had a journey through its realms and has carved a niche for herself. She had been a school teacher for 13 years but was always interested in art. Pottery is made by forming a clay body into objects of a required shape and heating them to high temperatures in a kiln to induce reactions that lead to permanent changes, including increasing their strength, hardening and setting their shape.

I love clay. In it I feel seeds of growth that I can nurture with my hands. Pots are like babies and pottery a bliss. Every pot is a projection of myself but it has a language that is beyond the grammar of written words. It is like a conversation that happens between clay and fingers, the former almost commanding the latter how to move in a certain rhythm and create the form. It is challenging yet simple, it is primordial yet playful, it is formless but creates the form and it is full of surprises. Goals for the current project: * To demonstrate the ability to create a set of identical pots to the extent to which the effortless ease of production pottery has been internalized. * To evolve my own aesthetics of form and glazing. * To develop a clarity with regards to repositioning of a craft. * To explore pot-making. * To follow the bliss.

People across the globe are bothered about the future of the planet, a future that none of us have any answers to. With a hope that the generations to come will save the world, both outside them and within, alternate and non-traditional models of education have to be explored. A holistic education of the child is necessary to find an answer to that question. That is what sketches the outline of my project this semester. Goals for the current project: * To attempt an understanding of how children behave in a given environment. * To observe their responses to materials and learning through art. * To document the Free Progress education model followed in Deepanam School, Auroville, in the form of a book. * To explore book-design.