Pottery in frames

She paints through her wheel. Not an overstatement. Sejal Mody’s abstract expressions evolve from the wheel bursting in to scintillating colours, shapes and sizes and ultimately reaching the wall as a framed piece of art.

“I began my career as an abstract painter. So it comes naturally to me to use this style even for my ceramics,” says the soft-spoken, shy Sejal, a studio ceramic potter based in Mumbai.

And her works adorn the walls of the rich and famous in Mumbai. Yes, she is a ceramic artist whose works besides adorning table tops also decorate walls. It’s really difficult and rare to take handcrafted ceramic tabletop works to walls. In fact, very few ceramic artists do ceramic wall art. So it came as a surprise to see framed ceramics on the walls in her small studio in central Mumbai. And that too, pieces resembling abstract paintings. Initially mistaking them to be abstract oil paintings on canvas, one hesitated to touch them till the artist cajoled us to do so. It was only then did we realise that they were all beautifully sculpted fired ceramic plates with an array of layered colouring to give the feel of an abstract painting.

Brushing it off

Born into a family of business people, Sejal studied Fine Arts from Mumbai’s Sir J J School of Arts. Unhappy with the one-dimension world of paintings, she decided to pursue ceramics. An early marriage followed by two children led to art taking the back seat until years later, persuaded by her architect husband, Sejal seriously took to ceramics. “Till then, I had done only paintings. I did a couple of commissioned works of large murals, paintings and did multimedia works also. But I found my calling in ceramics,” explains the potter.

Realising that a mere certificate course in pottery would not take her far, she went all the way to famed Andretta Pottery at Kangra in Himachal Pradesh to pursue her dreams. “Learning the art from Mansimaran Singh and his wife Mary was a real treat and an absolutely memorable experience,” recalls Sejal.

She didn’t stop it there. She had to master glazing technique for she knew that to experiment with her art form, she needed to be trained in the basic intricacies of the art form. Not content doing table top wares like cup-saucers, kettles, plates, vases etc., she wanted to bring fashion canvases using the potter’s wheel. For this, Sejal studied under Sandeep Manchekar in Mumbai, to whom goes the credit of coaching and guiding several ceramic studio potters of Mumbai.

As Sejal says, “I believe in Henry Moore’s quote, ‘Art is a way of making a person, get fuller enjoyment out of life than he/she would otherwise.’ For me, art is a process. Even when I don’t have my material with me, I keep doing it in my mind most of the time. Whenever I see something that inspires me, it gets registered in my mind in the form of an image. Sometimes I find this inspiration in nature (flowers, butterflies etc.) or sometimes in someone else’s work or in books. Basically, the beauty of nature inspires me.”

Jewellery designing

Having won a couple of awards, she decided to branch out into ceramic jewellery. At a recent studio pottery exhibition, her jewellery collection — pendants made from colourful ceramic noodles and frozen into various shapes of pendants dangling from beads and pearls necklaces, silk threads or even metal chains, were in hot demand by visitors. Even cocktail rings with ceramic centres topped on wooden rings were grabbed up in no time. “Those who were unable to have them placed orders,” admits a self-conscious Sejal as though she herself couldn’t believe that her art would receive so much appreciation and translate into sales.

Sejal takes care of each material used in her work. Like the wooden frames used to install the plates. She selects the wood by visiting the timber yards spread all over the city and the suburbs. The colour of the frame and the size is all planned and the carpenter given instruction and the entire process supervised in her own studio. Sometimes the designer-handcrafted pottery plates are mounted on mirrors to get a different effect. So she goes out and hunts for the glass mirror to get the desired reflection of the plate that she plans to mount.

“I enjoy experimentation. Sometimes I fail, but when I succeed, it’s an entirely euphoric feeling!” signs off Sejal, already lost in her world of next creation.