Passage - Ceramics at the Hyatt, Chennai

Passage

Ceramics at the Hyatt, Chennai

Ray Meeker Aarti Vir Adil Writer Rakhee Kane Antra Sinha Deborah Smith

Michel Hutin Ashwini Bhat Sharbani Das Gupta

Passage

Ceramics at the Hyatt, Chennai

Ray Meeker Aarti Vir Adil Writer Rakhee Kane Antra Sinha Deborah Smith

Michel Hutin Ashwini Bhat Sharbani Das Gupta

Rajeev Sethi at Pollinator 1. Hyatt Regency, Chennai. Curator of Art at the Hyatt

About 40 years ago when I first began visiting Pondicherry, I met with the tall and sturdy Ray Meeker and his partner Deborah Smith in their Ashram -like Golden Gate… Sorry! Golden Bridge Pottery. I know it’s not Golden Gate, but the name brings back memories of the late 1960’s in San Francisco where I would often sit by the magical Golden Gate Bridge—talismanic of a city that straddled many polarities with seamless spontaneity Ray and Deborah were very serious about introducing a new vocabulary of ceramics which included an eye towards the millions of traditional potters whose markets and skills were rapidly shrinking. The Golden Bridge Pottery has become famous and evocative for some of us always on the look-out for con- temporary sensibilities transforming hand skills for utilitarian pleasure. Having spent some time with the legendary architect Hasan Fathy in Egypt and struck by Ray’s spirit and experiments in fired building we spoke about his parabolic kilns that he fired as homes and that table- ware and tiles within could be made ready for the fashionable few. Since then I have always wanted to engage with Ray and his wonderful group of artists that have consistently evolved and redefined ceramic as an art form for this country. Scale and architectural usage were the buzz words. When I first saw live beehives hanging in the atrium of an abandoned building in Chennai—now converted into The Hyatt Regency Hotel—I was struck and moved. Where did the tenacious honey bees go for their nectar in a concrete jungle? Enter Ray, Paul and others from the practical utopias of Auroville. Clearly as we started to make the fifty ‘beehives’ as artwork to hang from each balcony in- side, one felt the need to resurrect a beautiful garden all around the building in the same spirit. Thus began the largest ceramic intervention in the landscaping of a hotel, made possible and exciting by the informed curatorial guidance of the Golden Bridge Pottery and the passionate camaraderie of my dear friends Ray and Deborah. I believe we will all be grateful when the bees come back.

Rajeev Sethi August 2012

P otters do not destroy--cut away—in order to reveal a hidden form. We create by addition. We build from the ground up.

Village Potter, Coimbatore District, Tamil Nadu

This is a project monograph. The story is singular. These images present the growth of an idea that has established a refuge where mind, form and spirit celebrate the richness of ceramic art in an informal, outdoor setting. It is our hope that this is the beginning of a unique collection of stoneware sculpture, not just in Chennai but in the wider world. This story began in 1971, when Deborah Smith and Ray Meeker started the Golden Bridge Pottery in a 10 x 20 ft. keet shed in Pondicherry. November. 2008. Gallery Nature Morte. New Delhi. Rajeev Sethi purchases three large pieces from Ray’s show, All the Kings Horses… , and then suggests that he join him to co - curate ceramic art for a new Hyatt Regency Hotel coming up in Chennai. He adds that he would like Ray to collaborate with Site Concepts International of Singapore to redesign the lanscape on the pool deck as well.

Every region of the world has a vegetation type that has, over countless eons, evolved as the plant community most suited to the environmental conditions of the area. As such it is the direct express of planet earth’s life force reflecting the unique set of environmental and temporal param- eters. These include factors such as climate, rain fall patterns, temperature variations, soil types, adjacent plant communities, geological events and, over the past few thousand years, human activ- ity. For Chennai and much of the Coromandel coast the Tropical Dry Evergreen Forest (TDEF) is the indigenous forest. Historically the forest extended from Vishakapatanam to Ramanathapuram as a belt of vegetation between 30 and 50 km wide, bordered on one side by the sea and on the other side by a forest that becomes increasingly deciduous as one moves inland. It contains over 160 woody species of which around 70 are found within the pristine climax forest. This is predominantly composed of trees and shrubs that have thick dark green foliage throughout the year. There are six vegetative elements: trees, shrubs, lianas, epiphytes, herbs, and tuberous species. In the pristine state these components weave together to form a complex diverse habitat that is home to a myriad of animal species, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, insects, as well as a host of microbes. When one includes all of the herbaceous species that grow in a variety of ecological niches within the range of the forest the number of species approaches 1000, of which over 600 have a recorded use for mankind, either medicinally, culturally or in religious rituals. The relevance of the forest today lies both within its vast botanical wealth, and also its ability to ameliorate the environmental conditions that are steadily deteriorating due to the expanding population and increase of consumer lifestyles. However there is hardly any of this forest that remains free from human interference, the vast majority of forests in the area are little more than degraded thorny thickets, lacking the inherent nobility of the climax vegetation. Paul Blancheflower Auroville Botanical Garden

The half acre, 3rd-floor pool deck—a slab of disintegrating concrete abandoned by previous owners—is to be transformed into a garden of regional character with native plants and fired clay. Rajeev Sethi’s brief: The co- dependence of species. The bee. Cross-pollinator. Model to man for a life-on-earth equation of ecological balance—the environmental imperative for a healthy planet. I invited landscape architect Kavita Srivastava* of Mumbai to help re- conceptualize the 3rd floor garden and Paul Blancheflower of the Auroville Botanical Garden to advise on, supply and plant a mix of exotics and local species. A tamarind forest from beyond the hotel boundary becomes borrowed landscape, bringing the wild onto the deck where a drought-resistant hedge of indigenous shrubs surrounds the central pool. The earthy palette of high-fire ceramic, arguably the most elemental of the arts, is a quiet complement in this setting of forest, clearing and spring.

*Kavita Srivastava interned with me in 1994 while working on her B.Arch. at S.P.S.M.B.H. College of Architecture, Kolhapur. Post - graduation she worked for me for one year as a site supervisor in Kodaikanal. She earned her Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Sheffield in the UK.

Passage, my entry piece on the ground floor at the Hyatt is a portal for change. It is a form of great strength, regional in nature. Fashioned from 17 tons of clay, Passage , rises to an epic 21 feet. Enter through the abandoned and graffiti - covered arch open to a new, inclusive world - view. Passage invites us to collaborate in a progressive effort towards a balanced future. The text . Fragments from a quote: “The American lifestyle is not up for negotiation.” Former U.S. President at the Rio Conference on Climate Change, 1991. This mantra has now been adopted by India and China, modern leaders of the consumer charge. Recognizing the groundbreaking work done in Auroville to reinvigorate forest cover with Tropical Dry Evergreen Forest (TDEF), Robust Hotels and Hyatt have, in a very unconventional move, included TDEF as a significant component in the hotel landscape planting, enhancing the regional character of the hotel experience. Passage announces ceramic as a medium for serious outdoor sculpture. Visitors to Golden Bridge Pottery often find an oasis of calm in the rapidly expanding din of 21st century urban chaos. At the center of this calm resides an extraordinary creativity. We hope that some of that experience will be communicated through this garden at the Hyatt, a space where culture is elevated by the recognition of man’s role and responsibility as shaper—as pollinator—of our earth, our home.

The Golden Bridge Pottery has trained over 100 students, many of whom are now serious artists working in clay. As curator I worked with seven of these artists, five sharing my own studio. The breadth of possibility expressed in Rajeev’s brief invited a varied and exciting opportunity for ceramic artists working in an atmosphere where a scale that many had considered inconceivable was a real option. Two years and forty firings of my 140 - cubic - foot kiln later, and the ceramic is installed. In Auroville, Adil Writer and Michel Hutin have done another dozen firings. Two pergolas. Aarti Vir and Rakhee Kane each made a henge - like grouping of fourteen ceramic pillars. Supporting a dense plant cover, they evoke the beginnings of the built environment. Post and beam. Shelter. Connection , Sharbani Das Gupta’s bench of broken earth carved with intersecting ripples of water is an exploration of the underlying interdependence between and of ourselves.

Antra Sinha’s journey from a tiny thumb - pinched shape to a five - foot form extended her every skill. Tetrarc is an exploration of form, weight and flight.

In A Road Less Travelled Adil Writer approaches the monumental with the incremental, creating a swooping array of 500 palm - sized ‘treasure boxes’ that belie the actual scale.

Queen , Ashwini Bhat’s elemental form with Harappan references evokes time, memory and of course the bee.

Michel Hutin’s elegantly undulating pillars, centered on the water body, are a delightful play of positive and negative.

Cluster , Deborah Smith’s bouquet of ceramic flowers, draws on her Golden Bridge Pottery repertory of functional forms and her signature brush work.

Aarti Vir New India Pottery Hyderabad

Living, learning, pausing, making, firing, traveling, seeing, learning, connecting, learning… Living. The dots were inspired by the aboriginal art I saw while in Australia in 2008. Much in the way that life unfolds, the dots move, first one way, then another, dancing along, moving forwards, looping back, rarely in a linear march ahead, but always in motion. As my life unfolds, organically, responding to circumstances and changing with them, so too does my work. Sometimes forms repeat themselves after having been forgotten for years; sometimes a particular method of mark - making carries on even as the form and content change; sometimes the work addresses an interior life, sometimes an external concern; always it is a means to communicate. In the Hyatt project, on pillars made in Ray Meeker’s GBP studio, I poured thick slips over the pillars, then painted the dots, again in slip, and after waxing out those dots I poured again, this time with glaze. Ray’s team fired the pillars in his 140 - cubic - foot wood - fired kiln to 1300 degrees centigrade.

Rakhee Kane Aavartan Pottery, Auroville

Embracing Space Working in Ray Meeker’s studio among seven other artists, all pushing limits—limits of scale, material, process and self - confidence—inspired me to work large and provided an opportunity to explore the idea of the interconnection between the organic growth of nature and the complexity of our human habitats. This is an installation of fourteen pillars. Six are structural, supporting a canopy of dense vegetation that seems to float above the pool deck, cloud - like, offering an area of deep shade, a challenge to the blazing South Indian sun. The eight “companion” pillars evoke a sense of the prehistoric henge—the timeless. Motifs of ordinary leaf and window reject specific geographical and cultural associations of any kind. Open to the universal.

Sharbani Das Gupta Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA

Connection explores the duality of separation and connection. Each human, individual and separate, is also connected to others, to the world and to the physical environment. Water with its flowing connective properties and earth with its stable immovability express this duality. As a rock or piece of earth that is cast into a pool of water creates a series of successive ripples, so too does a person, in the pool of life. For me Connectivity Bench is a leap in scale of extraordinary magnitude. In it I fashion 450 kilograms of coarse stoneware clay into six irregular blocks with ragged 18” high vertical walls, unglazed and fire - flashed to a varying earthy brown. Set closely together they become the fissured earth. On the bench - top a rich Chun blue glaze, water - like, covers low ridges of concentric circles that expand continuously across the six parts, reuniting them, each center representing a receptive individual connecting to those around.

Antra Sinha GBP, Pondicherry

Tetrarc Playing—exploring the tetrahedron—a geometry achieving stability with the least number of surfaces, I pressed clay between my index fingers and thumbs and came up with a piece which I call Tetrarc. Tetrarc is complex—the intersection of a tetrahedron and a sphere—a metaphor for the union of structure and wholeness— geometric and organic. I worked with Plaster of Paris, metal, wood, clay and fire to make this piece, its scale stretching both the material and

myself to the limit.

Adil Writer Mandala Pottery Auroville

A road less travelled is an installation of ‘treasure boxes’ made of a variety of clays.... small intimate objects you want to hold; discover hidden secrets within. Rajeev Sethi initially requested a one metre cube of a treasure box for the Hyatt project.... “not possible? Then make 500!” Ray saw an undulating serpentine mass basking in the sun at the pool level, and as he succinctly puts it, “These boxes are small. Most fit in the palm of the hand. They are made to be held—close to the heart—to be looked at closely and opened. Inside? There is virtually no inside. This is not a box to be filled with pins, buttons and paperclips. A treasured ring? Or the key to the jewellery box? Perhaps. But what does an Adil Writer Treasure Box really hold? Unquestionably, your imagination; a kind of rite of passage, if you wish to make the trip—from outside to inside—to Bachelard’s realm of “intimate immensity.” “The gift of a decorative box implies permission to conceal one’s secrets.” “…the dialectics of inside and outside multiply with countless diversified nuances.” Gaston Bachelard. The Poetics of Space

Ashwini Bhat Golden Bridge Pottery Pondicherry

Queen This piece is inspired by the fan - shaped Harappan headdress for women. The inspiration came from looking at the piece as a ‘body’, which contained the entire energy within its axe - shaped edges. The wide base was formed to counterbalance the thin edges of the axe - head, to make it feel grounded. It is coil - built, brushed with thin layers of clay slip and glaze and fired to 1300 degrees centigrade in a wood - fired kiln. The piece demanded attention. Its power resonated with primeval life forms and a sense of the feminine with its line of arc and curves. The title Queen was chosen based on these qualities and on the honey color of the piece with reference to the central theme of the Hyatt art project.

Michel Hutin Flame, Auroville

Deborah Smith Golden Bridge Pottery, Pondicherry A stand cluster of flowers that will not fade—for the honey bee in my Hebrew name, “Deborah.”

Rajeev Sethi Namita Saraf Rajeev Sethi Scenographers Pvt. Ltd. Collector Scenographer, Curator Robust Hotels Pvt. Ltd.

Ray Meeker. Golden Bridge Pottery, Pondicherry. Co - curator. Ceramic Art

Landscape Design Ray Meeker - Coordinator Site Concepts International, Singapore - Landscape Architects Paul Blancheflower, Auroville Botanical Gardens - Landscape Design, TDEF Kavita Srivastava and Associates, Mumbai – Landscape Architects

Artists Ray Meeker. Golden Bridge Pottery, Pondicherry Aarti Vir. New India Pottery, Hyderabad Adil Writer. Mandala Pottery, Auroville Rakhee Kane. Aavartan Pottery, Auroville Antra Sinha. Earth Art, Bihar Deborah Smith. Golden Bridge Pottery, Pondicherry Michel Hutin. Flame, Auroville Ashwini Bhat. Golden Bridge Pottery, Pondicherry Sharbani Das Gupta. Las Cruces, New Mexico, USA

Photo credits Ray Meeker. Cover, 2b, 4a, 5, 6a, 7, 15a/b/c, 17, 21, 24c/d, 25, 26, 27b/c/d/e, 28a/b/c/d, 30b/c/d/e/f, 34a/b/c, 36a/b/c/d/e, 39a/b/c, 40a/b/c/d/e, 41 John Mandeen. 6c, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12a/b/c, 13, 14a/b/c, 16, 22, 23, 24a/b, 29a/b, 32, 35a/b, 37, 38, 43

Kavita Srivastava. 3a, 5a/b Deborah Smith. 2a, 6b, 27a Antra Sinha. 31a/b/c/d Ashwini Bhat. 18a/b/c, 19a, 26 Khartik. 19b/c, 20, 44

Courtesy Asian Heritage Foundation, New Delhi. 4b Courtesy Site Concepts International, Singapore. 4a, 5c Joginder Singh. 30a

Personal Assistants to Ray Meeker Antra Sinha. A. Iber. And the Golden Bridge Pottery team.

Engineering services Neelratn Sinha. Ovoid, Pondicherry - Architects, Builders and Furniture Makers

Monograph design Sharbani Das Gupta

D.T.P. : Prisma, Auroville, prisma@auroville.org.in

© Copyright. Ray Meeker 2012.

“On the Hyatt project, every day I faced doing something that I did not know how to do.”