One of the biggest influences on my pottery is...

My mother’s fine white porcelain dishes with stunning, faint grey-hued magnolias and large olive, blooming over their walls.

Growing up, that sight on our dining table meant something special was being cooked. I would be at the edge of my seat till meal time, every time. 

Those dishes and my mother’s Victorian tea sets, neatly stacked in a tall corner cupboard were…aspirational. They were the start of my appreciation for ceramics. Till I officially took up pottery, for decades, I continued to have a long-distance love affair, of sorts, with delicious food in gorgeous ceramics. Specifically, beautifully plated food. I could spend hours drooling over photos of what I can only call art, and I’m sure a lot of it has to do with nostalgia.

So once my journey as a potter started, food inevitably became the foremost inspiration for my creations.

I began by digging into design principles of crockery and landed on the field of gastrophysics. I read voraciously on how the shape, size, weight and colour of crockery can influence the diner’s experience, until I just had to get my hands dirty. I decided to start making prototypes of functional pieces I would use most often to enhance my personal dining experiences.

I began with coffee. Duh. My first challenge was to come up with a sound design for a good pour over. It took me around five iterations to arrive at the current version of the pour over which will be a part of my upcoming shop update. (Date to be announced soon!) And, if you know me you know I love ramen. So I picked ramen bowl as my next challenge. This took me three to four iterations.

Like this, I have slowly built my body of wares to include espresso cups, Sake sets and fermentation crocks! The challenge of making novel or lesser-known wares attracts me; if they are good, they must be amplified. Finally, in life, as a principle, I try to surround myself with things, people and memories that make me happy. And, I let that pursuit if happiness inform what I make. Food is right up there on the list.