PRICELESS LESSONS: The master artist lends a helping hand to keen students
Manpriya Singh
When we last spoke to Jalandhar-based sculptor Basudeb Biswas, he was working on a series of sculptures celebrating the often unsung existence of the nail. “It’s the nail that holds everything together and yet remains in oblivion while wood takes over,” he had said, while in Chandigarh for National Sculpture Workshop.
Once again, he is out to give prominence to yet another unsung medium in sculptures, terracotta. “People think this medium is fragile, moreover all the other mediums have taken over, hence the decreased interest, but what they do not realise is this medium’s potential,” the artist says, while taking a clay-modeling workshop at Government Arts and Crafts Teachers Training Institute, Nabha, Patiala.
The workshop, organised by Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi, is an endeavour to impart exposure in art at the grassroots level. “This is for the teachers, who are going to become art teachers tomorrow and impart education to impressionable minds,” says Diwan Manna, president Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi. He adds, “Apart from being in communication with many educational institutes in Punjab, we also plan to organise two-three such workshops in this institute every year so that art education in the state can be at par.”
Hand magic
Other than the aesthetics that can be recreated using terracotta sculptures, he recommends the exercise to almost everyone, age no bar. “Be it children, who enjoy playing with clay, to old retired people, I guarantee that half-an-hour spent daily in moulding, creating and shaping up clay can have you re-energised and refreshed,” he also points to the fact that it’s therapeutic properties are yet untapped.
But things always have a way of looking up. “The sculpture workshop was not just for the students, even the faculty at the institute enjoyed every bit of working with the medium.” This is the medium he started with when he came to Punjab in 1985. And this is the medium he often comes back to every once in a while. “Apart from the basics of moulding, giving shapes and working on the textures, we also touched the basics of firing to create ceramics, terracotta etc.”
“It is important to have thorough knowledge of different kinds of clay, their properties and the final structure it is likely to yield,” he signs off.
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(The workshop is on till May 30)