Under the educational programme ‘Do and learn’ organised by Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangarahalaya (IGRMS), children learnt pottery making traditional pottery artists from Kutch, Gujarat under the pottery workshop.
The programme has been organised with an aim to introduce various arts of the country to the children. The training is being given for children age from 8-14 years. Children started training from artist Ibrahim Kasim from Kutch. Kasim told about the method to collect clay and the format to prepare pots and clay utensils from it along with his fellow artists Ahmed Qasim, Hameed Ahmed and Sara Bai Ibrahim.
The potter gets mud from a specific acre (a lake) area near their village. It is called ‘Rann ki Mitti’. This soft clay is shaped into a pot on a potter’s wheel and left to dry in the shade, then Kumbhar women use red, black, and white clay-based paints to decorate and piece of pottery with distinct community specific designs.
After a while, the pot is cleaned put in the sun to dry and then baked in a furnace simple and powered by locally available fuels of dry wood and cow dung. The vessels are coated thin wash of geru (red colour). The pots of Khavda get their red are colour from Geru, a type of a soil (ocher or umber) and the black and white dots and stripes with also made with natural materials to decorate pots.