Clay Connect

Last year I was in a village five hours away from my studio in Auroville in south India, with a film crew, ...to make a short film for the IAC conference in Portugal.
T. Palanisamy, a traditional craftsperson, resides in this pottery village of 60 potter-families. He is one of the last surviving clay artists who makes 10 feet high terracotta horses and Ganeshas; votive figures, revered by village folk. Sadly, his lineage of several generations tracing back to 200 years, ends with him. Neither is the next gen interested in clay, nor are sales of hand-crafted terracotta looking up.
To support him in some ways, I have been inviting him over to my studio as a resident artist several times a year. The two of us frequently make works together. He starts out making, in my stoneware clay body, the simple figurines which he makes for temple festivals in terracotta back home; and then I take over, adding my own interpretations to his underlying ones, with clay work and raku &/or high temperature firings.
Importantly, we don’t speak a common language.... Just the language of clay!
My set of figurines at the Sangha show are titled “No Pronouns: Conversations”. The aforesaid movie and this series, “A Clay Connect” are an outcome of one such interaction between the two of us. Stoneware clay, raku-fired clusters (or sanghas) of figurines in conversation, exuding an ancient energy; a community of objects bereft of pronouns, devoted to the search of spirituality and gender identity; quite a rarity these days. …Or?