Ayesha Aggarwal is an Indian-born, Australian potter and artist living and working on Kaurna land, South Australia. Ayesha’s pottery practice explores her connection to her home in India and also Australia, using botanics as a metaphor and representation of her experiences growing up in Mumbai where indoor-living spaces were adorned with various beautiful plants and homewares. In this reflection, Ayesha shares how she came to pick up pottery making; where her arts practice has led her to create – including being commissioned to design merchandise for the South Australian Living Artist (SALA) Festival; and also her more recent experimental work, Inside Out – an exploration of isolation during the pandemic and looking out to the world that – at the time – was untouchable.
- Tell us a little bit about yourself and your creative practice.
I’m an Indian-Australian potter who lives and makes on Kaurna land. I like to make functional ware that doubles as a decorative object in its own right. I’m drawn to motifs of plants and homes, which I think is a reflection of my identity as a migrant and the sense of displacement that comes with it. I’m always chasing the feeling of being comfortable, of feeling completely at home, and I’ve come to realise it has informed my preoccupation with home in a literal sense. I use plants as a way of remembering and connecting my Indian and Australian identities.
- How did you start your creative practice and why?
In my early 20s I found I started to really neglect my creativity so I started taking night classes at Tafe SA to learn wheel throwing. I really struggled in the beginning. Throwing was a lot harder than I’d expected but the second I made my first good pot, I was hooked. I kept signing up to take the course again and after a a few months I had gotten good enough to make my first batch of botanical vases. They were such a joy to make. The whole process from throwing and trimming to painting with underglazes for the first time was thrilling. And when they finally came out of the kiln, I knew I’d made something special. Classmates and friends started telling me they would buy my work, which came as a surprise, and spurred me on to start treating ceramics as a practice. I had always fantasised about working as an artist and I’d experimented with a lot of mediums over the years but none of them felt realistic at the time.
What I think was different about clay was that it taught me to value imperfection. There are so many factors that can influence the final outcome of a pot and most of them are pretty hard to control, especially if you’re impatient like me and need to barrel ahead without labouring over testing everything. What you put in the kiln is often a world away from the work that emerges at the end. Having to live with that uncertainty around pieces that you invest time, energy and emotion into can be mixed bag, but ultimately I think it was freeing for me. It taught me to let go of preconceived notions of what my finished pieces should look like and embrace the magic of the glaze firing. And in the end I think that’s why it was clay that stuck for me. It lets me relax into the process and enjoy it without being self conscious about the outcome.
- Where did you grow up and has it influenced what you create?
I grew up in Mumbai until the age of 13 when I moved to Adelaide to attend boarding school. India is very much a part of me and my heritage is a significant influence in my work.
Indians are huge fans of adornment. Details and decoration are embedded deep in our culture. I just have to close my eyes to conjure up the bustle of my family getting dressed for special events passing around safety pins and helping each other drape dupattas and saris, chatting about which bangles will match, and admiring each other’s mehendi. My pots are a reflection of thousands of these moments. Colour is really important in my practice, as are pattern and texture. I’m inherently drawn to them and I know it comes from childhood.
I also think that my preoccupation with the indoors is the result of growing up a Mumbaiker. Space in the population dense city is so expensive that, by and large, we prioritise our indoor living spaces. In direct opposition to Australian homes, most of the homes I grew up around didn’t have much land for planting. Our love of plants and nature was often confined to clusters of terracotta pots on porches, balconies and courtyards. Plants were almost always potted up, compact and moveable. I grew up loving these manufactured plantscapes and they’ve become deeply embedded in my work.
- Tell us about your past creative projects. What has been a highlight so far?
Gosh, I find it so hard to look back and say what my highlights are because imposter syndrome comes for me and as soon as I’ve achieved anything I’m already setting the bar higher and striving for the next goal. But I know it’s important to celebrate these milestones so I want to share a project that I just finished work on this week because I’m still pretty stoked about it!
The South Australian Living Artist (SALA) Festival commissioned me to design their artist t-shirt this year and pre-orders have just opened. They gave me full creative freedom and I’m so excited about the
outcome. The design is inspired by the pandemic and impact of our isolation on our relationship with our homes. I’ve been using windows to represent the tension between indoor and outdoor spaces, always inside looking out from the safety and comfort of home.
- What gets you through challenging creative/ industry times?
When I’m feeling stuck in my practice, I have to step away from clay and find a way to have fun being creative in a different way. I had a massive slump over the last couple of years and it’s taken me a good 6-months to find my feet again. I had a lot of good intentions to just start making, but I kept finding reasons to put it off again and again. So I decided to lean into it and just let myself do something that I was excited about. I got a bunch of plywood boards and some acrylic paint and started painting animals for my friends’ kids. Those poor kids are still waiting on a heap of half finished paintings (I will finish them) but it was just the thing I needed to remind myself of the joy of making and it helped me get back to clay.
I also found that part of why I was stuck was that I was trying to develop a new product that was actually really, really hard to make. After testing work unsuccessfully for months, and combating breakages at every stage, I decided to table the idea. I gave myself a different challenge instead and I’ve actually just taught myself to built pots using slabs and I now have a heap of new work that I’m really excited to launch! I’ll still go back to the hard product in the future but taking a break was a smart move for me.
- Can you share a little more about your new series, Inside Out?
Inside Out is an extension of my Interiors series which has focused predominantly on spaces inside the home. The shift in its tone with the addition of the windows speaks to me about how our relationship with our homes changed as a result of isolating during the pandemic.
Over the last few years, I’ve often found myself sitting by the window and enjoying the safety and comfort of looking out whilst being cocooned inside. My studio is in my home, so I’m inside a lot and I do have a tendency to isolate when I’m struggling with my mental health. After being in lockdown I’ve become even more prone to disappearing into my home. When I’m in these periods of self-isolation, looking out of my windows reminds me that life is bigger than me and that it’s there for the living when I’m ready to face it again. So I guess for me the windows are a safe way to view the outside world. But I know everyone experienced the pandemic differently so more broadly the windows in Inside Out are vehicles to spark self-reflection of how home life has changed for all of us as individuals.
- What future projects are you looking forward to?
I’ve just been asked to join a group of local artists for a series of independent, artist-led workshops at the Queen’s Theatre. We’re just refining the program behind the scenes and ticket sales will be opening very shortly but I’m really excited to be part of this project. There are a number of excellent local potters on the programme and we’re all focusing on developing very different skills so there’s loads to learn and a diverse range of artists to learn from. Details will be announced shortly and folks can keep an eye out on my social media or follow @thequeensadelaide for more information.
- Where can we find and follow you online?
You can find me on Instagram at @ayeshaaggarwal on Facebook as ‘Handmade ceramics by Ayesha Aggarwal‘ and through my website – www.ayeshaaggarwal.com
All images courtesy of the artist.