Studio is open from 9am to 7pm every day.studio is located about 45 KM north of Udaipur , India Udaipur is well connected by Air, Rail and bus
services from New Delhi & Mumbai, which are major cities of India .
Dinesh wedges
the clay with his feet, then kneads it by hand into a round ball ready for use.
In the courtyard of his work shop he works on the floor, which has been dusted
with dung. The clay is flattened and smoothed with a bevelled wooden tool into
a slab 15cm thick. Then chandra Kumhar
cuts out the shape of the plaque, assembling the top pelmet and sides, adds a
coil of clay to form the outline of the horse on which Durga is mounted, then
onto the outline pinches its body, following which the figure of Durga astride
the horse is created in the same way. Then he moves to the finer details and
finally adds the filials. the whole process takes an hour and a half.
Current Work .
For fifteen
generations dinesh chandra Kumhar's family have practised the tradition of
making terracotta plaques of traditional Hindu Deities. Molela is known in the
area as a 'potters village' as there are about 30 families from the Kumhar
caste producing pottery. It produces a range of pottery goods , from devotional
plaques to large panels depicting rural village scenes and smaller items such
as temple hand bells and domestic ware.Work is available mainly from the village.
Technical Information
Two local clays are used - Nada, a coarse black clay with a
high sand grog and Alu, a finer gray clay used for throwing. The two clays are
mixed together in equal parts with the addition of 20% dried and sifted donkey
dung, which helps to disperse the heat through the plaque and lesson the
thermal shock during firing.
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| Dinesh Chandra Kumhar |
After drying in the
open air the plaques are fired in an Awara, a circular open kiln, constructed
from brick. it is 1.5m high and 2.0m in diameter. The work is loaded onto steel
bars that are supported on brick peers leaving a 60cm fire chamber below. Up to
30 panels are fired at once and the kiln is sealed by 3 layers of pottery
shards and fired for about 6 hours at 600-700 degrees centigrade. (extract from
Ceramic Review Issue 213)
History
My family has lived in the small village Molela, fifty km.
north of Udaipur
in southern Rajasthan for the past 15 generations. Under the guidance of his
father, Dinesh began his apprenticeship at the age of 10. He was born in 1969.
- He has visited many parts of the Country demonstrating and showing his work.
- His work is in many national collections in
He father
won the Nation Award (1988 - 1989) and Rajasthan State Award for Master
Craftsmen 1983 - 1984 for terracotta. He has visited many parts of the world
demonstrating and showing his work, including
France (1991), Australia (1988), the USA (1986)and Span(2004).He has shown work at the Australia College of Advance
Education, Australia and demonstrated at the
Mangi International Museum La Jolla USA .
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