1001 Cups : A Contemporary Ceramic Exhibition

Claude Presset, a Swiss ceramist and teacher has curated an exhibition of cups by a hundred different ceramists which is currently on display in Delhi. Each ceramist has created a series of ten cups each in which none of the cups are identical although each series has been created using only one technique.

Each cup is approximately the same size as a kulhar : the traditional Indian teacup which was once commonly used but is now rarely seen -- the handcrafted, earthenware cup of yesteryear having now been replaced by mass produced cups often not even made of clay. And yet, the basic shape, structure and purpose of the cup has probably not significantly changed through the millennia. And so, as the exhibits -- displayed in packing cases -- demonstrate, the lines which demarcate 'tradition' from 'living tradition', and 'experimentation' from 're-interpretation' are in fact often amazingly thin.

At the end of the day, there is only so much that can be done to a cup to make it different from its predecessors, and this inability to innovate beyond a point means that the cups which are in use today are essentially the same cups which were in use from the time when men first learnt to fire clay to create not just utensils for daily use but art in terracotta, pottery, and, finally, porcelain. And, if one were to think of it, what that also means is in each cup lies much history.

Countries such as Japan have elaborate rituals associated with tea, and although not all countries have such rituals, it would be hard to argue that the humble cup is not, in some way, a repository of culture.

Image: PericlesofAthens

Plains Song

For Female Voices by Wright Morris

"More and more lately, as, not even minding the slippages yet, the aches and sad softenings, I settle into my other years, I notice how many of what I once thought were evidences of repression, sexual or otherwise, now seem, in other people anyway, to be varieties of dignity, withholding, tact." : C. K. Williams

I'm told that Plains Song is the only book by Wright Morris currently in print, and if that's true, I think it's very sad. I picked up Plains Song entirely by accident and it seems like a beautiful piece of work -- I haven't finished reading it yet.

Although the subtitle of the book says that it's for female voices, ironically, the women in the book are more often characterised by their speechlessness than by their words. It's not as though they have nothing to say, it's just that they choose not to say much, if at all anything. And some of the men seem to say just as little.

It doesn't seem as though the characters are reticent; just that they are intensely private, and their feelings are no one's business but their own. The novel speaks of events which occur, and not in the way a contemporary novel would usually speak of them. There is, of course, little dialogue between the characters, but, in addition to that, there is no melodrama of any kind, and major events could easily slip by one's notice if one were to allow oneself to be inattentive over the course of just a few paragraphs.

Despite being called a song, the novel is characterised by silence. It seems to give readers a glimpse into another world -- probably one which once existed. It is a world alien to the one we know now. The people in it live, feel, and work -- but talk little about what they feel. To those in the modern world, the silence could seem oppressive but to the characters in the book, it seems to be a way of life.

And while today, when we look back, we can see, in retrospect, that the silence which dominates this book could, and in fact, did, conceal all kinds of oppression and abuse, that is probably not how the characters in the book would view their lives and their speechlessness -- indeed, they would, as the book says, probably be baffled by such an interpretation. The characters live. And work. And they seem to focus on doing so to the exclusion of all else. Including speaking about their lives and their work.

The novel portrays this in language that is "tightly wound" and haunting. It is understated and elegant.
(Book review)