Forever and Fleeting | Roshni Senapati | Episode 1139

Roshni Senapati | Episode 1139

Roshni Senapati makes hand-built sculptural vessels which include stitched and knotted silk threads and cloth drawn from old family saris. Using two materials allows Roshni to explore family narratives and cultural connections through the form and colour of the porcelain vessels, as well as the histories enmeshed in the silk fibres.

SPONSORS

You can help support the show!

GRPotteryForms.com

diamondcoretools.com

Number 1 brand in America for a reason. Skutt.com

For all your ceramic needs go to Georgies.com

Do you have a feeling that you want your audience to experience when they interact with your work?

I want my audience to bring whatever feeling they want into the work. I put the work out there and I would like them to interact with it however they please. But if you want a word, my work is very quiet I would say. It’s a quiet, simple work. Which requires you to come close and have a look and think about it.

What did being in the book Earth and Fire do for your heart? What did it mean for you to be a part of a book like that?

It was very touching to be asked. It was really wonderful that Kylie and Tiffany thought that my story and my journey was worth including in the book. And that my work spoke to them enough to give me a place in that book. The other aspect of it was that I really felt validated that my ideas and the journey I have been on, a very personal one, actually was understood and had meaning for others and that was a really great thing. It gave me a lot of confidence.

Are you shocked by where clay has taken you?

I am shocked. What I am shocked about is that so much of my previous life as a teacher of young children and how I worked with them gets carried over into my practice. So in a way I have just given that away and put the same energy in and the same questions and the same thoughts into working out a process for myself. And I never thought I would be exhibiting, or that I would be in a book, or talking on a podcast. There were the works that needed to be made and I had time to make them and see them through and that’s where I was, so yes I am very surprised.

What does age and maturity bring to the table that say a younger artist would have a hard time expressing?

I think one, you have time. You know, you have the time to think, you have the time to make, you don’t worry about failure so much necessarily. You know that life goes on so you give things a go. At the same token, you don’t have that long and your body is only going to work for so long. So if you are going to do it you better do it now and get on with it.

How are you a better person because you are a creative person?

Like we said, I am an older artist and I have the time, I am a better person because I have the time to think and I think my creative life allows me to bring forth all the things and ideas and the stories that are in my head…it allows me to make them visible. That’s what’s rich about it. As a teacher I spent a whole career making children’s thinking visible in the classroom and now it’s my turn to take my ideas and make them visible and I think that’s really the thing that I find wonderful.