A Handcrafted Friendship

Written by: Pravallika Kullampalle and Upasana Manem

One of the activities that we had the opportunity to work on was creating decor for the bakery. We wanted to create decor that carried the artisanal essence of Haritachala. We decided to create handcrafted pottery, specifically decorative plates and vases.

We started off with all the geckos splitting up into teams to create three congruent plates and three vases of different shapes and unique sizes. Since the pottery workshop was at the beginning of camp, it helped us bond. For a lot of the geckos, it brought back memories from art class when we were in elementary and middle school. We all had different methods of molding the clay, some of which were more successful than others. It was helpful that some of the geckos recalled clay techniques such as scoring and coiling clay for sturdy structure and using modge podge and slip, a thickened mixture of clay and water, to seal the piece.

After the pottery dried, it was time for painting. The geckos split into two teams, one team worked on bakery painting, and the other team worked on pottery painting. We painted all the plates and vases in different colors and with original designs; the plates were painted pastel colors, while the vases were bolder colors. We pressed flowers and used them as center pieces on the plates to represent Haritachala’s natural beauty. One specific day, a staff member named Kamakshi asked us if we were hungry. Before we could even answer her, she brought us a sapota and she fed us a muddha (morsel) with her own hands. We experienced the caring nature of the staff members when they helped us move our supplies and pieces into a safe area so that the heavy rain would not damage our hard work. The day we did pottery painting was also the day we went on giripradakshina. One of the gecko volunteers, Manyatha, chanted namam really beautifully in the mandir in the mornings, and when the topic of namam came up while we were painting, some of us asked if she could teach us some tunes. It was special, because when we went on giripradakshina that evening, we were happy that we had a tune to chant.