This pottery workshop in Mumbai is sure to provide your child with an enriching experience

Tanisha Desai paints her heart-shaped dessert serveware that she made at the session. Pics/Aishwarya Deodhar

I think that I started drawing the day I learnt to hold a pencil," says 16-year-old Tanisha Desai, who recently appeared for her class 10 board exams. She doesn't speak of art as a hobbyist. She speaks of it in tangible terms - through probable phrases and informed inclinations. And so, visual arts will be part of her upcoming International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme. The very mention of a pottery workshop at a Lower Parel mall excited Tanisha. While she was eager to mould objects on a potter's wheel, she also wanted to check out the structure of the session. As a doer, someone who has hosted art workshops during the lockdown to raise money for an orphanage, she approaches such experiences holistically.

The teenager recalls, "Once initiated into the process, I started enjoying the action of kneading and taming the dough with bare fingers. It has a calming effect." Tanisha adds that the absence of a potter's wheel took away all restrictions with regard to the shape and size of objects. "I created a heart-shaped dessert plate."

Kneading the dough; Shaping the dough; Rolling it out and Moulding a dessert plate

The reviewer hoped that the organisers had planned the event better. "Tactile sessions can draw in candidates suddenly. Had it been held in the open, a passerby could have spotted other amateur potters and joined in," she elaborates. The clay session was part of Summer Wonderland - a curated series combining diverse interests such as dance, storytelling, baking, chess and aeromodelling - under the supervision of experts across fields. Sonika Desai, Tanisha's mother, feels that such sensory events can benefit any child that's eagerly exploring the canvas. Unlike her daughter, she missed the presence of the wheel. "It could have added to the charm of the evening." The teen reviewer told us that she packed and carried her cute creation back home. We are yet to know if a slice of cake tastes sweeter on that plate.

POTTERY SESSION BY THE TINY CLAY INN
AGE GROUP: 4 to 17 years
TYPE: Pottery workshop
PRICE: Rs 500 (per session)
RATING: 3/4
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