Auroville’s kilns go cold as soaring LPG prices leave pottery piling up

Nestled in the red earth and the dry evergreen forest of Auroville is the Dana Community. It is the de facto address of most of the pottery studios and kilns in this experimental township, about 12 km from Puducherry.

Auroville's pottery community, spanning almost 15 distinct local studios, training centres and cooperatives, is known for its studio ceramics and glazed stoneware.

But now the kilns are lying cold.


Ever since the war broke out in Iran, affecting gas supply and hiking fuel prices, Auroville's shelves are groaning under the weight of greenware-bisque-fired plates, thrown teapots and hand-sculpted stone-ware mugs waiting for their final trial by fire.

A high-fire glaze guzzles gas. A big kiln typically re-quires 10 LPG cylinders of 19 kg each for a single firing. And each cylinder now costs around ₹3,000, up from about ₹1,700 before the war.

CEASE FIRE

Firings are now rationed. The clay is waiting. While fuel supply has somewhat stabilised since the peak of the crisis in March, Auroville's potters are wringing their hands.

"In March, it was very difficult as LPG cylinders were not available," says Tosha Parmar, a ceramic artist at Mandala Pottery, one of Auroville's large pottery studios.

"Now, things are better but it is still not back to normal. Fuel prices have gone up and artisans have had to in-crease the prices of their products."

Stoneware and tableware may be the last thing people would like to buy as these are not essentials, she says. However, their studio has been somewhat insulated from the crisis as its recent focus has been on sculptures, which require more wood firing than gas firing. "We have a big show coming up where Adil Writer [partner at Mandala Pottery] is showcasing his works so we are all busy doing more sculptures and murals than the regular cups and mugs. We are doing wood firings almost every day because sculptures require that but even the prices of wood have gone up," she adds.

Next door, at Flame Pottery, run by Michel Hutin, cost is again the biggest pain point. To offset the rising costs, he will have to go for an 8% price hike, but he does not want to do that. "I've been doing this work for decades. At one point we were exporting most of our table ware. Today, my customers are mostly Indian cafes and restaurants, especially in Auroville and Goa. Raising prices for them is not an option for me and so I've decided to absorb the losses," he says.

Hutin's studio has two big kilns. Each one requires 10 cylinders of 19 kg each for a firing. He says the studio would generally do one large firing a month with around 800 pieces of tableware stacked up in the kiln.

"Now our work has no regularity or security and I've stopped keeping track of cylinder prices," he says.

REINVENTING THE WHEEL

Studio potters say this period has forced them to be more creative and fuel-efficient. Nausheen Bari, own er of Bhu Ceramics, says everyone is more fuel-conscious and cost-aware. Now potters are firing kilns to 1,240°C rather than 1,300°C which makes a difference in terms of fuel consumption.

"We have had to revamp and re-think the entire process," says Bari. "Generally, potters do two firings

the preliminary bisque firing, after which they apply glaze and do an-other firing. Last week, I did a single firing with the glaze on. Applying glaze to a raw pot is very difficult and the risk of breakage and damage is quite high. Not many people do that but for me it just didn't make sense to do a double firing anymore."

"Everything has become more ex-pensive which means we have to charge more," says Bari. "I have had to double the prices. That is a big challenge because in India ceramic doesn't have market. People would use something like steel. This has drastically affected sales since March."

Bari is gearing up for an open studio sale in August, something she says she wouldn't normally do. "I'm just doing whatever I can to sell stuff because there's no money to do a firing," she says. "I'm not going to touch my wheel until I have some sales."

Even wood prices have gone up, says Rakhee Kane, founder of Aavartan Pottery. "I am a sculptor and I primarily do wood firings. 1 use a small gas kiln only for bisque firing so I was not impacted much by the LPG crisis except for a short period when cylinders were not available. At that time I even did my bisque firings with wood. But now even wood has become expensive," she says.

Around two years ago, she would buy a tonne of wood for around ₹7,000. Today, she says, it costs *13,000 per tonne, which is what she re-quires for one firing.

"I cannot make cups and mugs and saucers when wood costs so much," she says. "The economics don't work out for tableware. It only makes sense if I do sculptures which I can price well to offset the cost."

Others like Sabrina Srinivas, founder of Kalabhumi Pottery Studio, have decided to change tack. "I have a solo show coming up in January, so when the fuel situation got bad, I decided to change course," she says. "I generally follow a cycle of three months of making and two weeks of glazing and firing. Following the war, I did six months of making. I will begin the firing cycle in September. As a studio potter, I have had some flexibility in choosing projects that I could fulfil along-side my work for the show."

In September, she will have to do multiple firings which will require many gas cylinders. Her concern is availability. "Fuel prices have come down from what they were in March, but supply is still limited. By September I hope things will stabilise even further," she says.

Cold kilns truly are a ceramic artist's worst nightmare.

A big kiln requires 10 LPG cylinders of 19 kg each for a single firing.