Clay Modelling

It has been a long time since I have spoilt myself.

The other day, my sister was upto me to give her some idea of clay modeling as my nephew was to participate in a competition. She got the box of clay I had gifted my nephew on his 4th or so birthday…

We kept wondering what must be made such that it looks competitive…soon we started playing with the colourful clay. Making slices of watermelon, cherries, apples….wow, it was so much fun. My sister and I also experimented with the idea of making a boat, or a basket. But my nephew was so fed up with the clay thing (since my sister was pushing him too hard over the preparation for the competition). I told her very openly that it’s not important that he must win. My idea was that he must explore the material.

I think she digested this soon and we started thinking over objects where the shape would not matter much and could also be handled by a small child…we then thought of making a bunch of grapes. That was indeed a nice idea. The fact that a grape is simply round and the bunch of grapes doesnot need to be in a particular shape…

We soon made a handful of other fruits too. I got so excited and went ahead to do some detailing on the clay fruits… making depressions, etc. I further made a chilly and peas too…for some time I felt that I must keep making more of this. And also that I love to play with such materials and get dirty.

I really enjoyed working with clay. Lets see now what my nephew comes up with!

con - FUSED!

Architects are born confused. I think they are the most confused people on the planet. They are never sure of what they want to do till the last moment…there are 10000 changes in the drawings and the finalized one is till bound to change on the site!!

But my point here is that what if a person is confused about pursuing architecture or no! I know this is a weird predicament. But it has happened with me. What shapes up a person in his or her field is the experiences he/she has had during the course of the study or the professional term. One gains confidence from appreciation by people whom they respect or others, who are just confident and ‘less confused’. A few people learn from their mistakes and very few gain confidence from their bad experiences.

On another relative term, one feels good about doing a course, if he/she is generally doing well. If he/she is satisfied with what is being done. Satisfaction again sometimes becomes a victim of expectations – personal expectation or others’ expectation towards one. When one experiences good, everything seems good, otherwise, he/she is in a state of a deeper confusion. I am a victim of confusion…

Sometimes it’s so encouraging to talk to a person who likes your work. But at some time, if the same person criticizes your work, you feel worthless. And this happens especially when that person is someone whom you respect or idealize. But there is also a personal and a relative factor. As we say, that a man is also shaped by the personal biases and his likings and disliking, his grooming atmosphere, and finally his own mental capabilities. If taken that into consideration, then the idea of dependence on someone’s else’s opinion on your work collapses, and the idea of ‘appreciation’ also falls apart. Taking from the conversation of an old man (who coincidentally is an architect) and my friend, the old man wisely said, “You are the best judge of your own work, no one else can judge your work.”

Philosophy is the greatest support in bad times. Philosophy itself is a thought which is developed by personal experiences or biases or the way we look at things. But philosophies too are relative. One judges someone else’s work with one’s own philosophy. So if the philosophical thoughts of two people are congruent, then they will agree to each other. According to one’s own philosophy, what he/she does is always right. So again, the idea of judging ones own work does not stand substantial…
Judging generally splits decisions into the range of two binary opposites – good or bad. Good is something that is congruent to the jury’s thought and bad is incongruous. The other range of decisions are only an adjustment with one’s thought. For that range of decisions, either the ‘judge’ tries to think on the lines of the speaker or the speaker tries to succumb to the ideas of the ‘judge’.

Therefore, something that clicks right at the first go is good…because it does not need time to look into details (it is non biased) and something that is discussed far too much and ended with a remark falling within the range of good and bad is just a mismatch of thoughts…it’s confusion between understanding a single thought with two minds…

I know that the piece of writing has a fusion of ideas that have no verdict, but can it be of any use? I am confused!