FROM POTS TO PEOPLE, IT'S JUST CLAY IN VERODIANA'S SKILLED HANDS
By Roxanna Pinto [EMAIL PROTECTED]
When you enter the Shrine of the Miraculous Cross at Bambolim, probably the first icon to grab your attention is a huge statue of the risen lord with an outstretched embrace, benevolently gazing at his children. If god can be said to have brought clay to life, here's the work of a woman who has captured life in clay.
Verodina Ferrao. A sculptor. It is her hands that transform an ordinary block of clay into mermaids, children, old people, ornate vases and pots.
Besides, Bambolim, she has created a niche of the holy family at the chapel-turned-church of the same name at Porvorim and made many statues and sculpture to adorn shrines throughout Goa. Originally from Mapusa, Verodina started off in fine arts at Goa's lone degree training institutions for artists -- the Goa College of Art. It was then under the Bombay University.
She opted to switch to pottery. She also did a related course in Mumbai for gaining the necessary technical skills.
Why she did she choose sculpture as a form to channelise her creativity over other forms of art?
"Sculpture is three dimensional, surging with life I relate more to figures, relationships, with human beings not so much with material things. You can express yourself -- you feelings, your emotions -- better. Besides, people relate to people. As a sculptor you put something of yourself into the clay. That is the beauty of sculpture," she explains when asked.
On a child's playground, true artists are born, it is said. Verodina still laughs when she remembers those childhood days. "We used to play in the mud and make frog houses. We used to hope that the frogs would come and live in them. They never did. We used to have a huge wooden floor and my mother, who was a teacher, used to make us draw on it."
Her first creation was a pair of figurines, an old man and woman, sitting on a bench, very expressive with a lot of wrinkles on their faces. There was a lot of character in it.
But why does she enjoy sculpting? "When I start off, I don't visualise anything. It all comes spontaneously. It's a feeling I try to express in clay. I enjoy doing rural figures, women, people in conversation, and so on."
Any other medium she looks forward to working with, as intimately? At present she feels comfortable working just with clay, but in the near future she wouldn't mind bronze sculptures. Bronze is easy to work with and has not many limitations unlike clay. For example, you cannot make sculptures of clay stand, you need support at the bottom.
Every artist has a muse and for Verodina it is people.
"My feelings are towards people, moods. I like to capture the mood, or the feeling of people sitting together, talking," she says, even while giving the finishing touches to a pot close by. Her hands move with a life of their own -- moulding, shaping, creating -- while we talk.
When not making earthenware and sculptures at her workshop in Mapusa, Verodina supervises young mentally challenged children at Cooj (Cause of Our Joy) Sahodaya halfway home for the mentally-disturbed in Mapusa. For an hour a day, she helps the children to make pieces which are later sold. "It was very difficult," she admits frankly, "but they have taught me patience and understanding."
She has recently concluded an exhibition at the luxury hotel Cidade de Goa, where her work and that of her husband Francis -- a famous painter himself -- was spotlighted. Her other projects on hand include, an exhibition of her sculpture currently underway at the Bilmat Zeramic Art Gallery in Bombay and another exhibition to be held also in the same city in August 2005.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: The writer is part of the GoaJMentor network, that seeks to mentor young Goan students in journalism and writing skills. GoaJMentor is run through the offices of Ixtt, Pilar. Roxanna is also a student at St Xavier's College, Mapusa.
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