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SRILA MOOKHERJEE has the distinction of being India's first woman glass-blower, and her amazing repertoire is testimony to her passion for the medium and the
art form. Srila's encounters with glass and the art of glass blowing came early… on a family vacation in Italy
where she watched enthralled as Venetian glass-blowers displayed their prowess.
While it may be difficult to claim she always wanted to be a glass-blower, the thought was probably quietly entrenched
somewhere in her sub-conscious. For though Srila specialized in ceramics from the prestigious National Institute of Design (NID), and then opted for an apprenticeship in Finnish Lapland (first with Pentik,
ceramic tableware manufacturers and then Eiropaja, a pottery studio) she soon found herself in London… training
to be a glassblower! Her years in London were years well spent, as she got to work with reputed vessel maker Anthony Stern, and then at the Glasshouse,
Covent Garden with Annette Meech, Christopher Williams, (website) David
Taylor and Fleur Tookey. |
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Her training over, Srila returned home to Calcutta
to set up Aakriti, her very own studio workshop. Aakriti was the first studio of its kind in India and getting it up and running was a time-consuming exercise that flexed one's powers
of innovation… for every piece of equipment -from the furnace to the blowing iron-had to be fabricated indigenously.
Grit and perseverance paid off, and Srila has, in the two decades since setting up her studio, had several individual
and group showings of her work throughout the country mesmerising the connoisseur and the lay collector alike with
her lyrical creations. |
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