Born in a creative family, it was her aunts and uncles who urged her to take up the arts. Fueled by passion, Parinda completed her graduation in Fine Arts after a primary school education with no arts or crafts in the syllabus. For her Masters she opted for Sculpture and picked Ceramic as the medium. Why? “I had experience working with multiple materials like stone, wood, fiber glass, etc. But what gave me freedom was clay! Its a playful, flexible and vast medium, which can be altered and have fun with. Clay is not rigid or stubborn.” For her 6-month alternative study, she specialized in pottery learning the basics of ceramics at UK. She visited many studios there and was amazed by the self-expression through clay. It’s challenging, she says, “but clay teaches you something new everyday with every piece. Its a continuous journey. The moment I entered the sculpture department of my college, and saw soil and mud, my eyes lit up. I instantly knew this it is.”
The Modern Clay studio was launched in 2019, with the aim to create modern designs through the traditional craft of pottery. “I wanted to do something fresh, new and contemporary.” This fully equipped home studio started in Gujarat, but after being married and moving, she launched a second studio at Pune in 2023. The backbone of The Modern Clay is her 68 years old uncle - Janak Chauhan who now manages the studio at Baroda. Supporting her throughout, he even did a ceramic course at 64 with a renowned ceramicist. Being an artist himself, he helps her with creating all clay bodies and glazes in house.
Mostly working with handbuilding and wheel throwing, while exploring slab and pinching technique, she works with bold glazes, especially in shades of blue. Parinda loves experimenting with multiple glazes, blending colors to create unique shades. Her pieces are very fluid, “I like to see water bodies from a distance and observe their vivid hues which became an inspiration.” When she was interning at Mumbai, she used to gaze at the sea everyday from her car window. The visual gave birth to her first tableware collection, also reflected in her logo. About her creative process, she religiously sketches out her ideas, creating prototypes and trying out glazes on each model to finalize a piece. “I like to experiment with tableware going beyond conventional norms. I just want freedom to create and when given, I love surprising people with something unexpected!”
