The unfinished story of a “Cool” swag

Everyone loves SWAG !

With this universal truth in mind, we set out to find that amazingly mind-blowing swag for the attendees at WCPune. We wanted to give something the people will love and like. With the adoration Wappu gets all over the world we had lots of deliberations and discussions about what should we give. Some ideas were great but not practical, while others were easy but not that “Cool”.

In comes my friend, Shweta Khandelwal with a unique gift. She gave me a handmade terracotta house. Which was both special and cost effective. I asked her whether the potter who had made it can make some other items. She showed me some more items, Ganesh Idols especially.

So that gave us an idea of creating a Handmade Terracotta WAPPU ! I know even the thought of having a clay wappu gives you tingles…

So here is the design brief we gave to the potter (why I keep referring him as potter and not artist you will find out soon).

 

To which he submitted his first draft :

 

This was not even close to Wappu. There was some play clay laying around and yours truly thought of trying some hand at the long forgotten art of Clay Modelling. I made this imperfect yet good looking wappu and gave it to the potter.

 

And after this inspiration, this is what he came up with :

 

I said “Bhai we don’t want a mouse, kaan toh dekh (see the ears)”. He replied with this :

 

Then, I said check out the style of nose and smile :

 

Which he incorporated like this :

 

Our patience and creativity was running on fumes. We did some digital editing and sent him an image to change the face of idol :

 

Here is what he gave as his final attempt:

We love it ! Well at least I do. But since this was not close to what we imagined when we started, we had to drop the idea all together. After spending almost 15 days with the potter who makes amazing idols of Ganesh, makes many other items beautifully I realised that not everybody is an artist. We are still in love with the idea of a handmade Wappu, and some day we will make it take shape (literally). Till then enjoy the Badges and T-Shirts and Sippers at WordCamp Pune.

p.s. if any of you want to take it further with shweta, she can be reached at  9096314545