PULLL is, at its heart, a reflection of my own search for slowness and grounding, my pull back to myself.

For 42 years, I tried to understand my own shape: through sports, travel, coding, designing, agriculture; my form shifted again and again, always chasing, never settling. There was always a void, though I couldn’t name it, always a sense of searching.

Then, unexpectedly, the search found direction in a small community for alternate education in Chandigarh. I found a home there, in the space, and in the people who held me with nothing but love. I went with questions for my son, and instead began a long journey of finding answers for myself.

I started growing my own food, working with soil, touching the earth every day. That was the first grounding, the feeling of mud in my hands, the realization that the same earth I place a seed into to feed my physical body can also be placed on a potter’s wheel to feed my inner, spiritual self.

What began as curiosity became a practice, and eventually a way of seeing the world.
Clay offered a refuge gently and firmly reminding me that there is no final shape to chase. Only the process is permanent. The process is the work. The process is the teacher.

At the wheel, I strive to move from feeling, not force, to listen to the clay instead of directing it. I am learning that clay has a way of revealing you to yourself; it asks for honesty, patience, and presence.

My hope is that the pieces I make carry a little of that inwardness forward; that when someone holds a pot, they feel and connect with what I was moving through while making it.

Each piece is a small pulll (पुल/ ਪੁਲ), between me and you.

– Partinder