Find Your Strength

Mus'ab and I had a wonderful experience, this morning.

Together with other colleagues, we spent some two hours at Cikgu Iskandar Jalil's pottery workshop at Taman Warisan. After an introduction to clay and the overview of the "project". Cikgu Iskandar showed us how he did it, on a tile of clay - for us to get a look and feel of what was to come. It really looked simple. He stressed repeatedly that there was no need to think when we worked on the clay tile, but to let our hands do the job.

Using all sorts of tools, some looked like (hair) comb, pointed screw drivers, scrappers, etc, Mus'ab and I tried to create our masterpiece. We raked, poked, drew to create textures and design of sorts - and to be honest we did not have a clear goal of what we intend to create. We worked on our instincts, and it did produce a tile of diverse subdesigns and objects - blobs on surface, waves of lines, etches and small holes interspersed with a myriad of objects of different shapes. We even penned our name in Arabic at the two end of the tile.

Cikgu Iskandar Jalil was generous with his wisdom and philosophy of life. He is an extraordinary person -- a winner of the Anugerah Jauhari, a Guru at pottery and with clay, lectures at several universities in Japan, Helsinki, Copenhagen, among others, ran several marathons, travelled widely, had several books on him and his works. And as he demonstrated how to work on the tile and later on a vase, he shared some of his views of life and told us to "find your strength".

When I first met Cikgu Iskandar at his house at Kembangan, I was both afraid and awed of him. Afraid because of his high standard and strict discipline to life, and awed because he appeared casual and personal. He showed us pages of the books written on his works, pottery art pieces that he brought back from an exhibition held in Korea. We were served tea in mugs made of clay and moulded by his hands. I was also attracted to his koi (fish) pond as we entered into his house. Cikgu said that the state of the koi is indicative of what is to come - when the koi is not its usual self, Cikgu will expect and be prepared for a not-so-good-news. The pond is clean and well-taken care of, unlike many ponds I came across. It showed that Cikgu had spent time, patience and discipline to maintain it, and to keep the koi alive and healthy.

During that meeting, I was not sure whether he would consider our request for his work to be mounted at our new Singapore Islamic Hub reception lobby. After explaining to him why we wanted Iskandar Jalil's work at the SIH, he proposed that we involved everyone - staff and stakeholders to do a tile of clay - and he will put it all together on the wall. It was a brilliant idea and consistent with our intent that the SIH represents contribution and achievement of the Muslim community. But he had yet to give his commitment then.

Cikgu also brought us to the kiln area where the pieces were burnt to specified heat. Interestingly he reminded us an important lesson in life - of pace and stages. He showed the broken pieces of clay tile when it was heated before it was adequately dried. To rush a tile to the kiln before it is ready is futile - almost similar to many things we do in life, including human development. He also said that through clay and pottery work, he was able to detect health deficiencies and conditions. The speed of the spinning machine, the functioning of fingers on the clay and the trembling of hands whilst working on the pieces are all indicators or signs of hypertension and related conditions. But pottery work is also therapeutic for many.

While on the spinning machine to mould a vase, at the end of our session, Cikgu encouraged us to consider pottery making for leisure and to prepare for our old-age. He commented that it only requires an hour a day of discipline to produce vases and other objects. But he also asked us to find our strengths to choose and decide whether it is plates, mugs, or vases that we should focus on, and create. Only then the quality will be superior and we will be known for our art pieces.

Cikgu's sharing this morning, reminded me of a Buddhist saying which goes - when the student is ready the teacher appears. Cikgu Iskandar Jalil is a Master-teacher who is ever ready for students who are willing to appear.

Thank you, Cikgu.