Michel Hutin is a Frenchman, living and working in Auroville, Pondicherry, for more than 25 years. He is a self-taught potter though he spent some time at the Golden Bridge Pottery in Pondicherry. He lives and works in his studio in the picturesque Auroville community of Dana. His early work was built with thick slabs of soft clay cut through with a thin wire. According to him, “The result was fresh and spontaneous but too chancy.” Now he builds directly with thinner slabs and does not ‘cut’. It is simpler, more immediate and Hutin feels it brings him a step closer towards solving a problem that is of deep concern to him – how to have a form look both controlled and natural at the same time. “All my recent works have been made in the same way,” he says, “I join soft undulating slabs of clay. While I control more or less the arrangement of these undulations, the lines they create at their intersections are always a surprise and often a delight. I love these lines—their rhythm, melody and counterpoint—as they interact with each other, liberating the form. I also like the way light enhances the outline of the piece, a bit like looking at mountains at sunrise