Beauty, Trauma and Decay: Pooja Pawaskar’s Fleshy Sculptures

Pooja Pawaskar with sculptures. Photo by Age of Indie.

It’s not often that I fall in love at first sight with an artist’s work; I need to be seduced one mark or brushstroke at a time. Once in a while, though, I know right away that an artist is going to make me experience something very special. This happened when I found Pooja Pawaskar (AKA Whirl & Whittle) by chance – on Tik Tok, of all places. I was immediately fascinated by her elegant and abstract, yet unpretentious, woodwork. When I clicked on her profile and saw she lives in Ottawa, I was surprised I’d never seen or heard of her. Considering no one I’ve spoken to about her knows of her, it’s safe to assume many of Nosy Mag’s readers have not yet had the pleasure. I am honoured to make her introduction. 

Throughout this article, I refer to Pawaskar as an artist, despite her hesitation to embrace this seemingly unattainable, mythical title. Indeed, Pawaskar’s background is primarily in design: she trained as an architect in her hometown of Mumbai, then as an industrial designer in Savannah, Georgia. Somehow, she made her way to Ottawa, and since 2019, she has flipped her practice upside down and inside out, casting utilitarian objects aside in favour of abstract wooden sculptures. Designed, first and foremost, with pleasure and beauty in mind, these works withhold obvious emotional or intellectual subtexts. Instead, smooth, balanced wooden sculptures slowly rock back and forth when pushed. Each measuring approximately half a foot to two feet cubed, the various paces at which they rock create a soothing multi-sensory experience, blending physical beauty with rich woodsy scents, smooth or grainy finishes, and a light rhythmic tapping sound once put in motion.

Speaking with Pawaskar about her work revealed the hidden narratives creeping behind the smooth wood grain and the sensitive, compassionate approach she takes to art and life. Her practice is guided by the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi that places acceptance of imperfection at the center of aesthetics, relationships, and expectations. Thus, she considers the artistic process as a conversation between artist and medium in which letting go of perfection and planning is necessary to allow new meanings to emerge. 

Using a lens informed by Feminism, minimalist American and Japanese sculpture, and a multitude of life experiences as a woman, a designer, a child of the Indian “billion-baby club,” and an immigrant, Pawaskar beautifully extends the teachings of wabi-sabi to explore how abstract sculptures can embody intimate meanings. In the following interview, we explore the parallels between wooden sculptures and bodies in time: their aging processes, decay, scars, and inherent beauty.

Whirl & Whittle, from In the Gaps Left Behind. Photo by Age of Indie.

The Interview

I chose to keep this interview nearly intact. Pooja’s demeanor is so endearing that I felt that keeping her voice, unfiltered, gives the clearest insight into her process and world. 

Pawaskar began by pulling four sculptures out of a large bag and setting them on the table between us. She encouraged me to examine their smooth planes and ridges with my fingers and to rock them back and forth.

Tell me about how you got started: how did Whirl & Whittle come to be? 

I got an undergrad in architecture but wasn’t enjoying it. I love the process of designing but not the execution, and once you’re an architect, execution is more important than design. So I thought, “what am I going to do now?” 

One day, we were out for dinner for my dad’s birthday and my younger sister said she was going to go to the States for her masters. My dad said: “she’s already decided! What are you going to do?” And I said, “I love my life!” I lived in Mumbai back then, I had a good job, my bosses loved me, I got to handle interior design projects, and it allowed me to make small pieces on the side, but India being a billion-baby club, it’s important to have higher education to get a head start. “So,” my dad told me, “You have to get a masters because you have the opportunity to get it.” My dad came from a poor family so he had to bust his ass. He said, “now we’re in a better financial position; you should do it!” And I said, “if I’m doing it, I’m going to do furniture design. I don’t want to do a master’s in architecture, that doesn’t give me joy.” SCAD (the Savannah College of Art and Design) came to India for a presentation (…). I really liked the furniture design program so I was like, “I’m going to try! What’s the worst that can happen?” So, in 2014, I moved to the States, finished my studies, worked in New Jersey for a furniture design company for 3 years, and in 2019, my husband and I decided to move to Canada because we were just done with (…) the States. Canada is very accepting to immigrants and generally to people of colour. 

How did you pick Ottawa? Do you like it here?

I love Ottawa. We actually looked at 4 cities: Vancouver, Toronto, Halifax and Ottawa (…). But since we were in New Jersey, driving to Toronto seemed easiest, because we were also travelling with two dogs. With dogs, you can only go through certain border entries. We moved to Toronto and immediately thought, “No. This is not for us.” Both of us want to start something of our own, our own businesses, and the cost of living is so high in Toronto that just being able to afford a place meant we both needed high paying jobs (…). 

Ottawa reminds us of Philly. [In the States], we lived in Princeton, which is halfway between Philly and New York City, and Philly was our city: there’s culture and art but it’s a relatively small city. It’s like a big city with a small city feel and I feel like Ottawa is that (…). We are kind of boring people so it works out; we can go on a hike with the dogs, go home, play chess... 

What does your husband do? 

My husband is an electrical engineer. We grew up in India together but never dated – we dated different people. He moved to the States a year before I did for his master’s, so when I was moving he was helping me with the paperwork, visas, and all of those things and we connected as humans. My husband is a very driven individual and that kind of pulled me to him: he was the one who was like, “give Whirl & Whittle a try. Do it!” And that helped me, having the reassurance that my partner believes in my skills (…). It’s a very easy relationship with him because he understands why I’m so involved in my work; he’s the same: he’s up until like 3 in the night because he has to do it. His electrical engineering is his passion (…) I like that it’s not just a romantic relationship; it’s a true partnership. It’s understanding and respecting what the other person believes in.

What drew you to that shift from furniture design to sculpture? 

I always thought furniture design would give me the happiness that architecture couldn’t give me (…) but it’s very much manufacturing oriented: “how are we going to make 500 of these? 8000 of these? What kind of legs are we going to have?” There are no stories; it’s just chairs and tables. So [my design job] kind of left me sad at the end of the day (…). I did what was told to me – I should have a masters, I should have the education and a career that would give me a lot of money and a good house – but I was just not happy (…). 

I thought, “I have to do something to get out of this rut.” So, I took a woodworking class in New York. It was quite a distance, but you could commute in a day from Princeton. I did a 5-day workshop [over a few weekends] (…). It was a communal woodworking space, so if you took the course, you could keep using it, so I kept doing that and I was just making bowls and vases and small pieces that were really tiny and a lot of them were not good pieces but it was a start. I thought to myself then, I knew it was not what I want to create, but that this is something that will take me to a point where I’m happy with where I am as an artist. So, I kept making these pieces and I started Whirl & Whittle then, in 2017 or 2018. I kept sharing my pieces and eventually it turned into collections of stories.

Whirl & Whittle, from In the Gaps Left Behind. Photo by Age of Indie.

What kinds of stories?

(Pooja showed me a big scar on her hand)

Do you see the scar over here? I was working on a piece of wood and I cut myself. It was very strange for me to have a scar on my hand (...) and I was constantly touching it. It’s almost gone now, but it was really bad when I got it, and Sam, my husband, kept seeing me playing with it and one day was like, “it’s just a scar! It’s a sign that you did something that was scary, and it left you with a scar, but it’s a sign that you overcame that, and you’re still woodworking. It harmed your body, but it gave you strength to keep going. So, it’s a physical reminder of your strength.” And he said, “your scar is beautiful.” 

That’s what he said, and it kind of stuck with me and in 2020 when I officially decided to launch my first collection, I decided, I’m going to use this story: “Your Scars are Beautiful.” That was my first collection, and a lot of the sense of that collection comes from wabi-sabi, the knowledge or understanding that there is beauty in imperfection. 

So, I used wood like this spotted beech that has all this drama and trauma because bugs attacked it and ate the wood. All these brown and black lines are basically where the bugs are eating it and this discolouration that you see is just dead, the dead part of the tree. I used a lot of spalted and patterned wood because these woods also are scarred, but that made them so beautiful, and you want to look at it and touch it because of the scars that they have. So the brown that you see over here, that’s the real wood. The rest is discoloured and after fungus attacked it; it’s transformed.

Whirl & Whittle, from In the Gaps Left Behind, spalted beech. Photo by Age of Indie.

Can you explain the concept of wabi-sabi? 

I’ll just tell you a little story. When I was in architecture school in Mumbai, we were designing an open village center. We had the land and all the criteria and I thought I was making the most amazing design! (She laughs) I showed it to my professor and he was like, “it’s too much. You have to pare it down.” And I was like, “what are you talking about?” And he went on to tell the story of wabi-sabi: this guy, his name was Sen no Rikyū, was asked to sweep the garden of his master’s house because it was Fall. So, he swept the garden and removed ALL the leaves, but then shook one tree a little bit so that just a few leaves would fall down. My professor was like, “there is beauty in the little imperfections. You don’t want everything to look immaculate.” And it just stuck with me. He told me this comes from wabi-sabi, so I started going to my college library and studying it.

Wabi-sabi is a Japanese philosophy and it’s … take this with a grain of salt. It’s like the bible. It has a lot of small stories, but the objective is the same. So, it has a lot of small wisdoms, and you can learn from each wisdom to embrace yourself and people around you. The core values are beauty in impermanence and imperfection – physical and within us. And there is wisdom in embracing that Because you and I, we’re not going to look like this in 20 years; we’re going to have white hair and our bodies are going to change. And it’s ok! It’s ok for that to happen, but we live in a society where, as women, we have been told to look a certain way to be desired. We have to be youthful! 

But in Japanese philosophy, you just embrace getting old. And when you embrace yourself for being who you are, you radiate beauty. A lot of times, I feel like women try to stay thin, skinny, but that makes them unhappy. And I was thin and skinny and it was just bad. You need to be healthy and that’s what Japanese philosophy tells you: eat when you want to eat, feed your body because that will feed your soul and your creativity comes from your soul! You cannot be a starving artist and create good work. So, I really feel like it has so much wisdom and it also helps you to accept other people as who they are, because as soon as you embrace imperfection in your life, the sooner you will be at peace with yourself. A lot of my initial collections were about beauty and imperfection, but now it’s more about impermanence: I want to address that topic because it’s so beautiful and has so much wisdom. 

My collection In the Gaps Left Behind addresses that things change. These sculptures are inspired by cliff rocks hit by water: as the water hits, it creates these dents and all the dents are not uniform, so you see these strange cuts in between: these are the gaps that are a reminder that the rock lost a piece of itself over time, but that is what made it itself. You are what you are because of your experiences – not just the bad ones or the good ones. Your experiences shape you.

Whirl & Whittle, cluster of wood sculptures, from In the Gaps Left Behind. Photo by Age of Indie.

I noticed that depending on the size of the sculpture, it rocks faster or slower, and some look like they’re about to fall over and create suspense. Why was It important to you that the sculptures move? 

I wanted an interactive element. I believe that having function makes [art] more appealing – and function doesn’t necessarily have to be, like, a vase. It can be another function, so this is rocking, which has the quality of bringing calm. I have one that I’m making right now from a really chunky piece of wood, and I put it on the floor, and it looks almost like a big stone, and I just tap it with my foot and it keeps rocking. It’s so calming! 

You often carve in the same direction as the natural grain of the wood. How do you go about preparing designs for your pieces? 

For a lot of pieces, I have a plan of what I want to do. For this one, I wanted to create a big opening in here (in the piece from In the Gaps Left Behind, pictured below). Once the opening was done, I started seeing the grain over here, and this guy (a big vein in the wood) came up and I thought, if I keep going further, if I trim more, I will lose this. So, I did not touch it anymore. And the same thing kept happening; I kept seeing grains and wood knots. Sometimes you see the vein and you want to follow it. A lot of these sculptures take me a long time because I carve [several at a time], and just let them live in the living room and look at them for a while, then kind of decide, “oh, I feel like if I chop off a little bit over here, it will look nice.”

Whirl & Whittle, from In the Gaps Left Behind. Photo by Age of Indie.

So you can’t decide what the exact curves or lines are going to be; you have to work with the material.

Yeah! And I really love that about these pieces because even if I get a piece from the same tree, it wouldn’t have the same look. On the exterior, I could make it look exactly like this, but going with the flow of the wood makes it so much more beautiful. It’s like having a conversation with a different individual: you gauge what interests them, and you let the conversation flow. If you force a conversation, it isn’t going to be a beautiful conversation.

Is there a reason that you favour wood? Have you worked with other media? 

Last year was really great for the business: a lot of people were seeing my work and buying my work. But a lot of it is the same thing over and over and over again, which can be draining because you want to create more stuff but you get these commissions where people say: “I want this exact piece.” Then someone else comes and wants it too. 

And that brings you back to your furniture days!

Yeah, so I was so exhausted and burnt out at the end of [2021] that I was like, “I don’t want to touch wood. I’m over wood.” So early in 2022, I got a membership for ceramics and did a collection of ceramics. It was called, Be Water, My Friend. It’s a quote by Bruce Lee (I laugh) which is about allowing yourself to go with the flow, and not forcing something to happen (…). I let [the sculptures] be what they wanted to be, and I didn’t prepare any sketches. I just started making… stuff. That was the whole idea: to make stuff. I wasn’t even planning a collection around it, I was like, “if it happens it happens! If it doesn’t, that’s ok” (…). Ceramics were fun, but wood is still my material of choice.

Do you think you prefer wood to ceramics because with wood, you carve out a shape by stripping away excess, while in ceramics you have to build something new? Like with wood, you’re finding something hidden in the material, rather than having to produce a novel shape?

I think so. I feel like, because there is so much character in wood – whereas ceramics are more forgiving, you can make whatever you want – with wood, there are more limitations. And I feel like limitations make things interesting. If you are given a plot of land and told to build the house of your dreams, you might build it and be unhappy, but if you are given an old house, you already have those bones to work with and you can then add whatever furniture you like and make it interesting! That’s how I see wood: it already comes with so many things on the table, [so many bones in place].

Your photos are incredible! Do you do them yourself? 

I hire wedding photographers in Ottawa! They’re called Age of Indie, and I really like their aesthetics: it’s black and white, grainy, blurry, very vintage looking, but also very editorial. It’s a couple: one of them does the photos and the other one is more of a creative director; he sets the scene, we planned the outfits, backdrops, props… 

Because they both come from a fashion background, they were like, “we should do a bunch of photos where you’re just holding the piece like a purse or a clutch!” We did a bunch of those photos and I really like that approach because you know that it’s a sculpture and not a purse, but it’s also familiar in the way that it’s taken, like, “I’ve seen this type of photography before.” And I knew I wouldn’t do that if I was doing that myself.

Whirl & Whittle, from In the Gaps Left Behind. Photo by Age of Indie.

I think that’s something a lot of artists struggle with – creating the work versus presenting it in a marketable or shareable way. 

If you don’t, you’re going to become forgettable. And there are so many great artists who are, like, a million times better than me but they just don’t know how to market themselves! And what happens if you don’t have good photography is people won’t want to pay for your work. And if they don’t pay for your work, you’re going to underprice your work to sell it and it’s a cycle that’s going to keep happening. 

I saw you have a partnership with SSENSE, can you tell me about that? 

That was just so funny! I don’t even know how that happened. I feel like someone there saw my work on Instagram, because I don’t do ads – I just don’t have the budget for that – so (she chuckles) the only way they could discover me is through Instagram! And one of their curators emailed me (…) and when they approached me, I told my husband, “it’s a scam. This cannot be happening.” And he was like, “I don’t think it’s a scam, because you can see that it’s so and so @ssense.com,” but I was like, “you never know what scammers can do! They want my money!” So it took me a while to like, get on board with it. And again, that stems from self-doubt and thinking my work’s not enough. But a lot of my brand is about overcoming impostor syndrome.

I think that’s why it’s very accessible. It’s very classy but also unpretentious. The language you use is very poetic, and you reference complex spiritual ideas, but the words are simple… you named a collection after a quote by Bruce Lee! I think that makes your work easy to love. I can tell it’s a real person who made your work – someone with insecurities and doubts and fragilities.

Before Your Scars are Beautiful, I felt like I had to imitate other designers. Like, “they’re doing chopping boards, or spoons, so I have to do that” (…), but if I’m doing this – if I’m pursuing this as an art business – I should speak my own truth (…). Let’s try to be as authentic as I can and let’s see how people respond. I knew that the story of Your Scars are Beautiful was resonating with people when I was sharing it on Instagram and I was like, “let me take this further!” And then [SSENSE] happened, then another collection happened, and another collection happened, and now, we’re here. But I really want to keep doing sculptures, and bigger sculptures! And it will come, eventually. 

Do you sustain yourself just doing this? 

I do have a part time job with the company that I worked with in New Jersey (...). I do that on the side, and it’s not like I have a bunch of hours to fill every week. I really like having a second job because that gives me the freedom to get photography and rent a studio for the photography and ship my works – because that’s expensive! Not having that financial freedom would be restrictive. 

I’ve been debating whether I should get a different type of job… like maybe I should just work for a pet store and take care of dogs all day! That way I would be totally away from this. My husband thinks I should open a pet store or a rescue, because I love animals… more than people. Because they’re so forgiving and accepting, you know? There’s no judgment in that relationship.

How do your dogs interact with the sculpture? Do they chew them? 

They sniff them (she laughs). One of my dogs, she sniffed at this one and touched it and it started rocking and she was like “WOOF WOOF” (at this point the incredibly elegant Pooja started to bark). And I’m like, “it’s not an animal! It’s just a rocking sculpture!” 

Do you like your sculptures to live on the floor or on a table?

Anywhere, really (she pulls out her phone and shows me pictures of Constantine Brancusi’s works). When [Brancusi] started selling sculptures, he noticed that people were not placing them in places that he wanted them to be (…) so he was like, “when I design sculptures, I’m going to design the pedestal! And the pedestal and the sculpture together will be a sculpture in itself” (…). That is something I envision doing. Except all in wood.

Photo by Age of Indie.

Who else inspires you? 

[Isamu] Noguchi. He trained under Brancusi so I like him a lot. I like designers who do a bunch of different things – furniture, sculpture… Noguchi did these paper lanterns and stage sets for dancers – which is so interesting to me! You only have one life, so you have to be open to collaborations and new experiences! This desire to try different things is what attracts me to artists. Frank Lloyd Wright is another one: he did lighting and furniture and homes and buildings and interiors, all that. 

I feel like all the references you’re discussing have a diverse body of work – sets, houses, furniture, etc. – but they remain in this very minimalistic aesthetic. 

I think the closest I see myself to is Noguchi. He too believed in collaboration. As he got older, in his 70s (…) his sculptures got so much more minimalist, almost stripping the aesthetics away and just collaborating with the stone. Trimming in places where he thinks it should be trimmed and leaving bare areas... This is more in tune with where I am (…). The fact that someone who travelled the world and has seen so much and worked with so many materials and done so much, decided to do something so simple in his late career… I just thought that, with time, you realize that there is so much beauty in simplicity.

Maybe that’s a good place to end.

I feel like we should hang out!

(End of the recording).

You can find Pawaskar’s work on Instagram @whirlandwhittle and at www.whirlandwhittle.com. I think hers will be a story worth following. 

Pawaskar’s work can be found at Santini Gallery, Rag & Carbon, and Gallery Elder in Ottawa, at Gallery Little Red in Toronto, and online at ssense.com, gubns.co, singulart.com and wescover.com. She recently had work featured in a group show in Miami’s Galeria Azur and in Gensler’s New York office.