Those early days of my pottery career in Malelane

Malelane was paradise. Our children were young preschoolers; in fact, Tinyke was a 9 month old baby when we moved there. Koos was working at the sugar mill, a booming new industry for a region that previously relied on vegetables for their daily bread. 

I was raised in Namibia, where we only saw flowing rivers when it rained in the Khomas Hochland Mountain, just so that it will run down in a few hours into dry sandy beds? So in comparison with my childhood home, this was true paradise.

It was a luxury to see the Crocodile River constantly running. Drought was not uncommon here, but the vegetation was lusciously green in contrast with the mostly grayish green landscapes where I grew up. Bougainvillea became trees in comparison with the ones growing in Namibia and I never saw bigger banana leaves than the ones in the Lowveld where it grew in plantations.  There were crocodiles and hippopotamus in the river and if you watched closely, you could see elephants or buffalo on the other side of the river in the Kruger National Park. Our favorite leisure time was on Sunday afternoons when we took the children to see these animals in and around the river.

One of Antoinette's early students.

Antoinette and other students at work in her early days in Malelane, South Africa.

One of Antoinette's early coil pots.

Some of Antoinette's early wheel thrown pots, altered.

​First beginner pottery kiln and pottery glazes

It took me five months before I had my first kiln. Someone advertised a kiln for R400 (about $40 in current terms) in Nelspruit, a neighboring town. It was time for my next lesson and it was here that my husband showed his weight in gold regarding my pottery escapades!

The kiln was a flimsy old top loader, with broken elements and only two settings: on and off. With the help of technicians, Koos hand coiled elements and before long we had a kiln going! 

By then I collected enough class fees to buy our first glazes. Not knowing any better, I ordered 12 different one-kilogram (2.2 lb.) glazes to dip our pots in. Of course it did not work too well (our pots were too big to dip and we did not know of any other way, so we poured the glaze. We managed though, and before long we had our first finished pieces fired. Our first pots were made and we were very proud of ourselves.

As I improved, curiosity sometimes got the best of me and I opened a kiln way too soon, just to end up seeing pots cracking in two right in front of my eyes.

This is how Antoinette signed her first pots.

Note how badly this small earthenware pot were glazed.

An image from TeachinArt where Antoinette demonstrated the pottery coiling process.

Antoinette created this award winning translucent porcelain sculpture, which was featured and published in a United States/Korean exhibition.

This jug was hand-built with porcelain clay. It has a hollow handle.