Pottery classes for beginners

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.

Beginning to build a coil pot.

Making marks on clay

My biggest challenge at the time was to get the papayas off the trees in my garden, before the monkeys get it! A papaya showing the slightest hint of yellow was a monkey’s delicacy and they would grab it and then tease me from a distance while they consume it!

Beginning to build soft slab pots.

Hand building projects by beginners

It was a beautiful remote place, where everybody knew each other and helped raise each other’s children, but it was also a place where we had limited enrichment and adult educational opportunities. The result was that the woman of the town took it upon themselves to do exciting and stimulating projects.

First pottery students

My first 3 students were housewives from the community. They had to pay their class fees of R30 (the equivalent of just over $2.50 in today’s terms) upfront so that I could buy our first clay. I became the one-eyed king in the land of the blind and I never dreamed that those first pottery lessons would lead to a passion of a lifetime.

Have you ever noticed how potters transfer images on clay, either by scratching through the surface or by painting on the clay surfaces? As a young potter, the marks that I put on my clay had no particular meaning; at least that was what I was thinking at the time. It was just pure joy to cut and carve and smear and pinch and roll the clay, a willing material that forms and shape in whatever direction it was pinched and pushed.

How to build a coil pot.

Finishing pottery well is important.

Even though I could see that there were mistakes, I did not have the knowledge to solve it.  Pots were thick and it stayed thick! The local library had a few books about pottery and we utilized them as much we could, but the information was scarce and very unsatisfactory and all the information we got were always about the making process, but never about finishing the final product before it goes in the bisque kiln.
In my online pottery classes I teach potters how to prevent thick sloppy work. Even beginner potters can make neat pottery.

Knowing better now, I can finish the bottoms of my pottery professionally.

If I think back, I recall unfinished bottoms and sloppy pots, often times with underdeveloped forms. We did try to smooth it off, but it took several years, before I got the knowledge to finish my work properly. I learned that clay needed to rest and become ready for the next preparation phase with hard lessons. Today, I teach beginner potters to finish their work professionally.

During those early days I did not understand glazing pottery. I thought it was just like paint, but today I know I work with a ceramic material.

During this time we made pots and all kind of objects that the clay allowed us to do, never thinking that once we have it fired, it basically would be set in stone, carrying naive finger and cutting marks ; objects that carried the evidence of a small community of potters to be !

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.

A long career of learning

It took me years to learn and understand that pottery carried a history that stretched far beyond my imagination. I never realized the importance of clay for anthropological research.  If my first studio would have been an archaeological site, they will probably find shards, telling interesting stories of us few women that had so much fun in our garage studio and maybe they would find the first signs of the birth of my passion for clay. It became a lifelong love affair, one that I never would have managed, was it not for my dear husband and his patience with me. (oh he still did not eat his hat as he said he would do if I become a potter!)

I was not fortunate enough to learn about clay through generational inheritance, as the ancient people probably did. I did not even know at first that clay is earth and it was a big "aha" moment for me when I realized that clay in a kiln and rocks forming from lava had strong similarities. When I decided I have to start teaching pottery, I never thought that I started on a path in which I created footprints that may have some permanence. Having that knowledge now, puts on me an obligation to make sure that any piece I fire not just holds beauty in its core, but also an intelligence of good craftsmanship and expression value to last for millenniums to come.

Thanks to my mother, these 2 pieces were saved. In the beginning I did not know how to make a pottery handle successfully, let alone how to make it neat.

Those early days, I had to fight my way of how to throw a bowl on a pottery wheel. Today I teach potters around the world to throw thin translucent porcelain bowls.

Saving face.....

My career came a long way from those very first days with clay. It became a profession that took me across the world and that gave me opportunities to show and teach my porcelain in which I ended up specializing,  to potters around the globe.  The latest highlight is showing my work with a group of internationally recognized potters in a New Members Exhibition in Beijing China. The show was canceled earlier this year due to the pandemic, so it just opened recently as a virtual show at the Guozhong Ceramic Art Museum

A hand built, ( press molded and altered) sculpted porcelain vessel. It was showcased in my first publication in Pottery Making Illustrated.

A few Historical facts about pottery

I mentioned anthropologists. It is one of their specialty fields to have an interest in clay objects. Did you know that shards can tell us about ancient technology and human behavior? Since clay is preserved by fire, it carries footprints and cultural evidence that cannot easily be distinguished. 
I came across this you tube video that explains how they translate images and marks from clay into historical facts: The presenter has a lively way in which he explains the importance of pottery shards to read ancient history.
It took me years to learn and understand that pottery carried a history that stretched far beyond my imagination. I never realized the importance of clay for anthropological research.  If my first studio would have been an archaeological site, they will probably find shards, telling interesting stories of us few women that had so much fun in our garage studio and maybe they would find the first signs of the birth of my passion for clay. It became a lifelong love affair, one that I never would have managed, was it not for my dear husband and his patience with me. (oh he still did not eat his hat as he said he would do if I become a potter!)
I also found this beautiful website with information about the Ancestral Pueblo cultures found in the regions where Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado meets, known as “The Four Corner area” It is believed that the Pueblo people descended from nomadic living styles and gathered here some 12 thousand years ago. Their pottery has a significant influence on American pottery; to this day.