My first teachers in pottery, was the farm worker's children that showed me how to dig my own clay from the river bed, preparing it for smooth working and to make clay oxen and wagons. I later made a bust of my granny and then a 20 cm statue of a boy sitting, apparently doing his "business". Haha! My mother thought it's so cute, that her coal stove's oven became my first kiln! Soon there would follow more creations and it ends up as gifts.
Only after I saw Sally Du Plessis, a Potter and Painter, at work while my father was installing her kitchen cupboards, it became a dream to become a real potter too one day and I promised myself that I will get some training one day. Only later in my life I had the opportunity to attend the Technical College in Rustenburg to attend Pottery classes. They taught me, but soon I was again bored, as I was advancing to fast and wanted to try my hand on more than what they were teaching. With me having a peek into the books at the library in town, it made me more daring than the other students and I tried some techniques at home. The Pottery Teacher did not approved that I advanced so quickly on my own.
I went to a private teacher that did a weekend class on Raku and I had to travel to Verwoerdburg, now Centurion, in South Africa, and I received my first classes in Raku pottery. It is a combination of handwork, using a kiln and then sawdust smoked it to give it the rustic effect. I just loved the atmosphere of the group and the end results was a big surprise and I felt so proud.
My pottery handwork and Raku was my favorite activity. The rustic results was very appealing to me and I loved the luster one could achieve with the metallic lusters that shines when polished. It is actually a very health risking method and I attained some lung damage with the poisonous smoke inhalation.
With slip casting, I was able to reproduce a lot of the same and with my booming flea market stall, I could keep supplying my customers with pottery. I started to make my own molds and designed embossed work that was my own trademark. My decorating techniques was different from other potters and that made my stuff popular. I would combine cast work with hand work and the little ceramic frogs was then displayed on a handmade leaf. A pumpkin became a lamp for a girls room with dainty flowers and even a mouse or two peeking out through the apparent nibbled windows and door. I made my own glazes and used glaze pouring and other decorating techniques in different and new ways.
Later I learned to make porcelain dolls and tried my hand on making porcelain tea sets too. In the process I've met a friend and we became friends for life. Jeanetta and I had lots of fun making our babies and we had hours of fun getting lost in Johannesburg looking for offset points. My dolls became my babies, and after knowing the finer making of porcelain dolls, I could never bought a porcelain doll without looking at the finishing first. Mass production dolls not finished off was not good enough for me.
I even made Terracotta breeding bowls and water bowls for the local Racing Pigeon Club. It was very popular then.
Then I was approached by an Investor from Austria and he wanted me to become the Manager of their two part project. One part was self sustaining farming in the Kwandabele district having Ndebele as theme and the second part was arts and crafts training as a means of income and there would be proper mini workshops where I could train them and they can work from and a tourist gift shop that was to supply the tourists that was to visit the farm. They would've been treated on a tour on the farm, have a hearty local South Africa lunch and some shopping and participating in arts and crafts manufactured and produced there. Pity that they did not continue with it. It was in the year 1990 when Mandela was released out of prison after 27 years, the world was scared of uproars and pulled their investments out of South Africa.
But that did no stopped there. A local Clay Mine Company near Bronkhorstspruit approached me and I did the firing test of their clay's, giving them test results on the firing results and gave them recipes on how to improve their clay for the potters market. It was nice working with them and my in depth study of pottery from the first way pottery started until today's modern pottery and ceramics, was paying off.
In years I made use of pottery to teach children hand eye coordination and keep children busy during holidays.
I had to sell my studio in 1997 but still today my hands will form little bowls from Das Clay or any clay that I can lay my hands on that do not need firing.
