My journey, into working with clay, has been over 40 years.
I lived on a farm in the Eastern Cape and began with lots of enthusiasm, but not much information, so I scoured the library constantly and taught myself – through trial and many errors. We scavenged kiln bricks from an abandoned power station and built a kiln, which we planned to fire using old diesel oil from the farm tractors.
We had no idea what we were doing, but with the help of library books, my husband’s ingenuity and our babies passing us bricks and messing up the mortar, we succeeded. This kiln ‘beast’ took two days and nights of constant feeding with firewood and oil before reaching an acceptable temperature – sleepless nights of billowing flames, diesel fumes, and a low roaring noise outside our bedroom window.
Eventually we acquired an electric kiln, because we need to sleep sometime.
I was extremely surprised one day, when someone actually wanted to buy some of my efforts. It was onwards and upwards from then on.
The process of experimenting, and the excitement of ‘but what if I try this?’ has led me to where I am now, and every one of the items I create holds all the years of enthusiasm and perseverance, and a sliver of my soul.
