Vessels Pulsing with Energies and Stories to Tell

Abstract

Abstract In this article, attention is drawn to stories arising from some southern African contemporary everyday ceramics utilityware created by selected local South African eastern seaboard potters, with an eye to identifying certain characteristics that result in works by these potters being most regularly used in the writer's household and studio. This conversation then takes a prehistoric turn, via a fingerprint on a fired lump of clay, to a brief discussion around potters of our southern African eastern seaboard Precolonial Farmer era, and some main characteristics of Kalundu Tradition utilityware ceramics. One particularly interesting characteristic is that excavations have revealed that some perfectly serviceable utilityware items were repurposed by means of post-firing partial or full piercing on the shoulder, belly, or base. Attention then moves towards the flame-firing techniques of Nesiwe Nongebeza and Lindsay Scott, as well as of woodburners Nina Shand and Paul de Jongh. Finally, it is lightly speculated that one of the reasons many potters enjoy working with clay and have certain favourite ceramic items in daily use is because they bestow some of their own energies into the works and recognise that others have also done so, thereby adding something special that users and collectors appreciate.