Rich puffs of invigorating aroma gurgling tenderly over a gentle flame, steady hands, impatient fingers tapping away softly at the counter, blurry thoughts, long nights and complex bites of life. It felt as if, it hid something somewhere within it’s brooding bubbling. Somewhere deep within its intoxication was an answer to the unfathomable. Magical, almost mythical is intoxication, just as ‘the unfathomable’ is alluring. Tea, almost magically landed into our lives when tea leaves mysteriously flew into Emperor Shen Nung’s cup of hot water on a cold raw morning around 2700 BC in China.
Tea itself and its uses have evolved since the days of old and yet unlike the ways of the ancient, It has never lost it’s demand. From traditions like the Sado (tea ceremony) and swanky tea parties to impeccably packed packets or more commonly referred to ‘tea bags’, tea has undoubtedly seeped into the finer fabric of life.
It became a curious thought for me that how little I had noticed tea’s lingering presence in my life. Well, being an obstinate coffee devotee, tea was never my choice. I was a late entry into tea’s lair. Only recently had my interest diverged towards it, probably after my first slip casting project. We were required to design a teapot. While discussing the project my teacher mentioned how having tea at her place required all manner of propriety and preparations, something I had only come to see at the end of formal dinners at my place. I thought, surly one could not be expected to set-up a proper tea-set along with a tea-cozy before tea, why would it demand such respect, it was after all only a beverage. I had to see for myself to understand.
I have come to believe, the true tea enthusiast would only be able to answer my questions. I on the other hand have only reached a state where I can appreciate and indulge in tea, be it green, black or any other color.
The project required us to design the teapot, produce it’s molds, formulate 1200̊c casting slip and glazes and the final teapots, fired to their temperature, and completely functional.
This was my very first multi-piece mold. Section .A labeled underneath was a the two piece section of the main body and spout of the teapot. Section .B labeled underneath was a one piece section of the lid rest and Section .C labeled underneath was a one piece section of the foot.
detailed and separated documentation during the mold making process labeled as per the already labeled sections:
Next step was formulating the casting slip and the glazes. A number of glazes were tested on a spare teapot :
Apart from the regular color experiments in plain base glazes i also tried experimenting with copper, rubbing oxides, glaze splashing, dipping, crazing, crackling glazes, Indian ink, pressure spraying and brushing.
One of the requirement was a clean teapot without any glaze on the outside.
the last two pictures underneath were just an experiment with form, wax emulsion and thick casting slip.
I have come to realize life is too short, and provides us with too few opportunity for us to waste. Too few for us to be able to label situations and things undesirable without even having to judge them or without even trying to connect with them and the pleasures they may behold.
5th semester started with a head long dive into the formulation of salt bodies that could be used for ‘The functional seats project’. This assignment encompassed everything, from the selection of a location for the outdoor seats (within the campus), inspiration, design, process, final completed seats to their final firings.
I felt I would like to design my seats for a place that was peaceful. A place, that would be comforting and inviting for quiet contemplation, something that I quite savor. For this purpose alone I chose a lonely corner with a few trees that had a beautiful foliage cover which would allow in screened sunlight and heat in the hot summers. My seats would be low and close to the ground since I felt that would be the best pose to feel and appreciate the view. By the view I mean the surrounding ambiance. The height of the trees along with their shimmering translucent leaves in the sunlight, the sharpness of stature and loftiness of the colonial architecture of the nassurwanje campus, the pond, the ever so populated canteen and the stretch of green.
It is around March that the best feature of the spot reveals itself to those who would be willing to connect. When the sun decides to shine down with all its might, huge shades of cream canvas are hung up to the many poles that adorn the grounds.
I chanced to discover its beauty myself one evening when I ended a 3 hour shift for a 1280̊c firing, and decided a short break was much needed. I randomly sat by that tree and closed my eyes trying a bit too hard, to block out life while vicious calculations of time and temperature scrutinized my patience, and thoughts of the gas kiln that boisterously rumbled away mercilessly disregarding any forms of punctuality eroded my peace. It was a delicate summer evening, a starry sky, and the sea breezes swept the grounds. It was their sweeping everything including the shades that precariously fluttered and made reverberating sounds that made me feel I was standing at a cliff with a lashing sea beneath me, and the furious wind whipping my clothes. It was a beautiful feeling, I suppose something that cannot be explained by mere words. Maybe all that I said sounds like a jargon of a confused or text with no subject matter. However, in all simplicity, the feeling was of peace like the quiet cooing of pigeons or rain drops falling on a tin roof or the smooth shifting of gears on a highway or the ruffling of dry leaves in the autumn winds or maybe like the silent sounds of a melodious river running its course.
Anyhow, the river drags me along to my inspirations for this project.River eroded pebbles, their cracks of erosion, rock strata, texture and color was my inspiration. How the water silently yet mischievous carves out niches from the pebbles, smoothes it, loves it, yet destroys it, and all the while defining beauty in all its devastation, sounded just like life. I realized during this project that exaggerations, subtlety, intricacy, sophistication and simplicity, these are traits are not easy to understand, yet nature so effortlessly employs them, and mocks us for our ignorance and foolish attempts towards uncovering it’s myths.
The seats had to have strength to withstand weight so a rib-cage like strength mechanism was formulated, something, that my teacher had suggested and it worked just fine. It was a working method that she had seen a fellow ceramist use to make her huge pieces during her residency in South Africa.
Although the project was exciting, and I had very high hopes, the result wasn’t close to what I had envisioned. I felt I could have done a much better job. In all, four pieces were erected out of which two decimated during their inception since the clay body was not plastic enough and apparently the scale was a big too large for it to handle.
(the pieces that did not survive)
The other two were then made from another clay body. From the remaining two that were completed and bisque, one developed a crack in the center of the seat but is still quite comfortable and strong enough to withstand a considerable amount of weight. The last piece, which is undoubtedly my favorite survived without any flaws.
These two still await their final fate in the wood kiln.
Paul Greenhalgh in the Fourth Annual Dorothy Wilson Perkins Lecture talked about: Social Complexity and the Historiography of Ceramic in which he mentioned Oscar Wilde’s ethical analysis of (Victorian) society. One of the points in that was, “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.”
The discovery of oneself is, to me, the beginning of life. Only when one loses contact of their superficial self and transgresses through the norms of their past life, do they reach the path to self discovery. It is then that life ceases to exist as one knows it. What is right and what is wrong; these are just fragments of perception. And this is the time when people rethink their perspectives; while some might renovate them, others might totally reconstruct them. Once the bags are packed and the journey to self discovery begins, one realizes that the journey is one that will not end… ever. However, it is only this realization and a constant interest in oneself that leads an individual to the stage where he would start to be comfortable with himself and maybe even start to love himself. As much as I would love to agree to with the point I just mentioned, I would also like to add that I felt a bit of disdain and cynicism in few of the other points. There seems to be no belief in the feeling of righteousness. Truth only exists under the threat of detection, wickedness is a myth and those who separate the body and soul are body-less and soulless. Maybe, the author has an entire theory to support himself, but at this point I am not convinced. I have experienced that at some level a lot of people do have malice in them. I also truly believe in the existence of truth, although this belief leaves me quite disappointed at times but hope is a glorious thing. I believe hope is that one phenomenon that helps us in ways that we cannot even imagine. It is that one philosophy that uplifts a life even from the brink of destruction. The second part of the list summed up what decorative art should constitute. In this section one of the quotes that made a deep impact on me, was, “No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style.” I felt no one could have expressed this better or in any other words. I feel this holds true if taken positively or negatively. The ‘mannerism of style’ comes from within, from loving and understanding yourself. Keeping true to your style or deviating from it deliberately is a personal choice which would be forgivable or not is a matter of perception. I also agree that “it is only the superficial qualities that last.” After a few years people tend to look at a piece of art and say “isn’t it beautiful,” rather than contemplate on what that piece was actually meant to communicate.
Where mature inks dance under rollers, where every scratch twirls in colors and blends into imaginations to spin webs of stories flowing from the mesh of hues.
I talk of printmaking. Printing is defined as the transferring of ink from one prepared printing surface to a piece of paper or any material. Then printmaking is basically the techniques of making prints. There are mainly three divisions to printmaking: relief, intaglio and surface. By relief, as the name suggests, I mean the raised portions on a printing plate which can either be achieved by carving out all the negative area that the artist does not want to print or raising the surface that the artist wants to print as in the case of adding textures on to a plate which would put them on a slightly higher level than the rest of the plate.There are different types of relief techniques a few being linocut, woodcut, metal cut.
Intaglio refers to grooves lower than the level of the printing plate. This means that after inking and wiping the plate off, of, excess ink, only the ink that rests in the grooves would be printed. Some techniques of intaglio are etching, engraving, mezzotint, aquatint, chine-colle and dry point.
Surface or planographic would be the usage of the entire printing surface and some parts are treated to make the image. Planographic techniques include: lithography, monotyping and digital techniques.
Another kind of printing is the collograph print. Collography is a technique used in printmaking where any textured found material is adhered to the printing plate. This texture is captured on the paper after the print is created. Through this technique one can experience the feel of a multitude of textures in one go. This roughly falls in the relief category however we do not create the texture on the plate in this case, we only choose them.
In the last two weeks of my semester I was offered the choice of electives. I could choose one discipline to work in for two weeks. My choices being oil painting, printmaking, drawing, calligraphy, off-loom weaving, screen printing, interior design and wood sculpture; I chose printmaking.
In our two week elective we learnt the collograph and some experimental techniques. My work had characteristics of all kinds of printing; the relief as in the collographs (textures), grooves and scraping as in the intaglio technique and I also used the surface by applying photocopy paper to give a hue in the picture. I first experimented with a lot of textures in my first plate and in my second printing plate I used those textures to form a composition in which I used my textures and I also craved into my printing plate. Then I produced two editions (two identical prints), one final sheet of single color (instead of black) and then I did a top roll and an experimental, for each.
After the printing plates are ready and dried you shilak them two to three times to make sure that the textures are further reinforced. Once it dries up, it is ready to be printed. I used a thick spotting brush and brushed in the ink making sure that all the grooves were covered. Once that is done I wiped the excess to the extent that the wiping paper was hardly getting stained. Then damp paper was placed on it and the press was rolled over it in a smooth motion.
Black and white editions and single color (test and final plate):
For the top roll I first prepared my plate the way I just described, then I took a roller, spread some ink (of a different color) on a clean surface and rolled the roller over it, rotating it every time until there was an even distribution of the ink on the roller. Once this is achieved, I rolled the roller over my plate smoothly in one go and then I printed it.
These were my testing prints for the top roll, before I printed the final top rolls, I experimented with the color combinations. First applying half a top roll of white and half of yellow over a base plate of maroon, then I applied half a top roll of orange and half of brown over a base plate of dark green to turquoise.
These were the final top roll results, where I did a bronze red top roll over a grey-blue base plate on my final plate and a yellow top roll on a maroon base plate for my test plate
These were the final results of the experimental prints of my test and final plates.
The experimental sheet was very interesting. After preparing the sheet for printing I made an inverted collage over my printing plate with glue facing upwards so that it would stick to the printing paper. I used foil, golden paper, newspapers and glaze papers for the collage. I also used handmade paper which gave me a very interesting result. In this case the ink did not stay on the handmade paper, but it actually went through it and spread itself behind it according to the veins of the paper. We also had the option of photocopy transfer.
My second half of my second year has been a compact experience of knowledge, distractions, entertainment and enjoyment. I feel to have achieved a large body of work this semester and much knowledge, more of which was due to experience, trial and error.
I have learnt that no matter what precautions one may take, one must prepare themselves for the worst when they keep their work in the kiln and if it has blasted then no matter what happens to it, the worst hasn't happened. I have, to some extent learned not to love each piece that that I make to an extent where I either cannot critique it or see it crack or break.
I feel that an introduction into high fire and wood fire glazes has opened up to me an entire field that I was very hesitant about. It has made me love wood firing even more and every time I experience results of wood fired pieces I can't help but be amazed.I feel that due to the intensive wood firings that I have gone through, I feel I am capable of handling an entire wood firing however I feel I need to have done more readings.
Apart from all this I feel I am susceptible to distractions. I have realized that for me to work at my optimum I still need to learn to cope up with distractions and maybe try to express them in my work rather than not be able to work at all. I also feel that I could have done a lot better in some assignments and I had found myself wishing to have had more time for some assignments since they were so interesting but I felt I couldn't do them justice.
I had most enjoyed the totem pole assignment. I felt that was my best assignment this term despite the fact that it cracked entirely I also loved half of the naked clay assignment while its other half would be my weakest assignment.The assignment on the moulds was also very interesting but I had no time to think or to enjoy it as was the case with the naked clay project.
So overall, this semester and this year was a lovely year for me. I feel I have learned a lot from both the visiting and the permanent faculty in very contrasting ways and I feel I can approach them with much more ease then I could before.I have learnt to love my studio, the atmosphere, and the people I work with, since the day isn't complete until I do not have a brush of all of them.
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we wood fired these totem poles to r7 (1240) which was basically a 13 hour firing without glazes or any inputs. although we planed the entire firing on the basis of three other 13 hour, soda and glaze wood-firing; with 2 major reductions, we still obtained no wood-firing characteristics on our work. there were no ash deposits either although we had placed some ash pockets on the bag walls and some between the pieces themselves. since we had placed no peep hole in the back wall of the kiln, we achieved our temperature quite efficiently and steadily as there was no heat loss from the back, brick wall at all. the reason we used no inputs and we only went up to r7 was that the clay we used gave us very diverse results in 5 different firings (gas and wood fire). my clay body was either perfectly fine or it was cracking up or totally melting in different firings that went to the same temperature. i also tried placing them in the same positions on the same shelves in an attempt to try to ascertain possible reasons for the diverse results. others had similar issues, however even at r7 another colleague's totems warped although her clay tests were perfect through out.
In the end, my totems preformed a through and through cracking performance and they still remained un-vitrified. However the natural cracks are beautiful. They make me think of how naturally the fire made my work speak of my thoughts and of my concept. it is amazing to equate the cracks- a sign of weakness, to all the corruption and lies of our government and how they have weakened our county's internal structure. And the fact that all my pieces resisted any fire flashes, makes me think, no matter how hard one may try to cloak deception, it cannot go unnoticed.
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The concept of totem poles is either a standard of society or for spiritual purposes. My concept stems from lies.
Lies that have become such a fundamental part of the government of our country, that we have become numb to their existence. They have become the standard of our government in my mind.
I wanted to represent the lies that our government feeds us which seem to go round and round in circles constantly toying away with the laws; sometimes we becomes so ritualized and desensitized that they get an opportunity to merge into the system and sometimes they are so apparent and oppressive that their existences seems to overpower the system and those who rebel against it.
The displacement of discs talks about the disparity between the reality and the fabrications that blind us. Although their displacement should throw the totem pole out of balance but it does not. The same goes for our system, at least up till now… for how long...that is a question one needs to ponder upon
This assignment made me observe the technicalities of vertical building. I had to consider gravity, balance and height. Apart from these I also had to make sure that all the discs would inter relate through their diameters and wall thicknesses.
Apart from the physics of the piece I deliberately made textures where they either merge into the structure, become forced or artificial or become the structure. These in a way do signify the nitty gritty details through which the government toys around with the system which might be claimed as strong but is nothing but hollowed by the 'lie termite'
This was an assignment that was very physically exhaustive but was a great learning experience because I usually did not consider factors such as weight, balance and gravity.
Since the entire structure is thrown, throwing such huge pieces was another challenge and making more pieces, playing around with thicknesses but replicating diameters was also another interesting process.
A soft cadenced yet incoherent crackle, continually chimed under the naked moon. Intent eyes, heavy breath, sweat dripping faces, dimly lit by the flames radiating from the burning logs in the kiln; steady hands griping chunks of dark brown wood, ready for the signal to thrust them into the inferno, and the night silently watched as it glided away.
We, the wood firers, in silent coordination gazed at the white blue flame emanating above the wood kiln flickering across the blanket of the deep endless night. That was a night in late August when the wood kiln that had stood dormant for some months had been resurrected for a 30 hour firing.
Our instructor;Raania and us; the second year ceramics students, had already prepared the kiln, loaded the work a day before and the wadding we used had sawdust mixed in it as a filler which was a very successful idea; during the unloading of the kiln, the waddings very easily fell away and did not stick to the work. We also placed two cone packs inside the kiln (one near the stoke hole and the other at the opposite end at the peep hole) and sealed it with soft bricks and mortar made from grog, fireclay and sodium silicate. Each cone pack was loaded with four cones: r02 (1120°c), r5 (1196°c), r8 (1263°c) and r9 (1280°c).
We stared early at 6:00am with two gas burners inserted into the firebox with a medium flame. The idea was to heat the kiln and dry it up before the actual wood firing started. By 7:30am the kiln had started reacting with thick black smoke which we wanted to force out of the kiln because that was actually the wetness of the kiln and the work inside. From this point onwards, till the end of the firing one major factor to constantly keep in close contemplation while stoking was to ensure that there was an even fire throughout the entire firebox. The further away we would start the fire, the better it would be because that would, to some degree, insure that there would be an even firing throughout the chamber within and the work at the far end would also get the same treatment as would the one nearer to the stoke hole.
By 9:00am the pyrometer indicated a 100°c and we gradually started with a small wood fire mainly using thin wood. The goal was to build up a coal bed to retain heat and have substantial wood fire to raise the temperature. Dampers had been installed but were kept open and all air ports were partially closed. It took us another hour to reach 350°c and with regular stoking of thick and thin wood on regular intervals or just by eyeballing if there was need. Reason for this was that the thick (keekar) wood was not catching fire swiftly enough till this time. Within the next half an hour, when the temperature was soaring a 580°c, we had removed the gas burners completely which resulted in a substantial drop in temperature but we started heavy stoking and managed to regain 570°c by 11:00am.
From there onwards we stoked wood heavily relying mainly on thick wood with little amounts of thin wood for faster burning and more coal for higher preservation of heat. During all this time the kiln kept to good behavior and the pyrometer displayed a constant and steady rise in temperature. When we reached 791°c, around 1:00pm it was time for the first body reduction.
According to Raania, the body reduction was to take place before we reached 1000°c, near and ideally between 800°c and 900°c. To start, we pushed in the dampers, closed all air ports and choked the stoke hole with a lot of thin and thick wood. Here, within the next 5-10 minutes Raania indicated the appearance of a reduction flame. This was a darker, deeper flame; with thick black smoke smothering and hugging the kiln and the flame was pulling and forcing itself out of the stoke hole. It was as if it was desperate and yearning for air to breathe. We kept this going for an hour and around 2:00pm we slit open the dampers.
After this, up till 5:00pm when the temperature had reached a 1000°c we stoked irregularly mostly eyeballing if there was need to stoke or not. This actually worked because there was a consistent rise in temperature. At a 1000°c we raked the coal bed to let in some air because there seemed to be some natural reduction taking place but keeping in mind not to make too much ash fly. Around 6:44pm when the pyrometer spoke an 1100°c we checked our cones as the pyrometer was said to be 50° off. Both r02's were down. Then by 8:00pm we checked our cones again and both r5's were down as well.
Apart from the cone packs Raania had also installed 5 clay rings on one of the bag walls; the first two of which were not glazed. All of these were also dipped in another clay with iron rich content. The idea behind pulling these rings out at different temperatures was to be able to determine what the work inside looked like and to be able to examine the difference at different temperatures.
It was about 8:15pm when we had reached 1200°c and we pulled out the first ring. The clay body had vitrified, it was a little rough and the area with the iron content clay had a grey brown shadow. 9:25pm the second ring was pulled out which also had no glaze but it did display a natural shine. 10:00pm the third ring was pulled out. This had glaze application. These were shino glazes with ash content in them so in this firing, specifically, it was not necessary to have ash, salt or soda flying around the kiln. This ring showed us that things inside were pretty good and with a little more temperature the ash glazes would be able to dance to their optimum and for a good ash melt one generally requires a 1220°c to a 1260°c.
In the next half an hour ring four was retrieved with good results and the two remaining cones on the bag wall seemed soft, however cones at the back; in front of the peep hole were already down which meant that more fire was needed near the stoke hole.
It was around this time that the kiln stopped responding to us and the temperature started to stall. Ring five was retrieved around 11:15pm and it did not display any visible difference when compared to ring four. This continued till 11:30 and we decided a change of strategy was critical as the rise in temperature was crucial at this time; so we decided that instead of stacking in a lot of wood (which would have been my first impulse) we started to stoke a very minimal amount of fast burning thin wood. According to Raania we were to make the kiln hungry so that it would beg for more wood, and this worked!
r8 and r9 were down by 12:15am and by 1:00am we started the process of reduction cooling which was the most important aspect of this firing. For this we closed all air ports, dampers were closed and the firebox stuffed causing a major reduction. By 2:30 to 3:00am we continued stoking but reducing the quantity slowly. In the end we sealed the stoke hole leaving it stuffed with mainly lots of slow burning thick wood.
Initially Raania had planned a 5 to 6 hours period of reduction cooling but by the end we couldn't execute the plan. The reason for this emphasis was basically because, although, the body had vitrified and glazes had melted at 1280°c, all the unexpected flashes and beautiful fiery hues would appear in the period of the reduction cooling. Raania had also placed a bowl of salt in between all the work. Its main purpose was to make the fire more volatile and create the flashes that she wanted on her work.
While firing we did cycles of reductions and oxidations constantly according to the rings that were pulled out. Preferably we wanted to acquire two major reductions: the first was a body reduction and the last was near 1266°c.
I have taken part in three wood firings up till now and every time I have felt that it was my first and every thing that I have learnt has taught me to respect all that I still have to discover. I have learnt that one needs to have faith and trust in the kiln. Sometimes one needs to have patience and in the worst of situations one needs to learn how to lean on intuition rather than walking blindfolded behind the general principles. I do not think that in any kind of firings when I have achieved my required temperature have I ever felt such joy and pleasure that I have felt in wood firings.
Wood firing is extremely unpredictable and requires constant attendance. I feel there is so much more involvement of the firer in these firings and only those who truly love, like to enjoy and take pleasure in their work would want to wood fire it with so much love. It may not appeal to some people but to some, it is the time they come alive.
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