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African Pottery Forming and Firing — Transcript

by Christopher Roy · 4,357 words · 409 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00[Woman singing] I
0:34have been fascinated by African pottery for 4 decades.
0:38I first went to West Africa as a young Peace Corps Volunteer
0:41assigned to the national arts center of Ouagadougou, to organize their pottery section.
0:46I immediately discovered that the potters of Burkina Faso
0:50were already extremely skilled and so I devoted my effort
0:53to learning how they made pottery and inviting them to come to the arts center to
0:58work and demonstrate their skills for visiting
1:00tourists.
1:02As an art historian I also discovered that across the continent,
1:06African potters created an enormous range of shapes and sizes,
1:10textures and patterns, and all sorts of colors of pottery.
1:14They quickly fashion closed containers for storing water or grain,
1:18or open containers for cooking.
1:22Small containers for holding palm wine or millet beer,
1:25or large containers that never are moved that are used to store the familyÆs harvest.
1:30Some of these jars are heavily decorated with modeled shapes and patterns
1:34and then used as shrine pots for religious celebrations.
1:38Others become darkened with decades of soot as they sit on the open hearths in womenÆs
1:44kitchens.
1:45African potters understand as fully as Western potters do,
1:49the almost magical plastic quality of clay and that it can be prodded, pushed, squeezed,
1:55molded, twisted, and pulled into unlimited shapes.
2:05To make pottery you have to have good clay.
2:08All across Africa potters know where there are good veins
2:11of uniform clay that is free from foreign materials.
2:15Sometimes the women themselves go out to collect the clay,
2:18but often they send their children with baskets.
2:21They must be very careful when digging for clay
2:23not to dig back so far into the bank that the heavy earth on the surface collapses on
2:28top of them.
2:29They carry the heavy clay back to the workshop where they may let it dry.
2:44[Speaking to each other] [Chris Echeta speaks] ôItÆs like sometimes
3:12if the holes are so bigö ôthat they cannot forestand the weight, the
3:17walls are overburdened,ö ôthey collapse and sometimes the potters
3:21put their lives at risk.ö
3:46In some areas the clay is filled with water and allowed to soak,
3:49absorbing as much water as possible in a process called slaking.
4:01They break the clay up into small chunks and place it
4:04in a mortar then pound it with a pestle to turn it into powder.
4:08They then sift the clay powder with the same sort of sieve that is used for preparing food.
4:28In another area of the compound potters, or their children,
4:31may be smashing up old broken pot shards between two stones
4:34to produce a grainy material which is called grog,
4:37this is clay that has already been fired once and so when it is fired again it will not
4:42shrink.
4:43The grog is added to the powdered clay, both are then kneaded together with water
4:47to produce the clay body that can be used for making pottery.
4:51Here you see one of the daughters of the family whose job it is to knead the clay by foot.
4:55She systematically circles, kneading the clay and then adds new fresh powder and kneads
5:00again.
5:14Mrs Konate is kneading grog into her fresh clay by hand.
5:59Among the Igbo people of Southern Nigeria the clay may be placed in a shallow trough
6:03and kneaded into a uniform mass using a pestle.
6:30The simplest and most obvious technique is simply to turn an old jar upside down on
6:35the ground and to use it as a mold for a new jar.
6:38Mrs. Konate in the village of Ouri in central Burkina Faso
6:42has been making jars for decades.
6:44I first photographed her in 1983 and IÆve been
6:47going back to visit her from time to time ever since.
6:51The last time I visited her in 2010, she was getting very elderly and frail.
6:56She begins by forming a flat pancake of fresh clay
6:59and then she slaps it down over the mold jar.
7:02She uses a beater in her right hand to spread the fresh clay
7:05out over the mold jar thinning it and spreading it.
7:32Mrs. Konate is the wife of a blacksmith and you can hear the blacksmiths at work behind
7:37her.
7:44[Metal clinking] She uses a coil of fresh clay to form a ridge
8:02around the base and then shapes that with her fingers
8:05into a flat bottom that will support the pot when it is placed on the ground.
8:41When it is the right thickness and it has covered the jar
8:44to its widest dimension, she carefully trims the lower edge
8:47to make it uniform and sets it aside to dry for a short period.
8:52She must be careful not to leave it for too long
8:54or it will begin to crack as it shrinks on the mold jar.
8:58When it is stiff enough so that it wonÆt deform she lifts it off,
9:01sometimes with the help of another woman in the compound.
9:12The concave mold technique is the first technique that I discovered
9:15when I first went to Africa as a Peace Corps Volunteer.
9:18I had studied pottery in college but I had never seen
9:21such an unusual and innovative technique.
9:25The
10:01potter has a shallow depression, or sometimes more than one, in the floor of
10:06her workshop, or even in the space she uses as a kitchen
10:08so that she can go from work to cooking after washing her hands.
10:12The depression is only about an 8th of a sphere deep
10:15yet she is able to use it to form a fully spherical jar.
10:19She kneads fresh clay into a thick round mass and places it in the mold.
10:23She then uses a mallet in her right hand to pound the fresh clay into the mold thinning
10:27it and spreading it.
10:38[Speaking together] [Slapping clay]
11:16Of course she quickly fills up the shallow mold so
11:19she rotates the mass of fresh clay up on edge, exposing part of the shallow mold and continues
11:25to pound.
11:26She rotates and pounds, rotates and pounds, building a spherical jar larger and larger.
11:32From time to time she stops and uses her fingers to consolidate the rough clay around the edge
11:37of the opening.
11:39Occasionally, when she discovers that she has run out of fresh clay,
11:42she adds a fresh coil around the rim and continues to pound and rotate.
11:46The technique produces a very thin, light, strong, spherical jar.
12:28[Slapping clay] She sets it upright in the mold
13:46and uses a coil of fresh clay in the opening to form the rim.
17:29At this point, the jar is almost complete and she is adding the coils to form the rim.
17:34She carefully consolidates the rim and then uses a wet cloth to smooth it.
18:04Like all American and European potters, I picked up African jars to tap them with
18:08my fingers to see if they were fired to the right temperature.
18:12Of course they made a thump instead of a ring because they were low-fired earthenware.
18:15I thought it would be nice to teach them how to fire their pottery to a higher temperature.
18:21Then I discovered that they didnÆt want high-fired pottery,
18:24because the low-fired earthenware they made could be used for cooking over an open fire,
18:28while higher fired pottery would shatter if exposed to open flame.
18:32It soon became apparent to me that the techniques that African potters used
18:37represent appropriate technology; that is African had developed techniques
18:41to make pottery that suited their needs, but whose manufacture did not consume precious
18:46or expensive resources.
19:23The variations on African pottery shapes, colors, and decorations are almost infinite.
19:29In this example from the Nyakusa people in Tanzania,
19:32we see large hemispheres of bright red against a cream colored slip.
19:36The sharp joint around the middle portion of the pot
19:39makes it appear as if it had been formed in two separate pieces.
19:43This pot from the Zande people of Northern Congo
19:46certainly looks a little bit phallic and it has wonderful ridges of plastic modeling.
19:52This beautiful jar from the Baule people has a rough texture
19:54around the lower portion and bands of lizards and snake below the rim.
19:58The Zulu are famous for their elegant black beer jars
20:02which may have incised or impressed patterns, or large raised dots which the Zulu call ôAmasumpa,ö
20:08or ôwarts.ö The Tutsi people make very elegant, delicate
20:12pots which must be used for holding palm wine.
20:14I love the contrast and color between the darker neck
20:18and the lighter body of the jar.
20:21This jar from the Nyanja people of Malawi, is similar to the Tutsi jar except that
20:25it has a broader neck on a low, round body.
20:29The Bamileke people in Cameroon are famous for their large round jars.
20:33This beautiful example has two strings of stylized human figures
20:36around the shoulder of the jar.
20:39The elegant flaring rim has been modeled by hand,
20:42not turned on a potterÆs wheel.
20:45The Mambila live along the Benue River in Nigeria,
20:48and produce large powerful jars like this one with three handles.
20:52Large bumps that look like Zulu ôwartsö à
20:55are modeled into a human figure.
20:58The upper portion of this Nupe jar is decorated with very stylized human figures that have
21:02been scraped into the surface with a narrow comb.
21:06This Nupe jar with one chamber above the other was probably used as a filter.
21:11This small jar from Nigeria has been covered with human and animal shapes.
21:14It was almost certainly a shrine pot.
21:18Lobi women in Burkina Faso make beautiful large round jars
21:22which they stack one above the other in their kitchens
21:24to hold supplies, food, and even valuables.
21:28Here is as in many of the jars the dark color, is the result of reduction firing, with extra
21:33fuel introduced to turn the red iron-oxide into black iron-oxide.
21:38This broad jar from Malawi is decorated with patterns of parallel and incised lines.
21:44The surface of this Igbo jar has been roughened by using a roulette that is rolled over the
21:48surface in the palm of the potterÆs hand.
21:50This jar has been decorated in the same way, but the potter has brilliantly left a few
21:55areas un-roughened.
21:57A beautiful large Idoma jar from just north of the Benue River.
22:02Another from the same people with irregular bands of decoration.
22:05I personally much prefer this evidence that the jar
22:08was actually made by a human hand, rather than being decorated with some sort
22:12of mechanical device, as so often happens in the Western world.
22:18You see the same use of irregular patterns on this jar
22:20from southern Burkina Faso.
22:23An amazing jar from the Mama people, with three enormous lobes.
22:27I would be fascinated to know what such an object was used for.
22:30An Igbo jar with fine lines of raised decoration.
22:35This jar from Cameroon has been reinforced with basketry applied over the exterior.
22:41Many shrine jars have added figures in relief.
22:44But the depth of the relief on this Mambila jar is exceptional.
22:48And another from the Mambila in Cameroon with very large ôwarts,ö and the human figure.
22:54The Bamana people of Mali are masters at producing large round jars for storage.
22:59A jar from Nigeria with what appears to be scarification patterns on the abdomen, and
23:04either an umbilicus or genitalia.
23:07The same patterns are more easily visible on this larger jar.
23:12Almost certainly a palm wine jar from southern Nigeria.
23:16Many of the people along the Benue River produce ancestor pots to be placed on shrines.
23:22This jug from the lower Congo may be modeled after a European liquor jug.
23:27Another similar jug, but with the brilliant addition of two human heads.
23:32The Songye people of Central Congo are famous for jars like this one.
23:35With two swelling areas, one just below the rim at the shoulder,
23:40and another at the belly of the pot.
23:42A small jar for palm wine with a beautifully modeled human head.
23:47A very simple but elegant jar from northeastern Congo.
23:52A small dish for serving food, with a human head and faces.
23:59This large jar from the Bamana people has two very different textures;
24:03a glossy upper portion and a much more matte lower portion decorated
24:07with serpents.
24:09This beautiful Zulu beer pot shows the raised ôwartsö
24:12which they call ôAmasumpa.ö This is a figurative ancestor pot.
24:18And another, from the Mambila people.
24:24I think this is the first jar from the Makonde people that IÆve ever seen,
24:30and IÆm very impressed by the quality of the decoration.
24:34East African potters seem to be much more focused
24:37on perfect symmetry then potters in West Africa, even without the use of a potterÆs wheel.
24:45Sometimes the black color is caused by years of accumulation of soot,
24:49but more often from conscious blackening in a reduction firing.
24:53The rough ôwartsö on this beer pot must have been,
24:56must have made it much easier to handle when it was wet.
24:59A Nupe container with two breasts and an umbilicus.
25:07People all along the Niger River in Mali and Niger
25:10produce large, very colorful jars.
25:13This one has a lovely dark fire cloud caused by reduction during the firing.
25:18This Ewe shrine pot from Togo is decorated with all sorts
25:21of signs and symbols of the coastal religion called Voodoo.
25:27Finally, a lovely jar from Nigeria with a beautiful dark fire cloud
25:34produced during the firing.
25:43One of the most common and ubiquitous techniques in West Africa is the coiling technique.
25:49Some people in Africa use the coiling technique exclusively,
25:53while other potters use it to add new material to pottery
25:56they have started to form using other techniques.
25:59First, Mrs. Konate in the village of Ouri scrapes the edge of the jar
26:03with a sharp tool to remove dry material so that the fresh clay will adhere better
26:07to it.
26:08She then forms the large thick sausage of clay,
26:11and holding it in her right hand inside the pot,
26:14applies it against the heel of her left hand, which is outside the pot.
26:19As she applies the clay, she gives the sausage a twist with her wrist,
26:23which consolidates the fresh clay into the rising walls of the jar below.
26:28Ewe potters who make small jars in Nigeria use smaller,
26:33lighter sausages of clay, while Igbo potters in the village of Ouri use very large, thick
26:39sausages of clay, consuming several sausages,
26:42as they make a complete revolution around the jar.
27:09Now she is adding a coil to the exterior, thickening the rim
27:13so that she can form it into a large symmetrical solid rim.
27:49The
28:02jar is way too large to rotate, so instead, she walks around the jar herself.
28:15I am sure that there are potters in Nigeria who form enormous jars
28:36to be used for soaking Cassava, or brewing some kind of beer.
28:40These Ewe potters in southern Nigeria are forming smaller jars using the coiling technique.
28:45Because the pots are small, the potters can hold the base in their hand,
28:49while they use coils to increase the dimensions of the new jar.
29:32Here she scrapes clay from the base up, to form the walls of the new jar.
29:42[Animal noises] [Animal noises and birds chirping]
30:14She has thinned the base out and now she is adding a new coil of fresh clay.
30:30[Chicken clucking] Now she has formed almost half of a sphere.
31:00These artists are extremely deft; able simply to press the fresh clay with their
31:05right hand into the heel of their left hand.
31:08Consolidating it with the edge of the jar and rapidly building up a partial sphere.
31:13Once the basic shape of the jar has been completed the potter uses coils to add more material,
31:18building the walls of the jar up higher and higher
31:21and scraping them with a shell to spread and thin them.
31:32She scrapes the sides of her jar upward with a wooden tool.
31:59[Animal noises] She is working on the inside of the jar
32:11with the knuckles of her right hand and so she supports the walls of the jar
32:15on the outside with her left hand.
32:54Finally she adds another coil around the edge of the rim,
32:56which she can then shape into a flat edge and then decorate with impressed patterns.
33:27She smooths the interior of the jar with
34:37a shell.
34:45[Animal noises] She smooths the rim out with a wet cloth
35:00to make it nice and smooth and uniform.
35:18Now she begins to impress small delicate patterns on the flared rim.
36:29[Birds chirping] Here she is using a twisted piece of string
38:31as a roulette to roll across the surface of the pot to give
38:34it a rough texture, which makes it easier
39:33to handle.
39:41This is a jar for smoking fish.
40:12Until I met Maria Kafando in 2001, I thought I had seen all of the variations
40:17of pottery making available in Burkina Faso.
40:21Maria is an elderly lady who lives in a small village
40:24about 50 miles south of Ouagadougou.
40:27She has been making pottery all of her life and supports her daughters
40:31and her grandchildren with the income from her pottery.
40:34[Speaking in her language] She begins of course by kneading the clay
40:55and then uses the convex mold technique to form a half of a sphere.
40:59She forms several of these small thick hemispheres and then takes them into her house
41:05where she places a spherical mold inside each one.
41:41She uses a mallet in her right hand to thin the clay out
41:44and spread it over the mold.
41:46But she does not stop when she reaches the widest part of the mold.
41:50Instead she continues to spread and thin the clay
41:52until she has almost completely covered the mold jar.
42:21At this point her technique becomes truly interesting
42:24because she performs four small episiotomies around the edge of the new jar
42:29and removes the mold from the interior.
42:32She folds the edges of the incisions on top of each other
42:35and then inserts a smaller mold inside the new jar
42:38and begins to tap again; repairing the tears.
43:32She works with the small clay form, which I call an anvil, on the inside of the
43:37jar and taps gently on the outside of the jar
43:39with her right hand holding a concave mallet, or hammer.
43:43As she does so the jar becomes thinner and thinner
43:46but retains its very symmetrical, spherical shape.
44:34She carefully trims around the rim of the jar to even
44:57it out.
45:04Maria then adds a thick sausage of fresh clay around the rim working it into the spherical
45:09jar with her thumb and forefinger.
45:12Finally she uses a wet piece of cloth to shape the rim;
45:15to thin it and flare it while she rotates the new jar in her left hand.
45:19She does all of this while holding the jar in her lap
45:21and without placing it on the ground or on any kind of support.
46:13[Speaking in her language] The next day when the jar has dried sufficiently,
47:44she takes it out into a court yard and fills in any low spots or blemishes with
47:49fresh clay and rubs the entire jar smooth with a necklace
47:53of strong baobab seeds.
48:08Two years after I made this video, Maria traveled with my PHD student Dr Boureima
48:13Diamitani to the city of Taipei china,
48:16where she gave demonstrations of her pottery technique
48:19to a congress of potters, artists, and anthropologists.
48:22At the end of the trip she was quite exhausted and happy to return home;
48:27a woman, who had barely left her village before, traveled all the way to China and back on
48:31Air France and stayed in a luxury hotel.
48:44I met the artist Awa Diabite in the village of Pelignan in southwest Burkina
48:58Faso in 2001.
49:01She is a member of a group of artists called Jelly,
49:04whose husbands are leather workers.
49:05There were several related men in this village along with a large number of wives,
49:10all of whom were skilled potters.
49:12Awa begins with a large mass of clay which she places on a shallow dish between
49:17her knees.
49:18She forces her fist down into the mass of clay forming a cavity
49:22and then using the fingers of her right hand inside the jar
49:24and her left hand outside the jar, begins to pull the soft wet clay upward,
49:29thinning it and increasing the height of the jar.
49:32She rotates the jar on the shallow dish while she remains seated.
49:42[Children speaking to each other] When she has increased the height as much
50:25as she can with the material with which she started she
50:28adds more clay by using a fresh coil.
50:31She adds a coil to the rim and rotates it to smooth it
50:34and make it uniform.
51:29As she forms the rim she rotates the pot as if it were on a potterÆs wheel but in
51:34fact, because there is no axis on which to rotate,
51:37this is not a true wheel.
51:44[Baby laughs] As she turns the jar upside down and using
52:06a sharp ring of raffia midrib she scrapes away excess clay thinning
52:19the rim and body.
52:32[People speaking in background] Finally she applies a rough but uniform texture
52:39to the exterior of the jar with a corncob-roulette.
52:42Asante potters use the very same technique as the potters in western Burkina Faso,
52:59with the major exception that they form the top half
53:02of the pot completely before they turn it upside-down
53:05and finish the pot from the bottom upwards.
53:08On this rainy day in Kumasi I only had time to video
53:11the first half of pottery production which was
53:14the forming of the upper half of the jar.
53:16Had I been able to stay and had it not been raining,
53:19I would have filmed her completing the pot upside down.
53:45She scoops out the mass of clay at the center of the new jar and forces her fist down inside.
53:52Now she pulls the clay from the inside of the jar
54:00with her right hand upward to form the upper walls of the jar.
54:15She uses a very large think coil of clay to add more material to
54:40the jar.
54:45[People talking in background] [Rain Falling]
55:19You can hear the rain on the plastic that covers my camera.
55:37[Baby crying] You can see her daughters and nieces in the
56:10background kneading the clay she needs to make another
56:13pot.
56:28She uses a dried corncob to smooth the exterior of the jar into a uniform surface.
57:54African potters fire in the open, with the exception of
57:57modern potters who have been taught western techniques
58:00by visiting technicians from Europe or America.
58:04African potters do not use kilns, but either fire on the flat ground or a very
58:09shallow depression.
58:10Occasionally potters will construct low circular walls
58:13in which they place their pottery, and the walls keep
58:16extra cold air from blowing into the fire.
58:40Potters use whatever fuel is available; they may use dried donkey manure,
58:44dried grass from the fields beyond their homes, dried bark they collected while they were
58:49cutting firewood, or, especially in the forest areas to the
58:52south dried midribs of raffia palms.
58:55They never use expensive fuel such as gas or electricity.
59:00All of the women in the community work together to pile up the new pottery in the kiln for
59:04firing.
59:05If several women work together each may identify her own pottery by some pattern pressed into
59:10the clay or painted with slip on the exterior.
59:14In some cases they all work together to fire the pottery
59:16of just one of the women.
59:19In this case, they are all working to fire the pots created by Awa Diabite.
59:41Awa Diabite is wearing a green and white checked skirt.
1:00:38The fuel is lighted and allowed to burn freely.
1:01:00In Pelignan , you see some of the women throwing pails of water on the firing to try
1:01:04to slow down the burning so that it doesnÆt get too hot
1:01:08too rapidly.
1:01:09They also take care not to let the fire spread to the neighboring brush.
1:01:13In a short time the fuel has been reduced to a very thick blanket of red hot ash.
1:01:18The pottery bakes underneath this for some time
1:01:20until it is a bright glowing red.
1:01:22While it is still hot the potters hook out the pottery
1:01:27and dip the hot pottery in a kind of vegetable soup
1:01:29made of boiled Acacia seed pods.
1:01:32This process drives excess carbon deep into the body
1:01:35of the hot pottery, turning the jars from a bright red to a dark brown.
1:01:40This is very similar to techniques used in Japan and America which are called raku.
1:01:44The process makes the pottery more suitable for cooking over an open fire and makes jars
1:01:49more waterproof.
1:01:51The process turns the red ferrous iron Fe3 into black ferrous iron Fe2.
1:02:11This is the firing of Igbo pottery in Ishiagu village
1:02:14in Ebonyi State south of Enugu, Nigeria.
1:02:27The firing has been completed and the potters are removing the red hot pottery.
1:03:10Here the women of the Bamogo family in Dablo are firing all of their pottery together.
1:03:34Mrs. Bamoga poses with her pots.
1:03:41All African artists are extraordinarily creative.
1:03:45The women who make pottery in Africa are among the best.
1:03:50Look at any catalog of African pottery for sale
1:03:52in Chicago, or New York, or San Francisco, and just imagine the margin between the prices
1:03:58asked and the income of the potter who made it.
1:04:02Scholars say that Africans donÆt have a word for art;
1:04:05I say Westerners donÆt have a word for art.
1:04:09What is art?
1:04:11Westerners say art is something thatÆs never used:
1:04:14art for artÆs sake.
1:04:17What sort of art is never used?
1:04:19All art is used.
1:04:23African art is heavily used.
1:04:25My definition of art is something that is used
1:04:27to express peopleÆs ideas about the world they live in.
1:04:31In my mind this means Africans are the only people
1:04:33who understand art and that we, the Westerners, are the only people who donÆt have a word
1:04:39for art.

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