Smoke Firing Workshop - Saturday 14 September
Sat Sep 14, 10:30 - Sat Sep 14, 15:00
Nirvana Farm
ABOUT
Join us on the farm Nirvana in Klein Dassenberg during flower season for a workshop of extreme contrasts. Flower season will bring a riot of delicate flowers accompanied by the skilful and dramatic art of burnishing and smoke firing.
VENUE: Nirvana Farm, Saxonwold Road, Klein Dassenberg
Maximum 20 participants.
R850 - Ceramics SA members
Members, If you don't have the promotional code already please email [email protected]
R1100 - non-members
10h30 - 15h00
Farm-style lunch included
Presented by:
Lissa Claassens www.earthplaystudio.com and
Natasha Human www.clayhands.co.za
For additional enquiries, contact:
Chantal Charan - [email protected]
Jenny Chadwick 084 734 2202
Rosh Sewpersad 082 333 8701 (available from 26 August)
WORKSHOP DETAILS
In this workshop two smoke firing processes are for participation and one technique is for demonstration only:
1) Smoke fire your pieces using newspaper to achieve either a patchy ‘airbrushed pattern’ of browns, blacks and clay colour, or to achieve a completely black finish to your piece. We will also discuss using sawdust as an alternative to the newspaper method, although we will not be doing that technique as it takes too long to burn through and cool down.
2) Use glossy advertisement inserts from newspapers or cheap glossy wrapping paper to create a coloured surface. The result from this technique is dependent on the colours in the glossy print. It gives a smokey effect and a slightly ‘dotted’, random pattern on your burnished surface. This technique is done using a gas torch.
3) A demonstration on how to make your own terra sigillata to use for extra glossy burnished surfaces. Terra sigillata needs to be applied to bone-dry surfaces, preferably already burnished. It is then bisque fired before smoking. A discussion on adding mica to your terra sigillata to give a sparkle to your surface.
To prepare for this workshop please make and bisque fire two items per technique. You can use earthenware or stoneware clay, grogged or smooth. Best results for both these techniques are achieved if you burnish your piece.
You can add colour with slips or carve/ scratch through the burnish to add some interest but the firing itself adds enough colour and interest and sometimes over-decorating the pots can interfere with what happens during the firing. Focus on making interesting and striking forms for the firing process to tell the story on.
Project Ideas: dried flower vase, sculptures, incense holders, ornamental pieces, tea bowls, ash trays, pot planters, candle holders.
Smoke fired pottery is not watertight and therefore not food safe
4 items per person can be accommodated. No bigger than 20cm height and depth. There will be some burnished, bisque fired pieces for sale, starting at R80 per piece.
PRESENTERS
LISSA CLAASSENS
Lissa started her professional journey with clay working in the studio potteries of Kolonyama in Lesotho and Mapepe Craft in Henley-on-Klip. She has owned her own craft shop and worked in a non-profit organization giving therapeutic outreach pottery sessions to vulnerable people. Lissa sculpts figuratively, sometimes focusing on themes exploring her own childhood in South Africa. She is also a production wheel thrower and teaches pottery lessons to adults and children in her Hout Bay studio in Cape Town. Making for the film industry was an exciting new departure. She recently made lamps and idols for the Troy series and ‘smashables’ for Warrior 2, both filmed in South Africa. She has produced online workshops via private YouTube videos on different techniques to reach a worldwide audience. She also gives regular physical workshops on raku firing, paper clay, image transfer, sculpting from a live model, as well as various other ceramics techniques.
Lissa has participated in several group exhibitions and showed her abstract Matisse-inspired series at the Roche Bobois showroom in Cape Town in August 2021. In May 2022 she participated in a group exhibition ‘In Between’ at 6 Spin Street Gallery, showcasing her figurative sculptures of African-themed work.
Lissa studied Social Anthropology and African Languages at the University of Cape Town and studied Ceramic Science at the Witwatersrand Technikon. She is a second-generation potter.
Instagram: @earthplaystudio and @lissa.pottery
Facebook: Earth Play Studio
email: [email protected]
NATASHA HUMAN
Tash has a great love for creativity and nature and their merging in the process of pottery. She is a 3rd generation potter following in the clay path set by her late grandmother, Valerie and mother, Lissa Claassens She opened the Clay Hands studio in April 2018 after years of working and training at Earth Play Studio.
Tash is dedicated to holding, growing and maintaining the Clay Hands space and is deeply invested in supporting the innate creativity in others through offering studio space for people to learn the skill involved in working with clay. She is committed to the healing power of reconnecting with clay and believes this connection is important for healing ourselves as well as our earth. The female line continues -Tash is a proud mama to Lyra Human, born in June 2022.
First clay memory ... "being mesmerised by the trimmings that came off the pots as my mom turned her pieces in her studio as I was growing up"
https://www.clayhands.co.za/
Instagram:
@bynatashahuman
@clayhands