Clay pots overflow with spirituality, tradition, skill

THE question asked was: What’s on at the KZNSA Gallery? And the reply was “Just pots”.

That made me think, as the exhibition in the main gallery is indeed pots, but with an enormous difference. Perhaps now the time is right for people from the province (of all colours) to start believing in and respecting their cultural heritage.

The exhibition KZN Clay Vessels Over Time draws on work dating back over 100 years from the Jolles Collection, bequeathed to the Phansi Museum by internationally acclaimed anthropologist Frank Jolles. It is complemented by contemporary work by Clive Sithole, Phumlani Nyawo, Astrid Dall, Rodney Blumenfeld, Thami Jali, the late Maggie Mikula, Thembi Nala and Frank Nthunya – all highly respected potters in the community.

The combination of past and present is always a good talking point and although change is now rapid, the famous Nala family continue to make their clay pots the same way.

In today’s tightly controlled gallery and museum environments, one doesn’t expect to come across a space filled wall-to-wall with closely packed ceramic pots and artefacts such as can be seen at the gallery.

The collection of items, from small and fragile to large, elaborate, burnished, carved and embossed, is testament to the makers’ enormous skill.

Most casual viewers of all race groups are unaware of the importance of these vessels in Zulu culture. The pots are created by women to be used for the brewing and fermentation of sorghum beer and milk.

They are containers of nourishment for sustaining the family. At the same time, these traditional pots pay respect to and honour the ancestors, bringing together the worlds of the living and the ancestral.

This exhibition celebrates the diversity and characteristics of clay. In addition, the exhibition honours those unnamed traditional potters from deep rural areas who are involved in every aspect of making the vessels, from digging their own clay to smoke firing in a pit; and those potters living in our midst who have reached the heights of virtuosity, aesthetic beauty and functionality in their work.

The exhibition closes on Sunday: don’t miss it!.