- Title
- Anatomy of a pottery bonfiring in the Port St Johns region, Eastern Cape, South Africa
- Creator
- Steele, John
- Description
- This paper seeks to document and contextualise the unique bonfiring methods of octogenarian potter Alice Gqa Nongebeza, who works from her homestead at Nkonxeni village in the Tombo area near Port St Johns. Her firing technique is compared with those of fellow local potters Debora Nomathamsanqa Ntloya and Nontwazana Dunjana. These three Mpondo potters, and their understudies, create ceramic utilityware and other items for a mainly local market that sometimes also appeals to collectors and tourists. Although they are aware of each other, they use their own clay sources and clayworking methods, and have evolved very different firing techniques. This paper, with reference also to potters in KwaZulu-Natal, shows that Nongebeza, in particular, has developed a rare approach to firing, and calls for the inclusion of her type of firing technique in African firing lexicons. It also calls for greater attention to sequential firing detail as practised by individual potters, in forthcoming reports that add to knowledge about zeroelectricity- usage ceramics production in southern Africa, and elsewhere.
- Date
- 2012
- Type
- text, Article
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/11260/1034
- Identifier
- vital:30232
- Format
- 22 pages, pdf
- Language
- English
- Relation
- Southern African Humanities, Steele J. (2012) Anatomy of a pottery bonfiring in the Port St Johns region, Eastern Cape, South Africa. Southern African Humanities 24: 121-142, Southern African Humanities https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC127431 24 vol. 1 no. 121 242 Jan 2012 2305-2791
- Rights
- Council of the Natal Museum
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