Giving life to clay

Jayanthi Liyanage

Matilda Yasawathi is a craftswoman in Biyagama, decorating red clay vessels. She is no ordinary decorator as year after year for several years, she has won the silver award in all island competitions. Not only her, but the troupe of ten elderly craftspeople working for the Government pottery workshop of the Department of Industries in Western Province, located in Bandarawatte, Biyagama, has won the first place in Handcraft exhibitions for the past succeeding years.

It is interesting to watch how she works. “Kapok found in river beds called guru gal is crushed and made into a liquid which is painted on a clay vessel. Once it is dry, a spoke from an umbrella is used to scratch the design:, explained Officer-in-Charge of Government Pottery Workshop and Showrooms, Western Province Weerasena Kasturiarachchi.

“I draw what I like”, says Matilda while Kasturiarachchi adds, “If you make a mistake, there is no way you can erase it. You must use your brains and make it look like a design”.

Workshop

The workshop is situated in this village as it is home to traditional potters. “Weerasekerapura is always known to be a village of traditional potters”, Kasturiarachchi told the Daily News. “There was a time when there were about 168 families in this village doing pottery.

This number has gone down because of price increases and low availability of raw materials, non-availability of facilities to work with and young people opting to work in the garment industry. Apart from our usual production, we provide designs and facilities for the individual traditional potters in this village to continue their industry”.

The workshop has machinery to remove water and air trapped in soft sticky earth scooped out from river beds and produce clay which are used to bake earthenware. The ancient method of draining water from clay takes about a week but new machinery called the Filter Press machine sifts water from clay within two and a half to three hours and produce purified clay that can be coloured and used to form vessels. “You can even eat this clay which is like chocolate, the world’s most pure product is purified clay”, says Kasturiarachchi.

Earthenware produced with help of machinery at the workshop is superior in quality to products turned out by individual potters in the village using the facilities offered by the workshop at a low fee.

Vessels

“We have offered them the use of an electric potter’s wheel and a building of work space to stock their clay and manufacture vessels. Our charges are Rs.15 to Rs.25 per hour. One oven load will cost them about Rs.200”.

Vessels to be baked are packed into the oven and covered by broken pieces and straw. This in turn is covered with a layer of liquid clay and baked, the routine of which is to maximise utility of smoke.

The river flowing in the vicinity of Biyagama is used to dig clay for the pottery industry. “Clay pits are now filled up and used for building constructions which discourages a potter to continue his industry”, says Kasturiarachchi. “A clay cube which cost Rs.2000 six years ago is now Rs.8000. Some potters buy a cube of clay with greatest difficulty and produce the amounts of pots they need to sell.

Traders try to buy earthenware at the cheapest price they could which is why we opened our showrooms. If we sell a pot at Rupees two hundred, other potters can get at least Rs.130”. The showrooms are not large enough to display all the goods of the service seekers who use the traditional method of preparing clay, using bamboo strips to slice the clay before moulding it.

Kasturiarachchi says that he also helps out the potters by diverting the orders received by the workshop available to them. But although the product of the workshop is much superior to that produced by the individual potter, the workshop does not produce large vessels or vessels which can be used for cooking. “Ours are decorative red clay vessels.

There are curry dishes, vases, till boxes, bowls and jugs for storing drinking water”. The products are decorated with traditional leafy designs (liya vel) according to the requirements of the customer.

Many of the customers are those on the brink of going overseas. Customer orders come through the Provincial Council which provides the expenses and wages of running the workshop and showrooms.

Kasturiarachchi says that in Sri Lanka the ‘guru’ decorative art is not to be found easily. “The individual potter does not do this as he cannot meet with an order of 100 or 200 items. “Because, our institution belongs to the government, we get orders from locals and overseas customers.

‘Guru’ crafts

We have enough workers but not enough facilities to meet them”. Four of his ‘guru’ crafts people are of excellent quality. He has asked for a larger Filter Press machine to increase the volume of clay produced in a day.

“Now we produce about kilos 100 - 200 in a day and when that is divided among ten people, one receives only about kilos twelve.

That is not adequate to meet overseas orders. That quota is only sufficient for the workers to work for about three hours a day. If they work about eight hours a day, we can maximise profits”. There is no left over products, he stresses, as all the produce manages to sell, with traders usually buying an entire oven load, costing about Rs.30,000 - Rs.40,000.

Other than the Biyagama showrooms, the department has six more showrooms in Negombo, Katunayaka Air Port, Piliyandala and Horana, with two outlets in Kalutara. Of the workshops belonging to the department and located within villages, Dediyawala, Kalutara, Mahayala and Horana produce casting white clay while Malwana and Minuwangoda produce red clay.

Pottery Course

The workshop conducts a training program of six months of nine hours a day of pottery for those wishing to embark on a self-sustained industry. Those who successfully complete the course are awarded a certificate from the Western Provincial Council which carries a lot of weight in the pottery industry.

Blending Traditions with New

At the workshop, we met a group of thirteen university students and a lecturer from the University of Visual Arts at Horton Place who had come to follow a training period of one semester, which is six months, in pottery. “These are design students in their third year”, said Thushara Karunanayake, lecturer.

“Our aim is to learn new trends in this industry and how to utilise traditional knowledge to cater to modern requirements.

They can choose woodcraft, copper craft, leather, rush and reeds or coir industries as a subject in their syllabus and these students chose pottery. They need to learn the technology of the industry and how to work with the raw materials”.

University student, Chanaka Dayan Piyasena, said that in their four year degree in Visual Arts Design, they are required to learn about traditional design in different areas of design and industries as multi disciplinary design.

“We need to learn technology of these industries and do a project, designing a modern product line using three materials”. Pottery was one stop in their rounds of crafts and industries.