Earth

For a while now, I have dabbled with designing various vessels used daily to carry and display food before it is consumed, trying to understand the complexity of food and ceremonies surrounding food.

Having survived the Covid-19 pandemic, which took my dearest dad in 2021, I had to search deeper within me to find the strength to continue creating.

There is a piece of a broken clay waterpot that sits on a table in my bedroom (as seen in the first four images). It is filled with my odd jewellery and bric-a-brac. It belonged to my grandma, who passed away many years ago. It broke after her passing and it has remained my most treasured item. Every time I look at it, it evokes not just fond memories of my grandma but my senses tingle at the thought of the tastiest cold water that she used to store in that clay pot. It was mother earth’s refrigerator during the scorching hot summers in our rural Vuvulane home. Such a pure and simple pot, made with nothing but earth, water, patient hands, and wood fire, yet even in its broken stage it represents so many emotions, beauty, and history. It is this raw simplicity that I wish to revive and share through the collection.

Raw simplicity, is a simplicity that is about caring for the earth and one another, sharing the little that we have, and taking the time to really utilise all of our senses. The tableware collection, inspired by my grandma’s broken clay water pot is a celebration of the art of clay pot making in Africa, an art that is passed from one generation to another. It is a process that requires one to know the earth and its soils, the nearest water wells, and rivers, and the invasive shrubs which need to be cut down and used to fire the pots. It is a process of nature conservation, a language spoken through the skilled hands of men and women. The collection’s plates, bowls, and cups have uneven jagged edges to mimic the broken clay pot. Their raw state, not being glazed, is deliberate so that we can continue to breathe in the scent of the earth. When the crockery is being washed, the splash of water immediately intensifies the scent of earth, similar to the scent when the first raindrops splash on hot dry earth. That is a scent I can never tire of and now it can be experienced whenever the collection’s crockery is being washed.

Wood

Invasive Jacaranda soft wood is used to carefully hand carve pieces that are sculptural yet practical, for a purpose not entirely dedicated to the assumed shape of its use. It is about challenging our daily norms and habits. The collection tries to question how we interact with all that surrounds us and how we can unlearn all the things that have led us to the fragile communities we now exist in. We have to slow down and take time to observe nature, allow our hands to play with mud, eat with our hands, smell the rain and listen to the crickets and frogs as they sing to us in the evenings as we share our meals.

It is not about perfection nor feeding into an insatiable desire for consumerism, but finding a simple way of life that we Africans, and many others, have led for many centuries and I am a part of the new generation that will continue to preserve it.

(c) Khulekani Msweli 2023