Interview with Clive Sithole.

Clive Sithole was born in 1971, in Soweto. He attended the London International School of Fashion Design in Johannesburg and established a fashion business. In 1996 he moved to Durban and joined the Babumbi Clay Project, where his prominence led to an invitation to attend ceramic classes at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Since then he has exhibited annually, mostly in South Africa, particularly at the African Art Centre in Durban. He has won several awards, including an FNB Vita Craft Now Merit Award in 2000, South Africa's leading craft prize. He is represented in numerous national and international collections, both public and private.

Anthea Martin, director of the African Art Centre, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to assisting craft producers, introduced me to Clive Sithole's work while I was researching Zulu ceramics and assembling the exhibition "Vessel," held at Axis Gallery, New York, in 2002. (See www.axisgallery.com/exhibitions/vessel/essay.html. An excellent resource on traditional Zulu ceramics is Ubumba: Aspects of Indigenous Ceramics in KwaZulu-Natal [1998], by Brendan Bell and Ian Calder.) Clive Sithole was included in that exhibition, alongside Nesta Nala, his mentor, and Axis Gallery donated partial proceeds from ceramics sales to the African Art Centre. I spoke by telephone with Clive in August, 2006, for African Arts. My thanks to Anthea Martin and Yvette Dunn at the Centre for their help in transmitting images and written materials.

Q: In the past, Zulu women made pottery for practical and religious uses in the homestead. Clive, you have taken Zulu ceramics in new directions. Though you have a Zulu name, it was unheard-of for Zulu men to be potters. How did you become inspired to be a potter?

A: My father, who was Zulu-speaking, died in a car accident in 1977, when I was seven. My mother remarried and we moved to a remote rural area of Lesotho, a place called Kgorong. This is where I first encountered African ceramic traditions, although that was in a Basotho, rather than a Zulu, environment. My stepfather's mother, Alina Maoetsa, who died last year, was a potter. Since I always watched her working with clay, she taught me to make clay and to model toy cattle and clay busts, at about the age of eight. About ten years later, the potter Philimon Lerata inspired me with pots made on a wheel. I met him in Phuthaditjhaba, in the former "homeland" of QwaQwa, now in the Free State province of South Africa. He is a former student of Prof. Juliette Armstrong, head of the department of ceramics at Pietermaritzburg University of KwaZulu-Natal. In 1996, I moved to Durban and occupied a studio at The Bartel Art Trust (B.A.T.) Centre. In the same center is a gallery owned by Sue Greenberg, who showed pots made by Nesta Nala. Once I saw them, I dropped everything else and decided I would teach myself to coil pots. While I was building a pot, I would run backwards and forwards between my studio and Nesta's pots to understand how she coiled.

[Nesta Nala inherited expertise in traditional Zulu ceramics, passed down by her grandmother, Ntobi Khumalo, and her mother, Siphiwe, noted for her elegant, sparsely decorated ware. Nesta Nala began to sell ceramics to collectors in 1976 through Vukani Association, a craft outlet established by missionaries in Eshowe. In 1983, archaeologist Leonard van Schalkwyk commissioned her to replicate pots from pottery shards that were excavated in the Zulu region but longpredated Zulu settlements there. The ancient motifs on these artifacts increased Nesta's decorative repertoire, and she also began to apply designs in a continuous frieze around her pots. After Rhoda Levinsohn's 1984 book Treasures in Transition: Art and Craft of Southern Africa introduced Nesta Nala to the world as a master of the dying craft of Zulu pottery, her recognition gradually increased. She completed the transition from making pots for local use to producing signed ceramics for art collectors and was able to support her family as an independent woman (she never married), an exception in her community. In turn, she passed on her skills to her daughters, Bongi, Jabu, Thembi, Zanele, and Nonhlanhla. At her death in 2005 at the age of 65, many considered her a national treasure. Nesta Nala represented South Africa at the Cairo International Biennale for ceramics in 1994; received South Africa's prestigious Vita award for craft in 1995, and in 1999 participated in the Smithsonian Institute's Folk Life Project in Washington, DC. Her work is represented in major collections in South Africa and worldwide.--GVW]

Q: How did your personal relationship with Nesta Nala develop?

A: I first met her at an exhibition of her pots at the African Art Centre in 1999. Later, Sue Greenberg invited me to accompany her on a visit to Nesta's family home, which was in a rural area several hours' journey from Durban. At first I found Nesta difficult to converse with; she was very reserved and didn't seem to welcome interaction, but I got on better with her daughters. I mentioned that I would like to work with them. It was a strange thing for them to meet a young guy who wanted to make pots, because in their bloodline--and according to Zulu tradition--it is the women who make pots. But they agreed that I could work with them. It took me a few years to be able to go there. I discovered that Nesta and her daughters had a completely different method of coiling than the one I had developed by examining Nesta's pots! Over time, I became friends of the family. I will forever respect Nesta as my master and for the legacy she has left behind for all of us. I don't think anyone equals her.

Q: In that rural community, did your being a male potter raise questions?

A: Because I wasn't raised in a rural community like that, I was free to make traditional pots without community disapproval. Today, it would be more acceptable, even in rural areas. In fact Ntombi Nala [a renowned contemporary potter but no relation to Nesta] has trained some of her sons.

Q: Considering your own work, that of the Nala family, and the Magwaza family (Mancane, Magwaza, Sindisiwe, Mkhos, Shongazephi, Buzephi), who have also attained recognition, it seems safe to say that Zulu ceramics is far from a dying tradition.

A: In fact, increased public interest has created a resurgence, and several new potters have emerged recently. Also, there is still a demand for traditional pots, both izikhamba [pots for serving and drinking beer] and for carrying beer [the uphiso, or ingcazi]. Making pots, which are inseparable from Mother Earth, reminds black society that the culture of the Zulu people revolves around cattle, milk, and the making of beer and fermented milk, which are served to the ancestors in a small pots, called mancintshana. Also, the culture of slaughtering animals and making sacrifices for the ancestors continues in many Zulu households.

Q: Traditionally, certain offerings to the ancestors, such as meat, are burned on pieces of pottery in the rear of the dwelling, in a sacred area set aside for ancestors. It seems certain that however much plastic containers might replace clay vessels in the traditional Zulu homestead, those used for beer and for religious ceremony are likely to remain vital. During fieldwork in Zululand in 2002, for example, I observed women carrying large izimbiza [brewing pots, approx. 40-60 cms/15 3/4-23 1/2" high] on an eight-hour walk to the nearest market, where their renowned wares were eagerly awaited. The key ritual importance of the imbiza probably accounts for its survival today. It is not attractive to tourists and art collectors: it is never decorated or blackened by reduction firing, and it is always smeared lightly with cattle dung above the shoulder, to cement its link to the patrilineal ancestors and to protect against lighting, lest the fermentation process anger the Sky-Lord by appropriating his powers. Your own ceramics, however, are not made for traditional uses. Which aspects of the traditional aesthetic do you try to preserve, and which do you change?

A: I change the angle on the culture, by positioning pot-making as an art form. There is much more to Zulu pots than just holding beer. They might look similar, for example, but they differ according to regions and clans, according to the various historical Zulu chiefdoms.

Q: Just as there are many aesthetic differences between the types of traditional Zulu pots and between the various regional styles in Zulu-speaking areas, so you draw on various aesthetic elements to take the tradition in new directions. Though you use sgraffito designs and amansumpa [a traditional decoration consisting of raised "warts" of clay], like those seen on historic Zulu pots, you manipulate them in novel ways.

A: I might, for example, push these decorations away from traditional symmetrical designs, or just use one or two "warts" instead of the usual multiple repetitions. Though I often have used traditional Zulu pot shapes, recently I have been making elongated forms inspired by the wooden Zulu milkpail (ithunga). Some of my pots have lids. Unlike traditional lids (izimbenge), which are made from woven grass and decorated with beads, my lids are made of clay and inspired by Zulu headrests (isiqiki).

Q: Nesta Nala always maintained traditional forms, so this is another point of departure in your own work. Your pots also differ in color from traditional Zulu pots.

A: At first all my pots were black. But after some firings produced raku-like results, I began to enjoy the red-and-black effect. Although I didn't understand the process that had produced it, the new discovery excited me and I liked it. I now achieve this consistently by following several steps. I burnish the pots with an agate pebble during the bone-dry stage. This is quite different from the traditional finish, which is achieved by smoke firing the pots and then rubbing with animal fat. I fire the pots to 800 [degrees] C, and then smoke-fire with aloe leaves, which creates the red and black flashes. After this, I rub the pots with pure olive oil to a highly polished state, doing this two to four times depending on the effect I want to achieve. I also began to use browns and yellows after further experimentation in the carbonizing and oxidizing processes. The market response has been phenomenal. Buyers seem to enjoy my ceramics as a new development within Zulu, or South African, pottery. It suites their taste for interior furnishings better than a classical pot. The shine seems to be the principal thing. Now I am beginning to work with sagar firing techniques, which produce an all-over black sheen with silver markings. I learned this method from Magdalene Odundo, after reading about her in African Arts a few years ago, before we became friends. Later, when we met in London, I discovered that she had bought two of my pots in London. As we speak, I am sitting in front of a pot that she gave me. I gave her another one, so now she has three of mine.

Q: You are an admirer?

A: I find her work beautiful, and I respect her dedication to her work. Magdalene's pots are more contrived than mine, but my interactions with her have encouraged me to push clay further.

Q: Tell us about the cattle motif you frequently use on your pots.

A: I first began to work clay making traditional toy cattle. I fell in love with cows, particularly the famous Nguni cattle. Zulu culture is centered on these cattle, and I love the culture. So I put them both onto my pots.

Q: Are the images on your pots cows or bulls?

A: They are bulls, which are symbols of masculinity in Zulu culture, whereas pottery is a feminine occupation. I mend [sic] the male and female sides together, not separating them.

Q: In your view, what enabled Zulu pottery to move from a purely "traditional" function, in Zulu settings, into a broader market?

A: The decorative function of Zulu pots allowed this to happen, and the fact that tourists can pay more for traditional Zulu pots [than Zulu users].

Q: What about the role of craft competitions, such as the biannual Vita Awards in South Africa, craft outlets, and public and commercial galleries in promoting ceramics?

A: Craft competitions and outlets have been of great significance for exposure, sales promotion, and information about potters. Unfortunately, we live in a dynamic modern society that expects change all the time, so people like myself have to reinterpret tradition in our modern culture. Similarly, within the Pueblo pottery tradition of New Mexico, Maria Matinez's black-on-black technique changed the whole look of Native American ceramics.

Q: What have you been doing recently?

A: I have just exhibited in Johannesburg [at the Renault Arts and Culture group exhibition], and I was in London in May, 2006, as a follow-up and continuation of the time I spent there in 2005, when I gave pot-building demonstrations and also became interested in the Nigerian odu, which is a musical instrument made from a clay pot. This led me to travel to Nigeria on a research trip to understand the making of odu.

Q: What do you see as the most important developments in Zulu pottery today?

A: Very little has been done. I think that it is up to the government to try and promote the culture and the development of the people, then we really will have the African Renaissance that this government talks about.

Gary Van Wyk directs exhibitions at Axis Gallery in New York. Van [e-mail]