Friday, 02 December 2011

Local potter to exhibit in Milan

Unizulu visual arts student, Thembile Judicious Nala with one of the carved clay pots she will be exhibiting in Milan in December

This week University of Zululand’s award-winning potter, Thembile Judicious Nala is jetting off for a nine-day international craft exhibition in Milan between 3 and 11 December. The visual arts student began working with clay as a child, making her own toys. Coming from a long line of potters, her childhood pastime soon developed into a skill and Nala has developed her own unique style. She uses clay that she digs up herself, mixing grey clay with red clay and water, and then building and shaping her creations with a piece of calabash and a knife. The geometric and plantlike designs are incised with a sharp wire. Nala fires her pots using several kinds of wood and burnishes them to a lustrous sheen using a river stone.

The Milan trip is not the first overseas opportunity her talents have afforded her. She has also recently returned from Santa Fé, Mexico City, after being invited to exhibit there by the South African Folk Art Market. For the 16th Fiera exhibition in Milan the South African Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) invited Nala in August to apply to exhibit her work. The second year student will be joined by another 16 artists from all over South Africa.

Nala is excited to visit the northern hemisphere in Winter and looking forward to spending time with artists from other continents and seeing what they produce. ‘I want to present our work there so the world will know about South African crafts,’ she says. She is also hoping to collect overseas orders for her pots, traditionally given as gifts at Zulu weddings and used for serving beer. When not at Unizulu, Nala spends hours crafting beautiful pieces at her eShowe family home together with her sisters. Her sister Jabu has also travelled to Mexico and Wales to exhibit her work and their late mother Nesta was well-known for her pottery.