This video demonstrates the five major techniques used by potters in Burkina Faso, Ghana, and Nigeria. The techniques include concave mold, convex mold, coiling, direct pull, and hammer and anvil. You can see Bwa, Jelly, and Mossi potters in Burkina Faso, the Ashanti potters in Kumasi Ghana, and Igbo and Yoruba potters in Nigeria. In addition there are two detailed videos of pottery firing.
I am glad you liked it. I have been working on this for well over 40 years, and I enjoy sharing it with others. you might enjoy going to Africa sometime and visiting with African potters.
Christopher Roy hello
Thank you so much for this wonderful video. I’m a Potter living in New-Jersey,
and I really needed to see these beautiful inspirational and innovative Artist Potters.
I’m always one of the only women of color in class and it really is fantastic to see other black women potters. Now I don’t feel bad when I break sacred pottery “rules”. A Testament to doing your own thing and making it your own. I would love to see these women in person. You were blessed!
Hi i am indian potter
I was always very interested and inspired to learn pottery. Especially the African and South Carolina techniques. I especially want to make the sacred face jugs. I’ve been learning about David Drake and the Africans of the slave ship “Wanderer”.
Oh my – this was SUCH a pleasure to watch. The way they form the pots, with such fluidity and ease, gorgeous. I loved watching the whole process from the digging of the clay to the firing of the pots. There is nothing more beautiful than the earthy simplicity of an expertly crafted vessel. I’m enchanted!
Thank you… This is such a wonderful documentary! Your appreciation for these peoples age old skills impresses me to such great extent, thanks again for that too… I am from the southern part of India (from Tamil Nadu) and do share a similar skillful ancestry, yet my people are mostly unaware of the great talents their grand-grand-grand-people had! I wish someone make a documentary like this for us too…
Warm Regards,
Vijay
@***** I would love to film in Tamil Nadu. I went there two years ago with the group of twenty students, and I tried very hard to find potters to film, but the person who is leading the group was from North India and couldn’t even speak Tamil. He became angry at me when I ask repeatedly to visit potter. perhaps someone else will film pottery making in Tamil Nadu.
@Christopher Roy
I am from tamilnadu potter family
Next time please visit tamil nadu i intro the Potter’s family thank you
Your descriptions were short and to the point. The rest of the time not only did I enjoy watching the many techniques but I really loved listening to the background sounds, children, birds, chickens, goats, insects, etc.
Thank you immensely for sharing.
Many thanks…..very educational and entertaining.
Nice cover photo !
The little kids practicing in the background…..
The sounds are so present i looked around me lol
Incredible.
This teaches us that the finest “art” in the world is made by simple, yet vastly advanced people out of neccesity.
My hat is off to these women!
@T MAclee LMFAO
@Test Test I totally agree with what you said here. I was just teasing you for being so impressed. Anybody is capable of so much more if there is a need for it. These people have a simple life and that is great, I wish I had a simple life.
Really awesome video Mr Roy, thoroughly entertaining – lovely to see the enthusiasm that you have for this sort of pottery. It’s amazing to look at the experiences of these people and contrast it to our own in the west. Thank you for providing such a marvelous, and very human insight.
Thank you for this window into African pottery. Using a short description then allowing the viewer to see, hear and fully experience the making of clay is fantastic.
This video is easily broken into segments which helps when attempting to emulate the technique.
I homeschool my daughter; we will be using this in several subjects. It is also such a great way to show the role of children in the family and community. This video is such a wonderful teaching aid; we will be sharing a link to this video to other Homeschooling families.
Artesa em geral artesanato em geral artesanato em geral artesanatos artesanato em pvc artesanartesanatoato pvc
I sincerely hope that you will use some of my other videos about Africa to homeschool your children. They may become fascinated by Africa and someday plan to travel there.
A wonderful documentary that I watched from beginning to end. I sculpted in clay for many years but told myself that I could not make pots because I did not have a wheel!!!! Sure is humbling to see the marvelously creative works these women make. Thanks so much for this.
Thank you so much Christopher for sharing your experiences. As an African American potter (way too dependent on fancy tools, gadgets and machinery), it is good — and humbling — to see these very basic, rural pottery traditions. Makes me shut the whining when I don’t feel like wedging or get frustrated at the imperfect function of my foot pedal!!
Soy de Mexico y si quiere uno comprar si se las envian
Muchas gracias saludos hermoso trabajo en barro
thank you for such a respectful approach and documentary to the skill of a people often misrepresented, thank you for sharing the skills of my people
@bashpr0mpt no
@bashpr0mpt you want people to be ashamed? Ashamed of what?
He said it well ..great learning of a great civilation people ..
@bashpr0mpt bingo
What a spectacular video, the women featured in this video are with no exaggeration, absolutely amazing.
It is a shame to those who buy the pots from these women, and sell them for such incredibly marked up prices.
The prices paid for these pots should be fair and reasonable and reflect the amount of effort required by the families and individuals who collect the clay and work so hard to create such marvellous pieces of work
Our things are priceless .
You statement doesn’t reflect any reality. They set the price they’ll accept, unless they are forced labor against their will.
I first watched this video in 2016 and most recently again this morning. It is important to note every tool they use exists as a Kemetic (Ancient Egypt) artifact … the adze, the mortar and pestle, the grinding board, even the hand-held shaping hammer. Also the ability to produce dark/black pottery at will and red elements by changing the heat. Finally the use of the pottery for storing wine and beer for storage and cooking are all the same. So, in terms African history this is not new. It is a living example of exactly what would be seen in predynastic through dynastic Kemet (Ancient Egypt). Now, a part II should be a focus on how Africans use clay for the construction of houses which too is a link to the classic past.
Please, some of these people predate Egypt. Egypt is not the be all and end all of Africa. There are many other types of people in Africa other than Egyptians. The Nok people of Nigeria are the oldest living group of people in the world along with the San people of southern Africa both of whose art was not shown in this video. The Nok people are the kings and queens of terracotta world over and invented it the notion of pottery.. before any concept of Egypt. It would have been nice of him to show Nok clay pots also.
Considering the “Egyptians” were Greek, they did proceed the Ptolemy Era. However, Kemet is about 4,000 years older, at minimum, than the start of the Ptolemy Era. The oldest of the pottery is found in Nubia/Upper Egypt and what is MOST probably is migrations from the Nile Valley to other parts of Africa. So, Nok and the Remetch would have the same ancestry. Because Africans moved around the continent carrying their practices with them. It wouldn’t be restricted to Nok and most likey 6,000 years ago from our time the Nok weren’t Nok yet. Indigenous Southern Africans, including San ethnic groups, were making milk-based paint some 49,000 years before present as per the Villa et. al. 2015 study. That same paint would be used by Remetch some 40,000 years later because Africans moved around the continent. The Remetch were as African as Nok and San if not inclusive of the same and many more African ethnic groups of today. So when Africans today exhibit tools, pottery, linguistic, cultural, genetic, etc. similarities to Kemet today it is because Africans from Kemet dispersed into the rest of Africa with the arrival of foreign conquests.
Just goes to show you that you can make amazing pottery without fancy tools. Thanks for this video and commentary!
I feel privileged to have access to videos like this, truly amazing
Free access…. like a privilege or something aye…… as you said….
privileged of jealousy, just could not say its truly amazing to see how these people master the art, they free you are not that the difference, they could say the same i am privileged to be free without jealousy.
@Sustentabilidade para a Vida Tia Ilma Rocha উওঠদ
Same
Thank you so much for making and sharing this amazing artwork! I wish this type of documentary is on the television instead of the superficial reality shows we have these days. Especially when people in the west are not aware of these beautiful traditions that exist in Africa.
Thanks for this beautiful documentary. After seeing this, I had tears in my eyes, thinking at the blessed lives we have and still taking them for granted. Talent does not need the walls of modernism around it. Every piece these ladies made was with pure conviction and the results were amazing. I’m about to start my pottery journey soon and this was the exact needed inspiration. Thank you.
this reminds me of some of the process my gran used to do back in Southern Africa. She was born in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and was a potter for her entire life, even after she moved to Durban in 1967. She still does pottery at age 76 and enjoys doing it.
Right now she is in lockdown due to contracting covid-19, but she is making pots and bowls with a smile on her face, and I enjoy hearing her singing as she works. She is doing well and is recovering fast.
Blessings to each and every one of you from a South African Brit. I may visit West Africa some day and learn about the culture of a different part of the continent on which I was born.
Wishing your gran makes a full recovery
Hope your gran is recovered and doing well. You are so blessed to have her. God Bless
May she recovers quickly
Wow, this was fascinating. I followed a few links after searching on how to make my own potters wheel. After sitting and watching this film in its entirety (at 5am!) I don’t think I will bother making a wheel for a while. I’d half dreamt up/remembered from primary school the coil technique, but thought it would be too laborious. Clearly I was wrong! Those women are amazingly skilled. Thank you for such an informative, well made and properly inspirational film.
I absolutely love this video. I’ve watched it 6 times and I fall asleep to it every night. I’m a beginner in earthen ware pottery and I love taking this in as I fall asleep. Ive learned and applied so much of this to my pots. Its just such a beautiful process, I’m in love.