Pottery in Morocco

Last November, I joined Denys James’
Discovery Art Travel tour to Morocco. It was
wonderful; I recommend it highly. Denys is a
delight, almost as delightful as Morocco itself!
Due to his strong background in ceramics,
Denys has a great interest in the pottery of
various countries and cultures. The tour
provided some insights into the scope and
nature of ceramic production in various areas
of Morocco, both rural and urban. I’m not a
potter myself, so this article is written very
much from a layperson’s perspective.

The pottery visits began in Marrakech,
a very large urban centre. Much trade and
commerce is to be found here, and that’s
exactly what the local pottery seemed to be
focussed on: mass production of commercial
goods. The Marrakech pottery factory is quite
a haphazard affair. No systems seem to be in
place. There’s no logic or sequence or flow. It
all appears to be quite random and illogical,
little pockets of isolated activity, and no
progression from one section to the next.

Kilns are all outdoors, and are here, there
showrooms and

and elsewhere, between

Glaze Workshop

with D’Arcy Margesson
Feb 14 & 21 | Surrey Art Gallery

De-mystify the chemistry
of creating glazes for
cone 6 firing

Gain the confidence to
experiment in your own studio
or community centre. D'Arcy
Margesson will explore the
basic principles of glazes and
review their effectiveness on
different materials.

Sundays, Feb 14 & 21, 10am-4pm
2 sessions $125 | Course #4202184

Surrey Art Gallery | 13750 - 88 Avenue
www.arts.surrey.ca

By Sharon Cohen, Gallery Manager

= “i ee =

Kick wheel below ground level, Marrakech.

outdoor brick making areas and sheds where
production pieces are thrown. The kilns are,
in theory, wood-fired, but the potters will
use virtually anything that comes to hand as
kiln fuel. At this Marrakech pottery, leather
scraps from the local tannery are used as fuel
—fascinating! Brick making is laboriously
(but rapidly) done by hand, using a frame or
template for two individual bricks. Throwing
is done on kick wheels which are below
ground level. A hole is dug out of the earth,
the kick wheel is recessed within it, and the
potter sits on the ground with his legs in the
hole—no need for a chair or stool. Such is the
degree to which production costs are cut—no
furniture, no electricity; just kick wheels,

Paddled pots, Astur.

natural light (and not much of that in some
of the production sheds) and scraps used as
kiln fuel.

The speed and precision with which the
production pieces are thrown is unbelievable.
Many of the pieces are tajines, the tajine being
the traditional cooking vessel for Moroccan
cuisine. It’s a flat dish with a rounded pyramid
as its lid. The lid and the base need to fit
perfectly, and the potters seem to be able to
get a perfect match and a perfect fit without
even looking as they're working. The work
is all functional, no art to be found. It also
seems as if the functional work produced is
largely for tourists, with less emphasis on local
domestic usage. This particular pottery also
produces much mosaic work, in which glazed
shards are set into concrete. Mosaic table tops
and fountain components are produced in the
highest volume.

Our next stop was in Agdz, where we visited
a small local pottery. No massive factory here,
just one man, named Lahcen, and his small
premises. This was no artist’s studio. It can
barely be called a workshop or even a shed.
It was a windowless, doorless room with no
electricity where Lahcen plies his trade with
great pride. After showing us his production
methods (again, kick wheel below ground
level, as well as some moulds/forms for some
of his slab work urns,) Lahcen invited us into
his home, where we were served a meal. It was
really interesting. There was no electricity in
his production shed, yet a satellite dish was
evident in the courtyard of his living quarters.
The TV was ostentatiously left on while he
served us a very generous and sumptuous
meal. He insisted on passing around his
government-issued identity documents to
everyone in the room as his profession is listed
on the papers as “Potter,” and he’s clearly very
proud of this. He's taught his sons his trade,
and apparently theyre very capable potters,
though one is currently in the U.S.A. at
university. Post-secondary education abroad
is a very far cry from rural Agdz...

Next, we visited a pottery in a village called
Astur, The area is so remote that we couldn't
go there in our minivan. Four-by-four vehicles
were rented to transport us across the desert.
The Astur potters specialise in hand-built,
oversized urns. No kick wheels here, just large
domed moulds upon which the forms are
created. The slab of clay is laid over the top

Continued on Page 5, Astur

COLUMBIA Potters Guild of BC Newsletter - February 2010 4