Ceramics with Anthony Shapiro

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My name is Anthony Shapiro and I have been making pots since I was 13 years old. In 1997 I set up a production that supplied the trendy end of the houseware boom. I was a pioneer in the industry and supplied Loads of Living, @home and pretty much every boutique houseware store in South Africa. In 2006 I burnt out and took a break.

We met..

When Deborah, Joey and I made contact I was living at the Buddhist Retreat Centre in Ixopo, Kwa-Zulu Natal where I had set up a studio in a hut. I had placed advertisements up at various clay and glaze suppliers to sell my large industrial kilns. I had spent 18 months away of my two year sabbatical and was completely undecided as to what I was going to do next. Cape Town was an option and I had been offered a studio there but I didn’t want to work alone in a studio. I knew I wanted to be part of something bigger, something more meaningful. I didn’t know what and I had no real time constraint either. I had truly surrendered to the process of life. In my gut I knew the perfect thing would present itself at the right time and it did.

I got a call from a guy called Joey who expressed interest in purchasing my large kilns for a project he was involved in called African Divas. I was coming home to Johannesburg soon and we set up a meeting where the kilns were stored. He brought his associate director Deborah with him and we started chatting. Next thing I was putting in a proposal to direct their ceramic division and suddenly the next chapter of my life fell smoothly and perfectly into place.

A great opportunity

Here was my opportunity to be part of something much, much bigger. Something more meaningful than I could have ever dreamed of. My brief is to make beautiful things and to transfer skills and to create employment. As a bonus I get to write a column for this publication. I am a frustrated columnist.

We have made our first collection which we will show at SARCDA in August. I always get nervous. Will they like it? Will it sell? I have shown it to a few of my old and some of my new customers among them Michelle, the Stuttafords buyer, who we are making a sample range for as I type. She was blown away. Loads of Living and Moyo have called for specific samples. Studio Blue are putting together their maiden order right now. We are delivering Nocturnal Affair in Cape Town this week.

I met with the buyer from ABC Home and Carpet in New York last week and they bought a whole lot of bowls and have ordered a selection of vases. This is for their re launch in September. They are the hottest home store on the planet and I think my first collection is ok...

And I need to stress that we are creating jobs and transferring skills and involved in feeding a community but there is nothing “Ag Shame” about our product. We are committed to making quality merchandise with world appeal that will sustain a community.

I have been thinking about how trends in nature are mimicking other mediums. Suddenly wood turners are turning equisite tree trunks into glorious zig zag shapes and turning them into stools, and these stools are doubling up as coffee tables. Push six of them together, 3 and 3 and you have the funkiest, most contemporary coffee table that is so “organic’, and that makes it authentic and in a world full of mass produced Chinese production, with a disregard for fair trade please tell me AUTHENTIC and ORGANIC have to be the catch phrases of this millenium where design is concerned.

My inspiration for the larger pieces was based on large wood turned shapes. I love the way they wind and zigzag and curve. As I started these pieces I walked around the corner from my studio and the guy who works around the corner, Schalck who is a great wood turner, and on his pavement were the exact shapes I had just made.

I thought this was an extraordinary example of the subliminal unconscious and how all creative people have this spiritual golden thread linking them. I was working in a shed at the Buddhist Retreat Centre in Ixopo, Kwa-Zulu Natal and I started painting the inside of my bowls with silver lustre. I hadn’t seen a magazine let alone an international one and in my gut I knew bling was hot. This is the subliminal unconcious, and it may sound arrogant but there is a golden thread linking all talented creative people because we get these trends in our guts.

Now we think bronze, silver, platinum and we call it bling. Sorry for us this ‘bling’ is just a further return to authenticity. When last did you dig beneath the earth and what natural minerals did you find. Bling is just another step towards authenticity, it shines and it’s glamorous and it’s sophisticated but it’s an authentic element from our glorious ‘Mother Earth’ Nothing is new. Authenticity. Nature has done it all before.

This brings me to my next point. The trend is TEXTURE. Find me a crater with no texture and I’ll eat my bowl! Texture is authentic and that is the beginning and the end of it. The textured bronze and silver bowls are years of experimenting with texture. Texture is where it’s at. I feel that eating is such a sensory experience and touch should be a sense that should be evoked. It is so gorgeous picking up a bowl of soup and feeling the gentle nipples on the bowl, they are cooler than the bowl and the soup inside is piping hot and the experience is so tactile and sensual and authentic. Those nipples are put on by hand. In a world flooded with mass produced Chinese stuff isn’t an authentic nippled bowl experience the kind of ‘REAL’ we all want?

The catering range which comprises of platters and various size pots and vases and vessels is designed to stack. Their are platters that stack on top of the big pots which also come in smaller sizes so if you are having a party and you want a dramatic table, voila you have a huge cake stand. For other days you can simply have a vase and turn them upside down and you have a stool. And you got to see our tea towers if you want to see stacking genius. According to international trend forecasters stacking is the biggest trend in the world, how did I know this in my gut. The GOLDEN THREAD!!!

Marc Hirschowitz, concept genius of international standing used all our large pieces for a Christmas shoot which will be in the Christmas issue of Avocado magazine. He really understands stacking. It looked stupendous, a brilliant example of Marc’s genius and ‘the golden thread’. Marc has an events business called Conceptspark.


	African "Flavour" Arts and Crafts ART WORK FRAMED B/FURNITURE B/GLASSWARE BASKETS BATHROOM BEADED ART UNFRAMED BEADED BALL BEADED CELLPHONE HOLDERS BEADED EGGS BEADED WIRE PLATES Beaded Wire Work BEADWORK CANDLES CERAMIC GLASS MOSAICS HANDMADE BEADED FRAMES HANDMADE GLASS PICTURE FRAMES HANDMADE OSTRICH PICTURE FRAMES HOMECRAFT ODDS JEWLERY KEYRINGS KITCHEN / SALT AND PEPPER GRINDERS LEATHER GOODS OSTRICH MOSAICS PILLOWS SET BALL Plain and Simple - something for everyone Tablewear & Cushions- Hand Craft Toys For All
	African Divas Ceramics with Anthony Shapiro
	African Divas Media
	EVOKE magazine
	African Divas Training - Life Skills, HIV/AIDS
	Salem/African Divas