CLAY WORKSHOP

WEEK 1

When I arrived at Auroville after 24 hours traveling and having a first taste of India, I settled in my guesthouse and met Aurelio who introduced me to Svaram and the team I was going to work with for the next 3 weeks. He guided me through the shop, the office, and the workspace and I was impressed by the quality of instruments presented to me, but even more by the relaxed atmosphere and craftsmanship of the people in the workspace. I then got introduced to guys of the flute department who were very eager to start working with me.

We decided to form a team of 4 people which I would share my skills with, so they could share it with the others after I was gone. (photo team). For the next 3 weeks, I worked 6 days a week form 8:30 am to 5:00 pm with this team.

LET’S START!

We immediately started unpacking the stuff I took and setting up a decent workspace to work in. What I didn’t expect was the already advanced ability of the flute team and their knowledge of the physics of flutes. This was going to be fun!

THE INSTRUMENT MODELS

The base instrument we were going to work at was the Pentatonic Natey flute I developed over the last years. It would be the perfect instrument to start with and building it would provide the base skills for other instruments. As all my flutes are designed from a modular system approach it would be easier for them to develop their own instruments which could align with the other SVARAM instruments. Besides this base instrument, we also worked on bird flutes, ehecatl, and double flutes.

METHOD

I decided to divide the disciplines they need to learn into several workshops.

Week 1:	Week 2:	week 3:
– introduction to clay	– making different models	– firing the flutes
– preparing the clay	– building a kiln	– unpacking the kiln
– filling the molds	– making molds	– smoke firing the flutes
– making shapes and mouthpieces	– making Terra Sigillata	– finishing and fine-tuning
– making the labium and holes	– applying Terra Sigillata	– making tools
– assemble the flutes	– polishing flutes	– conclusion
– tuning the flutes	– children workshop	– documentation
– drying process and adjustments		– presentation
– finishing surface

I knew I was aiming high but did not expect we would get everything done in the 3 weeks available, but although just one team member had experience with making clay ocarina’s, already after the first workshop day each one of them had made a good sounding instrument!

FINDING THE RIGHT CLAY

The biggest challenge was finding the right local clay and materials to work with. Over the next 3 weeks, I visited many villages, shops and local craftsmen on the back of Shankar’s motorbike. We visited local potteries and kept looking for the right clay to use. Most of the potteries only used Chinese stoneware clay for high fired throwing ware, and the local red Terra Cotta clay wasn’t suitable for hand-shaped flutes, so we decided to experiment with different mixes of China clay, ball ware clay and different kinds of sand, as we couldn’t find the bisque fired grog anywhere that is used in Europe for hand-shaped objects. However, the guys didn’t seem to be having problems using the different clay, so it turned out it was me who got spoiled over the years using specialized materials!.

FILLING THE MOLDS AND MAKING SHAPES

Within my modular system, I use base shaped cast molds to create the basic shapes. My team learned quickly and soon many base shapes start filling up the working space. Using basic molds speeds up the process of training and practicing with the material. It takes some effort getting the right wall thickness but within the first days, the guys seemed to control this already quite well.

Making the mouthpieces, labia and assemble the parts

Being skilled wooden flute makers already, the guys didn’t have any problem understanding the principle of how to create a tone, although the physics of a closed flute versus an open tube flute was new to them. Also, the shrinkage of the clay provided them some new insights: when you mess up in the beginning, your mistake will catch up with you in a later stage. They had some hard times with me forcing them to throw away a beautiful flute that unfortunately never would make it a finished product.

Making the holes and tuning the instruments

Tuning an instrument out of tune to get it in pitch after firing, combined with taking into account the shrinkage during drying and firing was completely new to the team. We practiced a lot on tuning by ear and to rely less on the tuning devices they used with their wooden flutes.

Adjustments and documenting

As the instruments shrink during the drying process, the position of the mouthpiece towards the labium changes too. The guys had a hard time understanding the concept of adjusting the flutes after they finished them to keep them working after the drying process. I told them several times to document everything they did and learned during the workshop. But only after they found out that half of the beautiful instruments made didn’t work anymore after drying did they understood the importance of this. They are used to learning via sight and some of them have challenges with reading and writing.

WEEK 2

Different models

After the first week of teaching the principles of ceramic flute making, it was time to focus on the next level: teaching them to get creative with what they learned and to develop different and even new instruments. It was really fun to show them different models and possibilities and in no time a vast growing collecting of oddities started to cover the table.

Making Molds

As my method of making flutes was based on using basic molds, I took a few with me to SVARAM. However, I had to teach my group to make their own molds. To make the right mother shapes we got help from the SVARAM woodturner, who made some beautiful mother shapes in different sizes. But finding the right plastic material to use for pouring the walls again took at least a full day as I couldn’t find any soft plastic buckets I was used to having for this. Finally, a strong kind of vinyl, used for bathroom doors helped us out!

Making Terra Sigillata

One of the biggest challenges of the workshop was making the Terra Sigillata. As I was used to making this very watery and shiny clay emulsion from different sources in the world, I also knew that not every clay would be suitable to use. Because I visited Auroville during the Monsoon season, we found big muddy rain pools after each downpour. It almost looked like ready to use Terra Sigillata to me, and tests we did were promising. But after we used the local bright red clay to make our own Terra Sigillata, the result exceeded expectations; it was the best Terra Sigillata I ever made . . .

Polishing the flutes and making new tests

After applying the Terra Sigillata they needed to learn how to polish the flutes. We actually spent a lot of time finding the right split leather for this, and just at the last moment, we found the right material at a local shoemaker. The guys also made a lot of hemispheres to test their Terra Sigillata on.

Children’s workshop

As the guys were getting confident about the results I decided it would be a good test to let them give a workshop to a group of children. Under the motto “you learn most by teaching”, we organized a small workshop for 8 children. What they didn’t know is that I was going to throw them in the deep by not involving myself in the workshop. It already was very hot, but this afternoon they even sweated more bringing this workshop to a good end :). They were happy that I start helping them after a while and realized there was still much to learn before becoming real ceramic flute masters!

WEEK 3

Firing the kiln

While firing the first kiln, we noticed soon that the temperature stopped rising at 700 degrees Celsius, although we needed 1020 at least. We tried many things, but nothing helped. We figured out that the LPG tank didn’t have enough pressure to reach the desired temperature. Happily, Shankar solved it using some good old Indian technology: by putting the tank inside of a big bucket with hot water we finally reached (almost) the desired temperature after 8 long hours. It was much past office time but many friends came by with sweets and encouragement!

Unpacking the Kiln

It was quite an exciting moment when we opened the kiln; would the flutes have survived the fire? Would the Terra Siggilata stick to the shell? Happily, everything seemed fine…

Smoke firing the flutes

After we made a selection of the flutes we wanted to smoke fire, we filled the kiln again, but this time we used a flat stoneware stone and added some sawdust. After that, we placed an aluminum bucket over it to create an environment where no oxygen could enter.

The principle of smoke firing

On the flutes, we used two kinds of Terra Sigillata: a white one that sinters at 1050 degrees and a red one that sinters on 950 degrees. These flutes were fired on 1005 degrees, so the white Sigillata has an open shell but the red one is closed. When fired to 1020 degrees celsius in a closed environment with wood inside, the smoke of the wood cannot get in the red Sigillata, but it can in the white one. This way all the white Sigillata becomes black.

After opening the kiln we found out that all flutes turned completely black! It took me a day or two to figure out what has happened. Finally, I got it: The pyrometer I took from home wasn’t accurate and showed the wrong temperature. After firing the flutes again on 1020 the red layer of Sigillata was sealed and the first good results started to appear…

Evaluation

After almost 3 weeks of hard work, we did a final evaluation of all the progress we made, and how to continue this process after I would be. We decided that the guys would have at least one day a week to work on the clay flutes and that one of them would start working fulltime on them. Also, we agreed on a weekly Skype meeting to follow their process and to answer any questions they would have. Meanwhile, I already decided to come back in February 2020 to do a follow up on this workshop and to start working with them on more advanced instruments like the Innate. For now, they have enough homework to do…

A short compilation of the workshop