Crafting the magical singing clay

Cappadocia Pottery

Chez Galip looks like a Turkish version of Albert Einstein, complete with that moustache, shaggy, raw-silk, curly hair, and dreamy eyes. Galip is a master potter, and I was at his workshop in Avanos, a small town in Cappadocia region of Turkey, where he churns out potteries, mostly exquisite, some just magical, using his legs to kick the potter’s wheel and his hands to bring life into clay.

“If it doesn’t make music, I don’t use it,” he said, holding a clump of red clay in his hand. The clay comes from Kizilirmak (Red River) which flows brushing the town of Avanos, providing abundant raw material for the potters around. Music from clay? Galip chuckled at my bewilderment. He then poured a little water to the clay and held it close to my ear. And lo! There was music, soft, yet poignant, like a hushed chorus. The clay was indeed singing. “This technique to find out if the clay is in the right form for use is thousands of years old,” said Galip, “and this is not the only ancient technique I use.”

“How do you make those sleek shapes, like that tubular wine jug?” I asked. Galip asked his son to show how that is done. The young man sat at the wheel and tenderly shaped a lump of clay into a perfect circular tube — a large, slim, hollow doughnut. He went on to create another tube of exactly the same diameter — how did he do that just by hand, without any instrument other than the potter’s wheel, I wondered — a straight one this time. He then cut a hole at an outer section of the circular one, and joined the two to get a seamless tubular jug. Further, he bent the nozzle to an aesthetic shape, and before I could realise, the chunk of clay metamorphosed to a delicate decanter.

“There is lot to be done to it now,” said Galip, looking at the newly made piece. “This needs to be dried, then metal-rubbed to varnish and then put to firing for 10 hours at between 900°C and 1,200°C. Only then will it be ready for painting.”

From the assortment of half-finished wares strewn around, Galip picked up an unpainted vase, some two-and-a-half feet tall. One side of its belly was of a different colour than the rest. “This colour difference is because of difference in the temperature during firing.” Then, with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, he said, “If you can tell me how this differentiation in temperature is achieved within the kiln, I will give you a small gift.” After about 10 minutes of shooting in the dark, I gave up. He then took a large clay bowl and placed the vase sleeping sideways in the bowl in a way a part of the belly was facing the inside of the bowl. “We put these two together in the kiln and get this effect. Simple, yeah?” he said with a smile. “This technique is also thousands of years old.”

He guided me to the section where three people were diligently painting, one on a foot-long vase and the other two on plates. “Everything that you see here is hand-pottered and hand-painted,” said Galip and then tugged at my shirt-sleeves, “come, I’ll show you something, but you cannot take photographs, yeh.”

We entered a room with plates, vases, jugs and ornamental pottery displayed on shelves around the walls. Most of them blue — turquoise and cyan. All exquisite in shape and colour. I gazed in wonder the sophistication of design and colour. Suddenly, the lights went off. In the dark, those wares glowed. Illuminated, as if soft light was emitting from each of them. It was magical to the point of not being real. And I knew, in that darkness, standing quietly behind me, Galip was chuckling.