In the past, on every girls wedding present list was a famed dinner service – Wedgwood, Crown Derby, Minton, to name but a few. This treasured wedding present was then brought from the depths of sideboards and into use on high days and holidays. It was far too expensive to be used every day. God help the person drying up after dinner if they dropped a piece. Nine times out of ten the dinner service would have gone out of production so replacing items was a nightmare.
In my Mum’s cupboard is quite definitely the most beautiful dinner service that I have ever seen – Camilla Copeland Spode. It was passed down from my Mother’s grandmother. Indeed one simply gasps at it’s beauty and fragility. I can count on one hand or maybe two, the number of times that beautiful relic has been used.
These types of dinner services are seldom used nowadays. They are too delicate for washing up machines. People want crockery that can be used everyday but that also looks good on special occasions. They also want things that are fun and amusing.
Enter Wonki Ware, Di Marshall’s creation!
Michelangelo said of one of his glorious statues: “I saw an angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”
When you see an “angel in the marble” one has to carve until your angel is set free. Di Marshall discovered her “angels” at the potters wheel and she let them free in the form of dinnerware, cups, jugs, beautiful bowls…….
Seventeen years ago, Wonki Ware came into being!
Di Marshall had felt an immediate affinity with clay.
“The first time I touched clay I felt an instant identification with it. Clay has this strange feeling for me. I find it difficult to explain. My hands feel at home in that soft, pliable moistness. It almost seems to call out to me to do it’s bidding.”
She loves creating things with it. She has had no training, no art classes. She experiments and tries new approaches.
Di established her studio in George where she could shape and mould things to her heart’s content. People began popping in, observed Di at work, had a look around and left with merchandise clasped in their hands. Di’s work began selling. It began selling well.
A man called Artwell, constantly badgered Di for work. Desperate to help him, she tried to think of an easy and quick way to re-produce her dinnerware. She hit upon the idea of rolling out sheets of clay and letting him drape this clay over moulds that she had created. He did this job with eagerness and perfection. His family subsequently joined the team and today Di has over eighty employees creating from her designs.
Di travels all over the world, visiting museums and art galleries. “I see colours and patterns that are a new input to my psyche. I return with my spirit rejuvenated. Creativity isn’t seeing something and replicating the idea. Oh no, it’s discovering things that you find beautiful and being inspired by them to create new and individual designs.”
She believes that you need to be open and responsive to the world around you. It is only in this milieu that one can create.
Wonki Ware satisfies this need for individualism, escapism, for something away from the norm, something different, and most important, something affordable. Each piece of pottery is a work of art in itself. I asked Di: “Wonki Ware! Why have you called it that name?”
She burst out laughing and said: “Look at my pieces and ask me that question again, if you dare!”
I chuckled. Each piece is different and wonky! She didn’t set out to create wonky porcelain pottery. The wonkiness happened of it’s own accord and I glory in the fact that it has remained. Yes the colours, designs and patterns on the glazing change but the wonkiness stays the same. The pieces although fun are functional, hardwearing and dishwasher proof but they still have a delicacy all their own. It isn’t thick and heavy or in any way utilitarian. The colours that Di uses are everything from the lightest, palest pastels to deep, rich intense hues.
I asked Di what have been the highlights and lowlights of Wonki Ware? Her forehead creased. “Lowlights? Lowlights,” she mumbled searchingly. “We haven’t really had lowlights at Wonki Ware. We have had challenges, some bigger than others. We have met them head on and dealt with them accordingly. Our highlights?” She smiled. “My highlight is that I have eighty people working here. That’s eighty people who have a real purpose in life and eighty families that are being fed!”
I am totally hooked on Wonki Ware. I own six beautiful blue plates with a white squonk in differing places on them. Di Marshall gave me a gorgeous seventh plate of blue stripes. She also gave me this stunning blue salad bowl that almost looks too good for lettuce! I can’t wait to invite someone over for lunch. I know that now that we are in winter, it is not a good time for salads. Forget that! Whoever comes, will be eating this massive green salad out of the most divine blue Wonki Ware bowl!

The post A little bit Wonki! appeared first on 'ear 'ear! by Gaynor Young.

I looked at the picture on the mug in front of me as I waited for my hot chocolate to cool. I smiled. A buxom woman stared back. She looked as if she was posing or modelling. What tickled me was that this was not the tall, wafer thin figure that so many women aspire to nowadays. This woman was big and curvaceous. Yet she looked perfectly content within herself. She seemed to be saying: “It’s alright to be big. It’s beautiful to be large!”.
I like that! The equally large figure on the plate under the mug possessed considerable élan! I laughed softly to myself. Like me, this woman carried a jumble of bags. What’s really likeable about these figures is that they don’t conform to modern day “figure” expectations. They are Rubenesque and I like that!
Who are these caricatures created by? I didn’t need to look at the bottom of the mug to know these were Sharon Dold designs. Sharon, like me, lives in George. We had never met, but I planned to remedy that situation.
I invited her for coffee at Travelbugs, one of my favourite restaurants in George. While I awaited Sharon’s arrival, I tried to picture what she looked like. Did she look like one of her creations? Was she a large woman with a very red mouth dressed in a funky kind of manner? How old is she? I wondered. I remembered another one of Sharon’s creations: An older woman wearing a purple dressing gown and matching purple eye shadow. Her hair is in bright blue curlers that match the hilarious blue glasses through which her long lashed eyes are peering.
“Gaynor?” A soft voice enquired.
I looked into the smiling, fun filled face of a woman about my age. I smiled as I shook her hand. “Hi there, Sharon! I have been admiring your work and I didn’t know what to expect today. I was half anticipating the appearance of one of your Fat Ladies. But I see that you are nothing like them. I don’t know whether to be sorry or relieved.”
She laughed and this blonde haired, brown eyed woman sat down opposite me. We began chatting and Sharon’s story started to unfold…..
When she finished school, despite being passionate about art, she did a “very dependable” secretarial course. If you have the creative impulse within you, inevitably it finds it’s outlet. Sharon’s creativity was alive and well and burning to be released. For a friend’s birthday present, she took a plate and painted a funky bird on it that literally zinged in it’s bright, alive colours. Her friend raved about her creation! Soon Sharon was painting plate after plate with these freaky, funny birds. They were squawking, laughing, winking and behaving in an un-birdlike, thoroughly lovable manner. Her creativity had found it’s niche!
Her Fat Lady design for which her name is now synonymous leapt onto paper more than fifteen years ago and it is still the design for which she is widely known. Sharon laughed as she explained how one day a Fat Lady curved up at her from beneath her pencil. She smiled  greeting  her new creation and a few more Fat Ladies appeared in answer to that smile. I chuckled when she showed me a picture of two women in their bathing costumes on a beach. It is obviously not pleasant because they have their arms wrapped around their bodies for warmth. Their voluptuous breasts ooze above their arms! These Fat Ladies are not smiling though. Their eyes are beautifully made up but their red lipped mouths are pouting. I identify with that picture. I am not a great lover of the beach!
Sharon initially began marketing her designs from her home. She reproduced them very basically on plates and stationery. Now there is a thriving factory in the heart of George that utilises the very latest graphic design technology to produce an exciting range of homeware and gifting merchandise – stationery, crockery, trays, fridge magnets, spoon holders. Sharon Dold’s Designs are now found in over three hundred retail outlets throughout South Africa. One of her greatest pleasures as her business grows is that she is able to employ more and more local people.
I asked Sharon about the future, where she saw herself in five years?
“I would like to have significantly increased my international presence” she replied.
“Although it is wonderful that my designs have widespread recognition in South Africa, it would be incredible if they attained world-wide fame!”
I smile at the thought of beautifully made cards with Fat Ladies ‘strutting their stuff’ being sold at John Lewis in England (akin to Woolies in SA).
With the ailing, weak Rand there is definitely no better time to try!

To visit Sharon Dold’s Design web site click here!

The post A big fat success! appeared first on 'ear 'ear! by Gaynor Young.