OUTLINE/ NOTES FOR FORM 2- TM 2 2024 MS ALLISON MYKOO

ART APPRECIATION
Artists to research this term
Bunty O’Connor
Vera Baney
USE THIS FORMAT to complete a short bio on specific artists.
Donald " Jackie" Hinkson
b. (September 14, 1942 -) Port of Spain,
Trinidad

Parents: A. Lennox Hinkson and Jeanette

Hinkson (née Bain)
3rd of six children 4 boys & 2 girls.
Married 1967 to Caryl Blache-Fraser: 2
sons 1 daughter.

Education:

Richmond Street Boys Primary School;

Queens Royal College, Trinidad
Academie Julien, Paris, France (1963- 64)

University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

(1965 - 70)
His youth - the early influences

Jackie grew up in the town of Port of Spain, Trinidad, living with his family in a gabled wooden
colonial house with the characteristic roof, portico, wooden jalousies and decorative fretwork,
so representative of dwellings built at the turn of the century.
Because his father was a Travelling Officer with the colonial government, Hinkson enjoyed
extensive exposure to Trinidad's rural and coastal landscape and architecture, particularly
plantation architecture.
These early experiences were to have a decisive influence on his later artistic expression.
During his teenage years he struck up a friendship with a fellow schoolmate which was to
prove significant. With Peter Minshall (later to become internationally renowned as a costume
designer) Jackie worked and discussed art extensively.
Through visits to the Public Library he became familiar with the works of artists whose work
he admired, in particular the Impressionists (especially Cézanne) and English watercolourists.

https://www.bocaslitfest.com/2020/09/20/our-10-year-commemorativ
e-poster-by-the-artist-jackie-hinkson/

NORTH COAST WATERCOLOUR

CLAY AND POTTERY FORM TWO
History of Pottery in Trinidad & Tobago
https://www.guardian.co.tt/article-6.2.434479.544e1d9064
Arrival of the ancient art of pottery
The arrival of indentured labour from India to till the sugar plantations of Trinidad in 1845,
forever changed the fabric of our society. Not only did elements of language, culinary arts,
music and architecture enter the British colonial fabric, but so did handicraft.
The small cotton "jahaji" bundles lugged all the way from the East contained the necessary
effects to start a new life, but another powerful legacy arrived in the form of skilled hands
and keen eyes for design which saw the ancient art of pottery establishing itself firmly in
Trinidad's muddy canefields.
For much of the 19th Century and well into the 20th, earthenware vessels of many shapes
and forms were among the most valued items of domestic chattels for the middle and lower
economic strata.
Indentured immigrants were basically provided with no utensils by their plantation masters
except a small iron pot. From the very earth they moulded jars to contain their
edibles-amchar, rice, ghee and milk. Born also of the earth were the tiny oil lamps which
would come to indelibly define them as a people in a society to which they were alien.
From this bare necessity, an industry evolved. Creole, white and black Trinidadians used clay
"goblets" in their homes to provide a supply of cool water and even in the great plantation
houses, there was the vast earthen canari-a pot used for the preparation of pepperpot,
which itself was a holdover from Amerindian times. Before the coming of the Indians, these
clay vessels had been largely imported from Barbados where a thriving industry existed.
After serving their contracts on the sugar plantations, several time-expired Indians settled in
the flat marshlands just south of the tiny village of Chaguanas in the 1880s. The soil provided
an abundance of good, workable clay, which had to be laboriously dug by hand, being
deposited under a few feet of topsoil. Hauled back to the potter's hut on the backs of men
and women, the heavy, wet clay then had to be trodden with bare feet and then kneaded by
hand to remove impurities.
Cleaned, the clay would then be cut into smaller chunks and given over to the mastery of
the potter who squatted in front of his ever-spinning wheel, honing the shapes which would
become so useful to so many. The timeworn goblets and water jugs were created under his
hands, and also thousands of tiny oil lamps known as deyas.
Although Divali did not rise to national prominence until the 1950s, the deya was an
essential accoutrement of the Hindu household, being used for sacred as well as more
mundane purposes. The stretch of roadway between Chaguanas and Chase Village became
famous as the potters' row and even attracted the attention of tourist brochures of the
period which spoke of "the skill and marvellous dexterity of the coolie pottery-makers."
Some like Radica's Pottery have been going strong for over a century, keeping alive and
unchanged both art and tradition.
What is clay?
Clay is very fine particles of dirt which float in a stream or river and then sink to the
bottom, where they press on each other and stick together. You generally find clay
along the banks of a river or stream, wherever the river is pulling dirt down off
the mountains or hills and dropping it in a quiet part of the river lower down.

What is so cool about clay (besides that it is easy and cheap to get) is that it is
squishy when it is wet, so you can make it any shape you like, and then it dries hard
in the sun, pretty fast, as the water evaporates out.

If you dry clay in the sun you can make it soft again just by throwing it in a bucket of
water and waiting a week or two.

But if you put your clay pot or sculpture in a fire, or in an oven (an oven for clay is
called a kiln) and bake it for a while very hot, the clay is even harder and it will not
get soft again even if you put it in water for a long time. We call this process firing.

Pottery is a decorative or useful ware made of baked clay. Pottery includes valuable
works of art, inexpensive dinnerware, vases, and other simple household items, all
made by potters. Four steps are needed to make a pottery product: preparing the
clay mixture, shaping the clay, decorating and glazing the item, and firing (baking).
The firing temperature gives pottery its finished appearance and its strength.

There are three major pottery types: (1) earthenware, (2) stoneware, and (3)
porcelain. Each type is distinguished by its clay mixture and the temperature at
which it is baked or fired. Earthenware is a pottery clay mixture that is fired at a lower
temperature. The low baking temperature allows the use of colorful glazes, but also
yields a pottery that cracks and chips more easily than other types. Stoneware
pottery is made of a heavier clay mixture that gives it greater strength. Stoneware is
fired at a much higher temperature to give a harder finish. Porcelain is the purest and
the most delicate type of pottery

The art of pottery is a process. The clay is soaked and run through a kneading mill to
remove air bubbles, which can expand on firing and crack the pot. In the old days the
potters danced on the clay to soften and squash the air bubbles out of the lumps of
wet soil. The pieces are cut into blocks and shaped by hand on potter's wheels made
with old car parts, drive belts, pulleys and motors. The molded pieces are air dried
on planks, then placed in a giant open oven that is fired using wood for as long as 20
hours. Fluctuations in temperature and gases emanating from the wood causes
varying colours on the finished product. Pottery that is blackened is usually the
strongest. Benny said the art of pottery is hard work, but the rewards comes with the
satisfaction of creating something from a skill handed down through the generations.
MAKING A BASIC PINCH POT

Opening the pot

The second step in making a pinch pot is to open the compressed ball of clay.

Hold the ball of clay firmly in one hand. Use the thumb of your other hand to push an
opening into the ball. This opening should end about a half to a quarter of an inch
from the other side of the ball; be careful not to push your thumb all the way
through.If the hole does end up going all the way through, simply compress the ball
back together and begin again.

The third step is to pinch the clay to form the

floor and walls of the pot.

Using your thumb, push against your fingers

in a pinching motion. This will thin the clay out
to create the pots floor and walls. Do not try
to thin the clay too much with one pinch.
Instead, use a series of smaller pinches to
work the clay upwards more than outwards
as it thins.

Work to make the floor and walls as uniform

in thickness as possible. This will help keep
the pot from cracking as it dries or during firing.

FINISHING THE POT

The finial stage is to finish the edges of the pot.

Part of the charm of the pinched pot may be the rustic look it has when the top edges
are left uneven. You can, however, also choose to trim the upper edge to give the pot
a more refined look.

Don't throw away any small pieces of clay. Gather them into a bucket or other
container and let them dry thoroughly. Because they will easily slake down and mix
with water, they make the easiest way to make slurry, which is used in other forms of
handbuilding and in throwing.

The finished pot should be placed somewhere safe and allowed to dry slowly. Fast
drying will often result in cracks appearing in the greenware or during firing. After the
pot is bone dry (no part of the pot feels cool to the touch) it is ready to be bisque
fired.
Coil Bowls

Project Instructions:

1. The first thing that you and your teacher will do is get a grapefruit sized ball of
clay and knead it until it is very smooth with no lumps or air bubbles in it.
2. Next, pull off a golf ball size piece of clay and form it into a smooth hamburger
patty shape. It should be about 3/8 inch thick. Try not to handle it so much that it
starts to get cracks on the surface. If this happens, put that piece of clay back in
the back to get damp again and pull off another piece to try it with. The trick is to
not handle it too much.

3. Pull off another golf ball size lump of clay. Form it into a ball, then, using gentle
pressure, roll it to make it into a rope of clay. You call this rope a coil.
4. Once the coil is about 3/8 inch in diameter and pretty even along its whole length,
place the coil on the top edge of the patty shaped piece. Start attaching it by
using your thumb or finger to press and smooth one side of the coil down onto
the patty.
 5. Continue attaching the coil around the base and then to the coil itself, laying the
coil a little toward the outer edge so that a bowl shape is made.

6. After one or two coils are attached, smooth the outer coils also. Smoothing booth
the inner and the outer surface will make the bowl sturdier.

7. When the bowl is about 10” in diameter, smooth the top edge and loosely cover
the whole bowl with plastic so that it slowly dries to a leather hard consistency.
8. Now you need to add a foot to the bowl. When the bowl is leather hard, turn it
over and lightly draw a circle on the bottom. Score and slip the circle and attach a
coil in a circle on the bottom. Cut the coil off when you reach the starting end of it
so that the coil is a perfect circle.

9. Smooth both inside and outside attached edges, tilting the foot outward just a bit.
10. Allow it to sit a few minutes so that the coil is a bit firmer, then turn the bowl over
and make sure that the foot sits flat on the table surface. You can put a bit of
pressure on it to straighten it, then mist the bowl part.

11. When the bowl is no dryer than leather hard and perhaps a bit less dry than
leather hard, mix up white slip and black slip.
12. At this point, you can use brushes to brush designs onto the clay in a freehand
style, or templates can be cut in order to create beautiful and very precise images
and geometric designs in the clay.
Working With Clay:
Clay artists throughout the ages have invented many ways to shape things out of clay.
PINCH - Use your fingers to pinch and poke a single lump of clay into any shape.
SLAB - Roll the clay into flat sheets (like a pie crust) to cut apart and assemble.
COIL - Roll out long snakes of clay and twist them into coils and shapes.
WHEEL - Spin clay on a potter's wheel to form pots and vases.

Clay Definitions:
Wedging: This is what you do to get all of the air bubbles out of your clay. Basically you roll the
clay around on a flat surface "pushing" and "pulling" the clay so all of the air comes out. Clay
right out of the box is already wedged ... you don't have to worry about air bubbles with new clay.
Kiln: This is a large, hot oven that is used to fire the clay. You need to fire your clay in a kiln in
order for it to be permanent. A kiln can reach temperatures of 2500 degrees F. and higher. Your
oven at home maybe reaches 500 degrees F.
Earthenware: This is the type of clay often used in schools. It comes in white or red and it is
fired to a temperature of approximately 1000 degrees C. or 1830 degrees F.
Slip: This is liquid clay ... clay with a lot of water added to it. It is used in ceramics (poured into
molds). It is also sometimes used as a sort of glue to hold clay pieces together. You need to use
slip to "fasten" pieces of clay together so that they don't fall apart in the kiln. You see, clay
shrinks as it dries so if you haven't made sure that your clay pieces are firmly attached, they will
separate in the kiln. It isn't enough to simply "pile" one piece of clay on the next. Use watered
down clay as your glue.
Leather-Hard: This is what we call clay that has dried for a few hours. It should feel slightly cool
to the touch. Leather-hard clay is not dry enough for firing in a kiln ... If a piece of clay is put into
the kiln while it is still wet, it could explode. When water gets hot ... it boils right? Well, your
pottery piece will literally "blow up" if it contains water or moisture that boils when it gets hot in
the kiln.
Greenware: When clay has dried and is ready to be fired in a kiln, it is referred to as greenware.
Usually clay should air dry for about a week depending on the thickness of the piece.
Bisque: This is the first firing. Clay is usually fired in a kiln twice. Once at a lower temperature
(the bisque firing). After a piece is bisque, it can be glazed, painted or left as is. If the clay is
glazed, it then goes in the kiln for a second firing.
Glaze: This is used to decorate clay that will hold liquid. It is essentially "liquid glass" or glass
particles (mixed with colors or pigments) that have been ground down. Glaze melts at a high
temperature and turns into the coatings that you see on a finished pottery piece.
Cone: The temperature that a kiln is set to depends on what type of clay you are firing. Some
clay is referred to as cone 4 while some clay is referred to as cone 6. These are simply
temperature gauges. A cone - designed to melt at a certain temperature - is used to gauge the
temperature. Earthenware is usually fired to cone 06 - approximately 1000 degrees C. or 1832
degrees F. Your oven is only about 500 degrees F.
CLAY PROJECT

Coil Pen holder

Before starting this project you should have an understanding of putting together clay
coils. Sketch a design for your coil pen holder.

YOU WILL NEED:

Tshirt to wear, a pack of Jay cloths, a large plastic container, some old rags, a small
container for slip, tools for clay, such as a palette stick, bobby pins, plastic forks, 2
plastic knives, a rolling pin, and anything you find that can be used as a tool.

Roll your clay into a rectangular slab, make sure it is in between two jay cloths, as this is
make it easier to roll.

Use a ruler and mark long equal strips on the clay surface, cut these out using the
plastic knife. You will use these stips to create your coils.

Take progress photos of each stage.

In this project you can really get creative and go crazy with coils.

How many ways can you think of to decorate a pot using its own coils? Check it out! You
can make all kinds of swirling designs on them. You just let the coils show on the outside
in select areas. Be sure to smooth them on the inside, however, so that they will be
strong. You don't want your pot falling apart in the kiln.

Once you have considered where and how to

make the coils show, start building. You start
a coil pot in the same way that you start a coil
bowl (see instructions above if you have
forgotten).
As you build your coil pot, be sure to smooth
at least the inside of all of the pot and smooth
as you build. If you wait too long to smooth the coils, they may get too hard to
smooth.
When dry, the piece can be fired, painted or dipped in glaze and fired again.
Medium to dark colored glazes that break over higher surfaces a bit will
accentuate the coil design. Be creative.
YOU TUBE VIDEOS YOU CAN LOOK AT

https://youtu.be/aJQ5FG9o3C0 HOW TO MAKE A COIL POT

https://youtu.be/uRgHdgBXHekhttps://youtu.be/YB6GFo0M92g