Biography
Joy Savage is a ceramic artist, who has lived almost all her life in central and southern Africa. Even as a small child, if she was given a patch of dirt and a bucket of water, she was happy for hours! Along with teaching and writing, working in clay has definitely appeared to be her destiny. She currently lives in Stellenbosch, in the Cape Winelands. "My works are mostly hand-built, draped or slumped, so my best friend in the studio is my slab roller! Although principally decorative, my pieces are also utilitarian. Although I have used many types of clay, my favourites are a high-firing earthenware or low stoneware, as I have an electric kiln. The relief designs on my works are original. I form my roulettes and stamps from odd scraps of clay, then once they are leather-hard, I hand-carve patterns into them in intaglio. They are then bisque-fired prior to being used. I tend to create pieces in series, so that I may spend weeks working on a theme currently taking my fancy, for instance, inspiration gained from photographs I have taken in a game reserve, Bushman paintings, African textiles, Namaqualand flowers, seashells, fish, fruit; the list keeps growing. I have also submitted many articles to National Ceramics, a quarterly magazine published by Ceramics SA."
