Page 93 - Bulletin 9 2005

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political circumstances to justify the use of public funds to preserve the works that are under

threat.

Materials and techniques

It is generally believed that during the studio’s early period the tiles were slip cast, and that
from the 1940s industrial blanks from Conrand were used. Thelma Currie in her recollections

of Olifantsfontein contrasts the special quality of the earlier hand-made tiles with the more

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mechanical finish of the factory-made blanks. But the studio diary (see below) indicates that
even during the early 1930s tiles from ‘the Works’, as Conrand was known, were being fired

in the studio’s kilns. The entries do not specify, though, whether these tiles were for the

studio’s own use or whether they were simply being fired as a service to Conrand. Whatever
the case, wooden moulds for the slip-cast tiles were supplied by Conrand, and the tiles were
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allowed to dry in these for two weeks before removal for bisque firing.

After much initial experimentation the studio developed a reasonably satisfactory clay body
for the tiles, described in a letter from Joan Methley to an anonymous overseas artist in 1927:

“D. Clay 40%; Pipestone 30%; Cornish Stone 15%; Grog 15%”. She notes: “... for purposes

of clarity to the people overseas, you should mention that our D. Clay is roughly analogous to
an English ballclay, that the pipestone is really a siliconous (sic) fireclay ... and that our
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Cornish Stone is not as rich in alkalies as the stuff overseas.” Because the Olifantsfontein
clay was relatively coarse, it has been suggested that slip imported from Wengers in England

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was sometimes included in the clay body. Uneven shrinkage during drying and firing
remained a problem with the slip-cast tiles, and examples in the present writer's collection

show variations in both size and thickness.

The coarseness of the Olifantsfontein clay, and the fact that it fired to a buff colour, meant

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that the bisque-fired tiles had to be dipped in an opaque tin glaze to form a suitable smooth
and white ‘canvas’ for decoration. Thelma Currie mentions that rubber gloves and masks
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were worn when handling the white glaze to avoid contact with the lead it contained. The
designs for the panels were first done to scale on paper and then carefully repainted onto the
tiles. The individual tiles were also hand painted, but because the designs remained in

production for many years a way had to be found of repeating the patterns quickly while
ensuring reasonable similarity from one tile to the next. The women at Olifantsfontein used