How we do it ?

1.the mine of clay:

The extraction of the clay from the mine is made , in underground galleries, by picking manually the rock. Then, the clay is transported in baskets, and pile up. The piles of rough clay are sold to the potters as raw material.

2.Treatments:

the clay undergoes several treatments:

washing and kneading:

Shaping:

There are two ways to do it. The first consists in extending the paste with the hands into long coils called " f' tila " a coil is formed into a ring, the object is built up by superposing a succession of rings that are then smoothed on the wheel. This pottery-making technique " f' tila " is used especially to built up large size items like the earthenware jars and the large Amphoras.

With the use of the wheel it's possible to obtain regular circular forms of differents sizes thanks to a skilful handling of the clay paste and the speed of the wheel commanded generally by the potter's foots.

Drying and firirng:

To avoid the breaks in Firing stage and to obtain solid and consistent articles, our pottery is dried in the open air for the small articles, or in cellars for the large ones (earthenware jars,Amphoras), and that for one 21 days period.

Firing is made in traditional pottery furnaces under a temperature reaching 1200ｰ C. In reality Firing is done in two times, the first time consisting in heating the articles under a progressive fire going from 50ｰC to 600ｰC during 48h, at this stage the flame is obtained from the combustion of palm tree trunks. In the second time the temperature is brought to 1200ｰC thanks to the powerful flame of the palms, and that during 10 hours.

Decoration:

Our pottery is hand decorated, the motifs are inspired from the islamic decorative art based on geometric forms, foliate shapes (arabesque style) and some figural representations of both fantastic and real animals.