Pottery master shapes Trypillian vessels that energize
In this pottery class, there is no wheel or modern equipment. Students take wet clay in their palms and mold the lump into whatever their hands feel like creating. In the process, they are not only making a work of art, but the artists themselves are releasing their negative energy.
Welcome to a pottery class like no other, done in the style of the ancient Trypillians.
The Trypillians roamed the areas from the Dnipro to the Dniester around 5500‑4000 B.C. Throughout the years, archaeologists have unearthed Trypillian pottery in the centers of Kyiv, Cherkasy and Odessa regions. Archaeological finds indicate that the Trypillians were a hard‑working and creative people who lived peacefully, while some historians contend that the Trypillian era was the mythic Golden Age.
Clay was a core medium used by the Trypillians in both their art and architecture. Most of what we know about the Trypillians today is from their pottery. Some Trypillian households contained as many as 150 articles made from clay.
Historians believe the Trypillians had no written language. But to those who look closer, the decorated Trypillian clay vessels tell a fascinating story.
“If you don’t know how to read, a precious library is just tons of paper for you,” said Pavlo Korniyenko, Ukraine’s leading specialist on Trypillian culture. “Soviet archaeologists knew only how to count, and all that mattered to them were the dates and the number of finds,” he added.
A professional archaeologist and artist, Korniyenko has taken part in excavations all over the former Soviet Union. He is the creator of models of Scythian settlements and graves on display at the Pecherska Lavra’s Jewelry Museum.
In 1996 Korniyenko became involved in studying the traditions and spiritual values of the Trypillian civilization. He started a scientific and cultural research center, Kon Teos Kieva.
He is also hoping to revive the art of the Trypillian clay vessels, many of which functioned not as dishes, but as harmonizers – objects that help distribute energy.
Korniyenko says that a vessel’s form and its ornamentation defines its functions. Therefore, a vessel either pumps, distributes or accumulates energy. Smaller sculptures can be used to neutralize the radiation from a computer or television set, while clay tokens on a necklace are said to have a strengthening effect on the wearer.
“Clay consists of micro‑particles that carry information about the 20‑million‑year evolution of flora and fauna. It has and contains a large quantity of cosmic metals.
“People are a microcosm of evolution – from a cell to a developed human within nine months. Thus, clay helps a human establish the connection between the past generations, the earth and the cosmos.”
Korniyenko and his student, Ihor Pavlovsky, run a sculpting studio Dzherela, which is open to children and adults. Some who visit Dzherela Studio are interested only in learning more about the healing properties of clay, so Korniyenko and his students conduct seminars and show videos.
Others, however, are interested in learning more about the Trypillians and are eager to try their hand at sculpting. In summer, classes are often held outdoors.
At Dzherela participants learn more than just simple sculpting. Students are instructed to work only with their hands, there are no potter’s wheels because that’s how the Trypillians did it.
“Clay is the only medium that does not require an intermediary,” Korniyenko said. “In painting, you use brushes and paints, in music – a musical instrument. To create a clay work, you don’t need anything but clay and your hands.”
It takes a while to learn how to sculpt symmetrically, but Korniyenko recommends first imagining the shape you are going to create and draw it in the air with your hands.
Students are told to forget the word “ceramics” that comes to mind when anyone mentions clay work.
“Ceramics comes from the word ‘kir’ – to burn,” Korniyenko said. “We don’t bake our works; therefore, the more appropriate term is live clay.”
Students are instructed to work according to Trypillian standards. Improvisations, especially in decorating, are strongly discouraged.
“Art is creating an illusion. If you want to create something real, not an illusion, you need to follow the canons,” Korniyenko said.
But don’t let that scare you off. The canons are only for the advanced. Beginners usually start creating clay works using free forms to get accustomed to the clay.
Often during the first attempt at creating a work clay dries, cracks and becomes impossible to mold. A master’s clay taken from the same piece of clay stays smooth, soft and flexible.
“Clay is an amazing material – it reacts to a person’s inner state,” Pavlovsky explained. “When you have many toxins in your body, clay absorbs them and becomes dry. When you are more or less pure, clay stays moist.”
“Sometimes in an unbalanced state you make a crooked work, but you find yourself stabilized,” he said.
In order to make a work, first knead the clay, taking it from one hand and placing it into the other. Make a sphere. And then start shaping it into something that feels right.
The outcome is amazing. Inspired by the captivating decorations of the Trypillian vessels that surround you, suddenly, you begin to feel a kinship with the ancient Trypillian people.
