Spouted Calabash

Spouted Calabash

by Julianna Innis

These works, with their wide-open bowls and elongated spouts allude to the idea of collecting and sharing. These vessels represent me as maker, teacher and mother – collecting or being “filled up” with knowledge, skills, wisdom, patience, memories…… these precious contents can then be poured out, sharing their sustenance with others around me. Inspired by ancient milk bowls, clay pipes and calabashes, each of these objects provide the function of containment-the holding or storing of milk, tobacco and grain respectively. Research on sixteenth-century clay pipes indicate that the bowl of the pipes were quite small and were referred to as “little ladles”, while the calabash , once a prized Barbadian household possession for holding water or food. I, therefore, see these vessels as a place for containment and storage of heritage. I use two Adinkra symbols (a form of symbolic writing from Ghana) in my work that speak to perseverance and commitment, and the other to divine protection and guidance. As an Afro-Caribbean potter, these symbols connect me to my African ancestry.
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