Ethnic education in Opishnia

Paisii, an old monk of the Sviatohorsky Monastery, said a long time ago that family is the greatest value in this world. Should the family disappear, the entire world would cease to exist.

It is within the family that man’s best traits are to be formed. The ancient village of Opishnia is famous for its potters’ families and their unique teaching methods. Here people learned the truth about life at the potter’s wheel. One and all were taught the daily working routine at an early age. In her Diary series Oleksandra Seliuchenko writes about how she was first given a chunk of wet clay as a child. Such reputed potters as Vasyl Omelianenko, Mykhailo Ostrianyn, and Mykhailo Kytrysh, to mention but a few, also started at the wheel as young boys.

Some say that Opishnia’s old glory has gone with the wind of time, that there is no one to uphold the creative tradition. I spoke with a young potter, Oleksandr Shkurpela, and his family to find out about the situation.

“What kind of occupation do you plan to take up after finishing school?” I asked Oleksandr’s eldest son Anatolii.

“I’ll be a potter like my father,” he said.

“When did you start working with clay?”

“Perhaps when I was still in the kindergarten.”

This boy is happy to help his father and listens carefully to everything he has to say. Apparently, another skillful potter is in the making. Actually, there are three: Anatolii has younger brothers Andrii and Mykola. They are very young, yet Andrii molds his clay masterfully and his four-year-old brother Mykola is eager to learn the craft.

I was impressed by this family’s atmosphere of understanding and cordiality. The potter’s wife, Svitlana, is a kind-hearted young woman with a melodious voice and large blue eyes; she is the protectress of the potter’s family. And she is a graduate of an art school. At one point in the past she learned about the Khudozhnii keramik glassworks and a related college in Opishnia, so she packed and came here, totally unaware that she would meet her future husband and stay here.

Oleksandr wanted to be an artist even as a kid. He learned to draw and paint from his father. After finishing school, he got a job at the Khudozhnii keramik. There he realized that no higher education institution would teach him the potter’s craft better than in Opishnia. Trokhym Demchenko was his first instructor.

“At the time there were lots of people you could learn from,” recalls Oleksandr. “There were eleven foremen who were members of the Artists’ Union of Ukraine. I was especially impressed by the artistic works of Vasyl Biliak, Hryhorii Kyriachko, Ivan Shyian, Vasyl and Petro Omelianenko. Khudozhnii keramyk was then a major glassworks of the Soviet Union. Another workshop was being built. Opishnia’s ceramic pieces were in market demand in and outside the USSR.

“Now it is hard to tell why the whole pottery project started to decay in the 1990s — perhaps after the spindle and semiautomatic machines were installed. Anyway, the quality of the products was on a downward curve. I remember that, shortly before its closure, the glassworks received a commission for a large number of decorated ceramic pieces from Moscow. Two days later a general meeting resolved to stop producing any ornamented pieces. After that there were hardly any commissions, and then the glassworks was closed.”

Many people lost their jobs at the time. Few would keep working at the potter’s wheel at home. When did you make up your mind to start your own workshop?

“I had built the hearth and installed a potter’s wheel in a small room even when I was on the glassworks’ payroll. At home I wanted to do something of my own design, without observing the established standards. I wanted to experiment with various kinds of clay and glazing. I had studied by correspondence and received a technologist degree. After the closure of the glassworks I tried to get a job at an oil derrick, so I could be on payroll. They didn’t want me, so I had to make do with what I could do with my hands, except that now I had to do what others wanted me to do, not what I wanted to do.

“A friend of mine and I dug enough clay and started making earthenware. We had hardly brought our first shipment to the local market when the local tax inspectors came to our house. I could barely afford to buy daily bread and there I was fined like a shadow businessman. God only knows how we lived through that period. Finally, when we were through with the required paperwork, we started receiving commissions. Of course, we wanted to use the Opishnia designs, which were close and dear to us, but we had to meet our clients’ demands. Several years ago no one wanted my porcelain rams, dishes, and candlesticks — ceramic pieces in demand all over the world. A lot depended on the government’s policy. At long last someone upstairs remembered Opishnia and its long history of remarkable folk crafts.”

What kind of products are mostly in market demand?

“Pots, jugs, bowls, tureens, vases, and candlesticks. Opishnia ceramic items are made from local environmentally clean clay and they match the Slavic tradition in every way. We have customers — people in the urban rather than rural areas — who order earthenware in which to cook their daily meals.

“In fact, you can cook anything in our bowl or tureen without stirring and any fear of burning the food. I use exclusively clay jars to receive sour cream from milk. A three-liter jug of milk produces half a liter of sour cream. Plants in our clay pots grow faster because the material of the pot allows their roots to breathe,” adds Svitlana.

Conversing with the Shkurpelas, I became convinced that our descendants will one day re-discover clay’s salubrious properties and will have earthenware in their homes for practical as well as ornamental purposes.