Last weekend we had the chance to visit the pottermaster, István Fazekas at his home and in his atelier in Nádudvar, next to the Hortobágy National Park.

Already István’s family name “Fazekas” means potter and István is keeping up a 300 year old family history. The first document of his ancestors working as potters in Nádudvar is dating back to 1714. And his family is specialized on the rare and beautiful black ceramic.

The ceramic gets its black color for two reasons. First the high red iron-oxid content of the clay, that by burning turns into black iron-oxid. Second, because of the special way of burning the clay. During the process the oven is kept close, so all the smoke stays inside and colours the ceramic black.

Here you see the dried pieces before they are burned.

Black ceramic has an 8000 year old tradition, but right now in Hungary only the family of István keeps this tradition alive. And they make every step by themselves, from mining the clay to burning the ceramic.

“The clay we get from around Nádudvar. In older times it was more easy, but now we have to own the property where we take the clay and we have to get a mining permission. First we remove with mashines the upper two meters of the ground. Then we mine the clay with hand to assure the quality. After we mix the clay with water and pour it through a fine filter to remove the contamination. We put it in a big pool and let it dry for 2-3 monthes by turning it from time to time.”

Here you can see one of István’s ancestors filtering and drying the clay. The process today still stays the same.

“When the clay is dry, we cut it into blocks, knead it and let it mature in a cellar for 2 years. After the clay is ready to produce high quality ceramic.” – explains István.

Before burning, István and his family are decorating the black ceramic in a unique way. They draw traditional patterns on it with a river stone.

But the Fazekas family is not only making ceramic. They also teach pottery and exhibit free of charge creations of István and the museal collection of the old family pieces, some of them from the middle of the 18^th century.
In spite of all these they do not get any governmental or European Union support.

But for István is more important to keep up the family tradition. He loved ceramic since he was a little boy.

“The first memory from that I make pottery is when I was in kindergarden. My group was visiting the workshop of my father and everybody wanted me to show something on the potter’s wheel.”

But more seriously he went into pottery with 14-15. “Before I wanted to be archeologist. But I think it is quite close to what I am doing now.” For István his profession is not only about creating beautiful pieces of handcraft but studying the different epochs of black ceramics and learning from all of them. “Throught the old ceramics you can see how people lived in the past and what they were doing.”

With his profession István also likes to show the process of things. “In our world people forget that objects have a history and that it is a long process of work that even the most little ceramic is made. This is value for everything, not only pottery, but textils, painting or writing a book.”

But what is the future of the Fazekas family?

“Right now there is the 3 year old son of my sister . He starts to play around in the workshop”- István is saying with a smile.

“If I could teach my handcraft to somebody in the family, that would be my dream. But if my nephew wants to be potter, this has to be his own decision. Because a profession can only be really done with heart and with love.”