Fatima’s Glazes

Photo: Earl Wilcox / Unsplash
Fatima discovered early in her training that the wheel wasn’t her calling. What captivated her instead were the buckets of grey, chalky liquid that, after firing, emerged as deep blues, soft greens and warm, speckled browns. “It felt like a secret,” she says. “How could that dull colour become this?”
Glazing rewards exactly the qualities Fatima has in abundance: patience, consistency, and an almost scientific curiosity. She learned to mix glazes by weight, to test them on small tiles, to record every result. The reactive blue on our serving platters is a recipe she helped refine.
For Fatima, the work has brought more than wages. “I keep a notebook of my glazes,” she says. “It’s the first thing I’ve ever made that is truly mine.”