It all began with a small Chinese teapot and an awakened desire from childhood - Ana and Nebojša Jasikovac opened the first pottery workshop in Niksic if we exclude the one from the Župa Monastery.
They say that they decided to see how long their "playing" with clay will last because Ana says that "clay is an unlimited fantasy, the space that you can shape for infinity."
"When I was little, my mother received a teapot from China, which was a nice shape with nice details. Even then, I thought if I could do something like that. But, as a man is not determined by his life but the circumstances and everything happening around him, my life went the other way, and the ceramics remained only a desire. And so, until the conditions were created. We made a green-house, started to grow herbs, I started, as a hobby, to collect pots and remembered my childhood wish. I figured why we would not make the pots to keep the plants in," says Nebojsa, an unemployed professor of history and geography. His wife, then also unemployed, immediately developed a business idea and waited for the right moment for its realization.
"I completed international relations and it is a little harder to keep a job if you are in the phase of starting a family. Whenever I went to a consultant at the Labor Bureau, I would say that we have a business idea for starting a pottery business together with the production of ornamental and herbal plants, that we are interested in this, and that we have the conditions. After the projects of the Union of Employers' Union 'Youth are the Future of Montenegro' and UNDP, the Association of Business Women, 'Enhanced in Business', I became more prepared and the idea developed further. In December 2017, the counselor invited me and said that there are unallocated loans and if I was interested, to call her the next morning. Since we were both unemployed, we were not keen on the idea of taking a credit loan. But my mother, who has been an accountant for 35 years, kicked us and told us that we have to take it because it makes sense," Ana said, who found a job in the meantime.
The firm "Herbs and Clay" was opened in February last year and we decided on the English name because the "unique handmade items are much more appreciated outside the region".
"We make pots, cups, ashtrays, bowls, trays... We need to master the technique of making cocktail glasses and jewelery. Ceramic jewelery is something extraordinary because the paint is made at high temperatures, blends with the material and is safe and durable. I am especially thrilled with soap dishes and even more when you put a handmade soap on them," says Ana.
They did not know anything about pottery until last year. They have been learning hard, although for that job, you can never say that you've learned everything. Ana admits that Nebojsa is a better student and that he is mostly stationed at the pottery wheel, while she is in charge of the final part of the work and aesthetics, decorations.
"First, we got the wheel, then the stove. As soon as the wheel arrived, I sat down to try it. It is true that this was not suitable because the stove had not been purchased yet, but I had to. I place a piece of clay, give it a spin and it starts to form a shape.. When you work, you hold a bucket beside you and put everything that is not good in it to reuse it. At the beginning I filled the bucket with 25 kg pot and later it was much better," Nebojsa said.
He felt most proud when he was doing an enclosed form, and Ana when they baked the first piece.
"It takes a long tie to get a ceramic item. You first create an object that needs to be dried, in the summer for a few days, in the winter for a few weeks. Then it is baked, at a temperature of 800 to 850 degrees. Then it is colored with pigments, or it is glazed and baked again, and the temperature depends on the glaze and color, and it is 1050 or 1250 degrees. If an erroneous step is taken in the whole process, you may find, after eight to nine hours of baking, when you open the furnace, there is only debris."
The small pottery workshop also has a greenhouse.
"In addition to spices and aromatic herbs, there are also succulent plants. We have a garden with vegetables for our needs, and there is always a surplus for sale. As these are non-chemically treated vegetables and herbs, it is not a problem to find a market to sell them."
Text by Svetlana Mandic, on January 20th, 2019, read more at Vijesti
