Dinah Molefe was born in 1927. Molefe worked as a potter at Rorke's Drift between 1969 and 1983. She learnt to make traditional pots at home, before she went to the ELC Art and Craft Centre, Rorke’s Drift. Like Elizabeth Mbatha (q.v.) she trained as a potter in the Ceramic Workshop, entering the workshop in 1967.
Her work was exhibited at the Durban Art Gallery in 1970 on the exhibition, Sculpture and Ceramics from the ELC Art and Craft Centre, Rorke’s Drift and it was acquired by that Gallery.
She began with traditional geometric decoration seen in Zulu woven basketry and beadwork and she used oxides, glazes and applied clay coils to decorate her hand-built pots. For over twenty years she unobtrusively produced some of the most original and creative studio pots. She used the restricted Rorke’s Drift palette of brown, ochres and yellow, blue and black in her pots.
Decoration began with the application of clay coils, dots or texture in a basic repeat pattern. She, like members of the her family (her daughter, Loviniah and relatives, Ivy and Lephina), was of Sotho origin, where there is a heritage of beer-pottery and beadwork made by women.
Exhibitions:
1970: DAM (Sculpture and Ceramics from Rorke's Drift).
1974: Florence, Italy (38th International Arts and Crafts Fair).
Awards:
1974: Third Brickor Ceramic Art Competition.
Collections:
DAM; KC; Rorke's Drift.