pottery 1

When I was asked to join a pottery class this winter, my yes was a full response to the prospect of hands in clay in the middle of January.
Spinning clay, no less.
I was under no delusion that I would create a beautiful piece of pottery ... though friends try to convince me that beautiful art would emerge.
No.
There may perhaps be a piece of useful, or interesting clay that takes shape, but I have seen enough of first attempts at pottery to understand that this is a long skill to learn.

The class is a wonderful assortment of people - most of us beginners, but not all.
A mother and daughter, a newly retired business woman, several university students ...

The classroom is smaller than I anticipated, with ten wheels close together around the outer rim of the room ...so that you sit knee to knee with people on either side.  

The clay is heavy. Each of us begins with one block of clay, and we cut off a small piece weighing about 450 gms.  The small weigh scale on the table confirmed measurements.

You do not cut with a knife, but with string that glides effortlessly through the dense block.

Clay is kneaded before it lands on the wheel ... but not like bread.  No quarter turns so that it is kneaded in all directions.  Always folding and kneading in the same direction.

And then you turn on the spinning thing  (making sure to have a bucket of warm water close at hand, the cutting string, and a few other utensils for trimming clay)

And then my mother's instructions about "adding enough flour to make a soft dough" become the clue for understanding everything else that happens.
For now science and any semblance of exactitude are nonsense.

The spinning wheel has concentric circles on it, so that you can see centre.
But putting the clay in the centre, and wrapping your hands around it
with the right amount of water is
pure instinct and feeling.
I could have sat there ALL DAY with my hands
wrapped around that lump of clay, with the wheel
spinning, with my eyes
closed trying to fight for centre

and it would have continued to wonk out slightly... off centre
 catapulting outward instead of settling in to the spin
 
the teacher came and said let me show you
and proceeded to wrap her hands around the clay
finding centre as quickly as I could take a breath
and began to shape the pot with her hands
sure and steady
elbows resting on her lap as an anchor
inviting the clay up into a small vessel

there. she said. do you like that? there's your first pot.

No.

How did my inner 2 year old emerge after just 1 hour in a pottery class.
I want to do it myself.
But I silenced my inner 2 year old.
The instructor said we'd have more fun and learn more quickly if we just kept making more vessels and the centering will come.

That is certainly the only vessel that happened on my wheel that afternoon.
the other attempts broke off at centre (hands too dry, spinning too fast),
or developed a strange wonk ... kind of like an unintentional gravy boat that was supposed to be circular but went off course and when I tried to follow that spout the whole thing collapsed on itself

or the spinning lump of clay simply cracked.
when I asked why (now I'm a 3 year old)
the instructor looked at me and said - the clay is too tired
it has collapsed and been pulled up too many times.

oh great.  can it revive?
sure.  put it onto the board and let it dry out a bit and rest, and next week it'll be ready to go again.
seriously.

Stay tuned for pottery 2