pottery class so far

[jinian]

Week 1: Beginner's luck? I had never touched this kind of clay or a wheel before, so I got to have the salutary experience of being decidedly behind the rest of the class, most of whom had at least taken an elective in high school or something and some of whom had just come out of a summer pottery class. I watched the teacher demonstrate centering the clay and throwing cylinders, and though I had a lot of trouble with centering there were a couple of perfect moments where everything worked just right. I made one cylinder, which would be a very large mug if I did that with it.

Week 2: Doom! The teacher demonstrated cylinder throwing again and showed us how to pull handles. I found it impossible to center anything and when I threw cylinders I invariably broke through the bottom. Argh. There was also a reverse vs. forward wheel rotation fiasco. Not a good class for me. I made nothing.

Week 3: Sick with the nasty virus that has now infected the entire lab in turn, and which still has me coughing in a helpless, alarming wheeze, I stayed the hell home like I wish my sick labmates had. I did mentally rehearse/meditate on being still, which is my problem -- if I'm pushing on clay, I tend to push on it with pretty constant pressure even if that takes varying amounts of force because it's off-center, and in the centering case that makes things worse. I am being all earth and mountainy unyielding now in my mind, and characterizing my usual thing as water; this works kind of. :)

Week 4: Cautious optimism. My stillness thoughts and watching the wheel to keep my hand steady (as hattifattener suggested) seemed to be helpful. Watching the instructor demo bowl throwing and trimming was too. I had somewhat less trouble centering the clay and still did pretty well at throwing once it was there. I had to trim the tops of things because they still came out a bit lopsided, but I am getting to be decent at that. And look, pots!



I have an ambition to make an African-violet pot (interior pot with unglazed area for water penetration sits in an enclosed reservoir), but there's a long, hazardous way to go before any of these pots will be finished. You trim clay off the pots (using the wheel again) when they're partly dry, then they can crack drying or the bisque firing can go wrong, then you glaze them and fire again. My goal for this class is now: make one piece of finished, useful pottery. We'll see if I manage. Feeling less sick is going to mean I can take more advantage of the open studio, though with classes in it Mon-Thurs evenings and Saturday midday it's still going to be a bit hard to schedule. Still one month to go!

Also the sky was beautiful down there last night:

Comments

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

I have found struggling through learning new handcrafts to be good for flexibility of approach in general. I *heart* the clay potness of your clay pots!