I love pottery and buy quite a bit of it, so naturally, I decided to take a beginning pottery class.
Within five minutes of being in class, we were given balls of clay and told to sit at a pottery wheel.
I was shocked. Wasn't this akin to throwing a kid into the deep end of the pool? What happened to coiling lumpy snakes of clay into a pot?
Before I could contemplate this further, I'd already learned my first lesson:
She who hesitates gets a manual kick wheel, instead of an electric one.
So, okay, I sit at my kick wheel, kicking away and wondering why I also bothered to sign up for that spinning class at the gym. I'm trying to "center" my clay, which as near as I can tell means smooshing it down in the middle of the wheel and pressing it a little so it doesn't move, but not so much that you make indentions in it.
My classmates swoop by this step pretty fast and I can see that there are already pots being formed on the wheels next to me.
I come to the conclusion that either:
a) I'm not very centered.
or
b) This is a lot harder than it looks.
Look at my first attempt, which the instructor graciously referred to as "organic."
Organic must be artistic shorthand for "can't hold water." I have a feeling that I might be using this word a lot to describe my work.
I'm told that my problem is that I must have let the walls of the pot get up too high and then I lost control.
Well, that makes sense to me. I've often lost control when making jewelry. Just the other day I lost control when I was making a bracelet and it turned into a necklace. Total bead pandemonium.
My second attempt is better and looks more like what my classmates have made. Something that could actually hold water. Or cat food, judging by the size and shape:
Deep down, I think this second piece is more useful, but not as interesting. And I'll take interesting over useful any day.
I have a feeling this mindset does not bode well for my future as a potter.