Pottery! Also known as ceramics.
In my last semester of college ever, I decided to try something new: pottery. My college has a craft center that offers everything from woodworking to weaving to cooking classes. My mom got into pottery recently and seeing what she made and how much she enjoyed it drove me to see what all the fuss was about!
This was such a great opportunity and I can't stress enough how great pottery is! So many steps! So many opportunities to be crafty! I loved pottery so much I looked up how much a wheel and kiln cost. It turns out they cost a lot. So I'm gonna stick with classes in other people's studios for a while. Which are also not cheap! They cost something crazy, like $400 for a 10-week course. But I'll probably shell out for it. Gotta keep my skills sharp.
Throwing on a wheel can be daunting at first (or forever. I'll keep you posted on when it stops being daunting), but you must stay confident! Confidence is key. You move the clay. The clay does not move you.
Even in this semester alone, which was the first time I ever touched a wheel, I can see how much I've improved. My early pieces are heavy and thick, whereas my later pots are thinner and more elegant. Not that elegant, but at least a little more elegant.
This is the first step: throwing. Here, everything is wet and mouldable and messy. Very fun. You can see how excited I am from my blotchy face.
After everything dries out a bit, it's into the kiln for the first firing! Then the pots are "bisqued." Like a soup.
The next step is glazing. You dip your bisqued pot into a liquid that's made up of tiny rocks (mainly iron). It looks very similar to paint. Depending on what color you want, you dip your pot into two or three different glazes. Then these go into the kiln one more time, where the glaze melts.
Ta Da! The final product, all shiny and beautiful. You may recognize some of these pots from my earlier "pre-glaze" photo. How they've grown. Well, they've technically shrunk. Pots shrink by about 30% throughout the whole firing process. This is sad, but I still like my slightly smaller pots.
Overall, this was such a fun experience for me. It's so fulfilling to see a bowl from wet, shapeless brown lump to solid, confident, shiny bowl ready for tea and/or soup.
To see a much more talented potter with very muscular arms in action, check out this guy, based out of Copenhagen. His videos are completely mesmerizing.
Sincerely,
Your Prudent Potter
