I don‘t remember exactly how I found her. I don’t even remember her name. I just know that she lived close enough to me in my neighborhood that I could ride my bike to her house and my mom was willing to pay for the weekly fee that would allow me to create shiny green frogs, whimsical Christmas trees and all other manner of delightful ceramics. Her shop was in her garage. All of us girls would gather around the tables packed into that space to spend a few hours each week creating. I cannot even remember how many years I spent attending these classes. What I am certain of is that this was the genesis of my life long love affair with clay.
At the time I was only vaguely aware that the perfectly molded items were made of clay. I loved cleaning off the edges left by the molds, painting vivid colors onto the greenware, glazing and firing them to a shiny perfection. It was only much later in life that I realized the hobby I had loved as a child only brushed the surface of a deep tradition of pottery that stretched back quite literally to the start of human ingenuity.
I sought out a pottery class at some point in my mid-thirties. It was a studio in Houston that offered a class, one night a week for a few hours over 5 or 6 weeks. It was a carefully constructed class designed to give you the basics of hand-building and throwing. And it was fantastic. The 6 weeks ended and I planned to continue on getting to know these new and amazing techniques. Unfortunately life intervened. I traveled a lot for work, got married, had my daughter and before you know it 12 years had passed and I had not picked up a lump of clay in all that time.
Although I still dabbled occasionally with painting greenware or bisque at local shops, it was not entirely satisfying. I knew that there was this whole field of possibility available, but I did not know how to explore it. Finally in December of 2022 I started to look at pottery courses offered by the local community colleges. I wanted to learn how to really work with clay. It was a huge commitment, essentially a college level course complete with requisite time commitment. The idea of fitting this in with work and all the things I needed to do for my daughter was daunting. In the end though I realized, there is never a good time and would likely never a better one than now. I enrolled and jumped right in.
Whatever notions I had of what a “college level” course in ceramics would entail, it quickly dissolved. I had a vague assumption it would be something like the carefully constructed few hours I spent with the studio course in Houston. That course was designed to help you successfully create a few complete pieces. This course was not that.
My professor was clearly a deeply experienced potter, as evidenced by his lightening fast instructions complete with demonstration that made whatever technique we were tasked with seem absurdly simple. Here then was the challenge - you were then left to you own devices. Attend class. Don’t attend class. Build. Don’t build. It was completely up to you. The professor gave very detailed instructions, most of which included the lofty goal of hand building pieces as least 12” in height. I was vaguely reminded of the department store supervisor in Elf insisting on “6 inch ribbon curls!”
It seems kind of impossible, but it worked. I asked a LOT of questions. My classmates were crucial to this process, as were the more experienced potters in the studio taking advanced courses.
I learned. I succeeded most of the time. I failed sometimes. This included a monstrous piece my husband dubbed the “Jesus Sandal”. It really did look like a gigantic biblical flip flop. But in the end I learned more in 4 months than I ever thought possible. As I neared the end of the semester, I began to understand that I truly did not want to stop this time. I do not want to wait 12 more years to continue this journey. That was when I decided to turn my work-out room into a pottery studio.
I cannot draw. I am not a painter. I can take a lump of clay and turn it into something special. This blog is my attempt to share this journey with others who might be thinking about starting their own home studio - whether it be for pottery or painting or drawing or craft. Hopefully my journey will inspire and support someone else to take the leap.
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