24 Mar, 2009
the end of family pottery class
Posted by andrea tomkins in: - Ottawa for kids|File under crafty|Oh! Things!
Awhile back I was musing aloud about our weekly family pottery class. I was feeling a little sorry for myself because my creativity seemed to have left me just as I signed us up for the class.
Tonight is the final class and I have to say, I’m kind of glad it’s ending.
Emma and Sarah have really enjoyed themselves. But I found it a struggle.
Early on I realized why. I expected my finished projects to improve after baking, much like when I bake bread. Bread starts out like looking like a lump of dough, but usually comes out of the oven looking nice. The loaf will rise and fill out, smoothing gaps and taking on a happy golden colour. But this doesn’t happen with clay. You get exactly what you put in (unless we’re talking about the glazing process, which is whole other ball of wax). I got over this delusion fairly quickly.
I liked the feeling of working with clay, sticking my fingers in there and rolling and squishing and tugging it into place. The girls were happy making whatever struck them, and their imaginations took them to wonderful creative places. They made a lot of fairy furniture, a hedgehog-shaped toothpick holder, pinch pots of all shapes and sizes … they were able to let go.
For me, looking at that hunk of clay was like staring at a blank screen and not knowing what to write.
The instructor was good. She saw the girls churning out knick-knack upon knick-knack (Sarah easily made a half-dozen things every class) and encouraged us to build a family project instead, something we could use, and be proud of. So the three of us made a big shallow serving bowl. It was fired last week so we’ll see how that turned out. But we have dozens of other little things which have no home. Right now they’re all displayed on our living room mantle. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with them. Build a shelf?
I do have a pretty cool sushi plate and soy sauce bowl.
At the end of almost every class I made myself a little mushroom (like the two pictured above). Those little things were the most satisfying projects I made. If I could make mushrooms all day long I would sign up again.
I’m trying to pin down my feelings about why I wasn’t able to enjoy myself and am not arriving at any satisfactory conclusions. Maybe it was because I expected to be good at it right off the bat. Maybe it was because I expected my projects to look perfect and was disappointed when they didn’t. That might be it.
