4 min read

5 THINGS I LEARNED IN A BEGINNER POTTERY CLASS

Trying something new and creative was a great way to kick off 2023! Here are 5 things I learned during the three-week long 'crash course' in pottery I took at Toronto's ClayArt Studio.

1. Pottery is a Workout!

No one told me that throwing pots was a full-body experience! From the hefty weight of the clay to the steady pressure needed to shape the vessels to the core strength used to operate the wheel while centring and pulling the pot, I was shocked by how much I felt it the next day. From my biceps to my back and core and especially my hands and wrists, I woke up the day after my first pottery class feeling like I'd used my muscles in a new way-- which I had!

2. Patience is a Virtue

In a world of instant gratification, pottery requires weeks of patience. A finished pot takes weeks, and there is no expediting it! The clay needs to dry between steps and fired in the kiln multiple times, in addition to the time each step takes you to manually accomplish. The pottery crash course I took was three classes over four weeks, and then another couple of weeks after that of waiting for the final kiln firing for the final pieces to be completed. There's something magical about knowing that I turned what started as a lump of clay into usable (if slightly misshapen bowls) with hard work and patience.

3. Mono-tasking is Freeing

Just like patience is an underrated virtue in our modern world, monotasking while offline and screen-free is something we rarely experience in our day-to-day life. Pottery requires your full focus and attention, you can't be scrolling or multitasking while shaping something on a pottery wheel, it requires both hands, full focus, and careful attention. There is something freeing about disconnecting from the outside world and immersing yourself into a creative task.

4. Practice Makes Progress

There's no doubt about it: making pottery is a skill, and not one you can hope to perfect in just a crash course. Treating it as a learning experience rather than focusing on the end result or trying to make something beautiful meant that I was really in tune with the little improvements I could see in each attempted pot. Getting a feel for the process and the clay and the tools was the goal, alongside having fun, and anything I made was a bonus. Letting go of self-expectations and just learning and enjoying was great and creative and a feeling I really want to seek out more.

5. The Basics of Making a Pot

Alongside these more nebulous realizations, I did of course learn the basics of making pottery! The studio I attended also offers longer, more in depth courses at various levels, so my crash course experience barely scratched the surface of the basics, but I learned enough to complete each stage and create four pieces ready to be fired.

It starts with centring the clay on the pottery wheel, which is exactly what it sounds like: getting the clay centered in the perfect middle of the wheel so that as the wheel spins and you shape it, it doesn't get wonky. Once centred, you open the clay up-- essentially taking it from a lump to a cup shape by tucking your fingers into the centre of it while it spins. Once the inside is hollowed out, you switch hands and 'pull' up the sides of the pot, making it thinner and taller and shaping it into the final shape you are looking for. This was the hardest part! Throughout everything on the wheel, you use both hands together, balancing them on each other for stability and using your body weight to stay in control of the clay. It's not easy!

Once happy with it on the wheel, you use a wire to separate it from the wheel and carefully detach it, and then it's time to wait. We left our pieces for a week until they were 'leather hard', slightly less fragile and ready to be trimmed.

Trimming takes place back on the wheel and is just what it sounds like: using a sharp tool to trim off the excess clay, especially along the bottom of the vessel, where it was attached to the wheel. To do this, you place the pot upside down in the centre of the wheel and hold it in place with clay, then take a sharp tool and, with the wheel spinning quickly, shave off the excess clay. This is tricky, take off too much and you'll end up with holes in your pot. It's also very therapeutic and maybe my favourite part of the process.

After more drying time and a short trip into the kiln, two weeks later we were back in the studio with the pots to glaze them. We used dip glaze, and I'm not sure what I expected but I think I was picturing more of a dye or a paint, which wasn't the case at all. The glaze becomes clear and glossy in the kiln, but when you are dipping the pottery it's just chalky liquid that doesn't stain and isn't quite the colour it'll be after firing. We learned a couple of different techniques for glazing with the dip glaze, but most involved quickly dipping our creations into the big vats.

And from there, into the kiln they go for the final time! The result is food safe, dishwasher safe, usable art, and I'm so excited to have learned how it's made and created it with my own two hands.