Ceramics on the Wheel
Since 2015, I've been making pottery on and off and it has clearly become the thing that really relaxes me outside of taking a hike alone in the woods. The year I started, I was feeling burnt out from staring at a screen all day and felt called to get away from electronics & to make something tangible. The more I mull it over, the more apparent it becomes why so many product designers moonlight in ceramics - there’s a very real, very meditative tension between comfort & reach.
I enrolled in a wheel class at the Callanwolde Fine Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia and got hooked immediately. I love the power and beauty that comes with throwing an unformed ball of clay onto a wheel head and exerting your will on it to create an object. I love the delicate balance between not enough and too much - the nearly imperceptible skill of knowing how to pull a form, center and cone, or intuitively knowing if the bottom is thick enough. I value the ability to sit down on the chair, close my eyes, and create something without even looking at it.
And while I’m proud of what I can do now, I’ve been thinking a lot about that first day. I always hope to recall the beginners mindset - the anticipation of learning something new, the arrogance of trying to excel at it immediately, the crushing humility of realizing that you don’t know anything, followed by the flare of drive and intensity to get better.
I spent three hours at the studio that first day and left with clay all over myself, all over the wheel and my shoes, but nothing tangible to show for it. Frustrated but determined to get better, I went in over the weekend and spent five hours practicing and practicing. I left having formed 12 bowls (below), most of which I’d be embarrassed by today but hey, they were all vessels of some type! I gave all of these first attempts away as gifts, and I sometimes wish I had some of these originals to reflect on.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about artistry and reach. I realized recently that I’ve spent the last six years learning to make round things. If it’s a bowl, or a plate, or a saucer, I can make it. But ask me to pull a handle, or make a spout, a lid, or create ornamental decoration and I go blank. I struggle in life with a sense of “optimizing time” - if I’m going to pay for studio time, I want to spend it making things I know I can give as gifts, or make things I know I can sell to make my money back.
I want to squeeze the most out of the few hours I have available to me, and I’m usually going to use glaze combinations that I know work, rather than run the risk of ruining a piece I spent so much time on already. There’s an entire other side to pottery - hand-building. But I eschew it purely because I don’t know that it’s worth the time trying something new and starting from scratch. I could venture into broadening my skill set to make more complex forms that are technically compelling and visually interesting, but…I could also just keep doing what I know how to do well.
More and more, I’m reflecting on what I hope to look back on in another six years and it’s definitely not playing it safe and making the same thing over, and over, and over again. I need to recall those beginning stages of trying something new and lean in to being comfortable with the discomfort.
