Early on I dabbled in iron-on patches, felt bible figures, and the occasional paper doll. As my skills progressed I moved on to collages, mix tapes and photoshoots. By highschool I was writing music, painting (most anything in my room---sorry everything was purple and green for a while there, Mom!) and completed our (Becky and my) 2-year Hart Cousins' motion picture, which was a smashing success featuring such renown talent as, Amy Grant, Twila Paris, Lisa (local TV anchor) and Wor-D.
By the time I was in college my endeavors stretched to include, sculpture, painting, writing and musical performances (playing guitar for hall worship night counts as "musical performance", right?). Now that I have moved into the realm of "adulthood" I have seized opporitunities, however fleeting they may be to paint, write, decorate/arrange, sew and now....drum roll please.... pottery.
My friend Emily's sister in law Trish has begun teaching pottery classes at her studio. My friend Alysse and I have been to 1 class and 1 practice session so far and LOVE it.
In our first class we learned how to "wedge" which is the opposite of "kneading" so my extensive trainging in bread making did not really come in handy that much. Then we learned about "centering" which they say is the hardest part to learn.
(it also makes your hands look old and hairy---ok that's not really me)
Centering is the art of making sure your clay is in the very center of the wheel so that when you are working with it it doesn't become lopsided. This took a lot of practice but I got the hang of it pretty easily--i liken this to waterskiing, it is not something you can really explain, you just have to keep doing it until you feel how you are supposed hold it so that it does what you want.
(again with the hairy arms)
Then we practiced making a couple things. They were supposed to be low dishes, to set a candle on or such. My clay decided it wanted to be a small vase....oh well. Here are pics from the first day...
We loved it so much we went back out on Saturday and "practiced". I was pretty happy with my little vase, tea light holder and my plate until the plate went "whoop" to the side when i took it off the wheel. sigh.
Hopefully the picutres will become more and more impressive as we get better. We are going to work with sculpture soon too. SO very excited about that.
3 comments:
Very Cool, they look so good!
Now all you need is to paint them all green or purple and glue amy grant pictures to the sides:)
Very fun stuff, you are a cute little potter. I want to come and pot too!
Pottery is pretty fun. Especially if you have a friend to do it with. I took a pottery class last year. I have a ton of bowls now :)
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