A potter's soul…

After our first attempts on the potter’s wheel, Sonia and I decided that what you create on the wheel is a direct link to your inner person. It is kind of like reading tealeaves or other random ways of explaining the unexplainable. We had a great time, although we were both a little less than successfull. I wish that I would have had my camera to take pictures of what our efforts produced, but I left it at home, so my words and your imaginations will have to create the pictures. Sonia got to go to the wheel first. It all starts out well enough. You have to make the clay rise and then you push it down, and rise, push it down. This is what are instructor refers to as centering the clay...She also mentioned that this is a very important part of the process, and both Sonia and I are at a loss on how you actually tell if it is centered...So after a while of trying to make it rise and trying to push it down we tire and began to form the pot. You are supposed to have a flat surface and put your thumb in it leaving a good amount on the bottom, but both Sonia and I had a hole started for us by our rising and falling attempts so we just went with it. Sonia produced two flat pots, which later were noticed a picture on the wall of a famous potter who made flat pots very similar to Sonia's ( he must have been a beginner too.) Sonia's creations were actually quite interesting. The edges were thick with a swirl in the base. If she had kept them she could have begun a dinner plate collection, but the clay went into the recycling. It was quite unique and unexpected. We definitely couldn't replicate what we were making, everything was an out of control accident. My pot actually started looking a little like a pot. It was kind of rounded and the top of it started falling in so I began to pull it out, like I thought the instructor had shown us. As I did that the top thinned rather quickly and the entire rim collapsed outward like a flower opening up... I struggled to pull it back together, clay going in several directions, but In the end my pot turned into a kind of mushroom shape...So, I time was winding down and I decided my creation was heading for the recycling, far from perfection...And the instructor told me I ought to try and salvage a little pot out of it...So I did. In the end I made a birthday candle holder or a bud vase...Depending on your taste. It is maybe 3 inches tall with a hole the diameter of my pinky, and a twist in it...Alll unintentional, but at least I will have asouvenirr from my first attempt on the wheel. So if the bud vase/candle holder becomes yours for Christmas...You should treasure it and consider it a window to my soul!