AT THE POTTERY STUDIO- DAY 1

AT THE POTTERY STUDIO-  DAY 1

I start my log at a Pottery Studio, this space is home to clay enthusiasts who come seeking varied needs like, alone time, creative experience, and personal mastery. Unlike many other art forms making on the Wheel is process-driven, it calls for a lot of preparation, both of the medium and the maker. 

1) The clay is prepared and wedged where it is made supple to ensure that no air bubbles are trapped. This is a long drawn, back-breaking process. 
2) The clay is centered on the Wheel to ensure that the form is built-in uniform shapes. This requires tonnes of practice and you don't move further unless you center your clay!
3) The Wheel speed is set differently at varied phases.
4) The clay is opened.
5). The clay is pulled into shape. 
6) The form is cut out from the Wheel.

At all times there are many instructions to remember like keeping one's hands and the clay moist, keeping hands interconnected, supporting the arm to keep the movement steady, relaxing the body to ensure a free flow of movement, using varied parts of one's hands to provide pressure to different parts of the clay, moving with the rhythm of the Wheel, breathing in tandem with the movement, switching between left arm and right arm. A great amount of bodily awareness is called for.  

In this sense-making on the Wheel is diametrically opposing to what varied other creative processes offer in terms of freedom of method.  On the Wheel, the method is the key to creating thereby causing much grief and frustration to learners who are believers of freedom in creative learning. 

This is the reason I chose a clay studio as a space for my study. Wheel throwing exudes an equal measure of labor, frustration, rigor, and exhilaration, unlike free-flow art forms.  I feel this space will add new dimensions to my study. For mastery in Wheel, throwing is ONLY possible on repetition, practice, and technique building. In that sense pottery is a science! But in the midst of all this technique-driven making, ample freedom, creativity, meditative relaxation is felt! How does this happen? What is it about working with our hands that us that even process-driven, frustrating failures become nirvana? 

Documentation: Video interview, Photographs, Notes
Methodology: Mixtape: Observe & Engage