Dirty Hands + Making Pots = Good

Today, I started my third semester learning Pottery at the Munson Williams Proctor Arts Institute.  It felt really good to get my hands into the clay again.  I was afraid that after four or five months of not being in front of a pottery wheel, that I would have lost my chops.  Well, the good news is that it's as if I had never left.  I was able to do what I wanted with the clay, immediately.

Lest semester I did nothing but makes bowls.  Bowl, after bowl, after bowl.  Of course repetition is a great way to learn, and if you know me well, you probably have one of those bowls.  This semester I intend to make more bowls, and to learn a few techniques that allow you to close the form to a smaller diameter, so that I can eventually move toward classic forms like Vases, and really classic forms like Amphorae.

I have always loved pottery, and had wanted to learn to do it since I was in the sixth grade.  It took thirty years, but I finally got around to it.  Despite the fact that I enjoy modern technology, one of the things that I love about pottery, is that it is a technology that in thousands of years, has changed very little.  All you need is clay, and heat.  How beautiful and elegant is that?

Last year I was on the phone with a friend late one night.  He had called after midnight because he couldn't sleep, and apparently I was supposed to baby-sit him until he got tired.  I happened to be awake so it was really no big deal.  To entertain him we both got online and I gave him a tour of the MWPAI.  For years I had been telling him about the Independent Film Series that I attend there on Friday nights, and more recently, the Pottery Studio.  He was under the impression that because Utica in a small city, that I went to some backwater podunk theater to see films, and some tiny cellar studio to make pots.  He was quite surprised to see the photos of the facility, and I feel lucky to go there every week to learn, and to work.

Hopefully some day I'll get really good at this.


 (Pictured is the back of the Pottery Studio from the Courtyard looking into the Glazing Room, and below that, some of my pots.)