The Firing

Well, I did go back and with what seemed an endless summer of struggle and the total faith and enthusiasm of my tutor I began to make progress.

I spent time watching Michael on his wheel turning out perfect mugs, jugs and various other decorative pieces. He could produce a whole set of six pots, a milk jug and sugar bowl to my one rather clumsy lumpy mug. Still it was progress and I began to enjoy it.

After letting your pot dry to leather hard, you then turned and trimmed your pot and carefully took off excess clay with a special wire tool that was hand made. like most of the things in the pottery, including the foot wheel that I was using.

Like most things in the pottery studio, I learnt the hard way. I was beginning to find out that every stage of the pot’s progress was fraught with danger and disaster. You could destroy you hard earned pot at every stage. I took off too much and the pot developed a hole, I didn’t centre the pot on the wheel sufficiently so it wobbled and one side was thinner than the other. It took me ages and meanwhile a whole kitchen set was materialising over the otherside of the studio magically by the master. I did feel at times feel I could strangle him and the clock ticked on.

These leather-hard items were then left to dry and stacked on shelves around the windows. Each time I came back I found my pots seemed to manage to change and become dumpier and clumsier everytime I looked? This seemed to be the case through every stage, I would make an item and think, thats not bad, nice shape, good size etc. only to find when I returned the next day it had mysteriously changed and looked totally inadequate.

To be continued……