Something Worth Keeping, at Last

Yes indeed, today I am one unfired coiled pot the richer. It doesn't sound like much - but it definitely feels very good!

As I mentioned at the start of the semester, making a pot this way takes a lot of concentrated work. At the end of a solid two hours (and building upon my experience of the past few weeks) I had a pot only six or so inches high, and wide enough for my small fist to turn within it. To make a similarly-sized pot on a modern wheel would take me half the time most likely, and look better to boot; though in each case, it must be taken into account that I am quite a novice. It would be interesting to consider the time investment on such a project for a potter experienced in both methods - I have a feeling it could reflect on the way human attitudes towards time and material products change.

As a side note to this story of some success - I tried an alternate method as well today which ended up a definite failure. "All this time I have been building the pot from the bottom up," I thought to myself; "yet I have been tempted to turn it upside down quite often, to work on the lower edges, and my upper rim usually ends up very sloppy. What if I built the pot from the top down instead?"

It turns out that what happens when I build a pot by starting with the rim on the table and building up/in from there is complete confusion. Pretty soon I had resorted to flipping the thing over multiple times, smoothing the coils in everywhich direction, and giving up hope entirely of ever fitting an evenly domed base. The experiment still did me well, however, because it made me more confident in my original method. If I do not question my assumptions, even basic ones about which way to start something "makes the most sense," then what I can learn from these exercises would be very limited.

While my product isn't exactly impressive and most certainly will never end up in a textbook like those I am emulating, I can't help but feel proud of it. Not proud in the material sense (to be honest I've rather hidden it from everyone else at the pottery studio!) but proud in a more spiritual sense. While it's true I'm just puttering, and really have no clue what I'm doing, I still made a pot, still had fun, still learned something - and in my own way, felt that connection with the past that was the goal of this project all along.