Pottery

The hardest part of writing, for me, seems to be finding a topic. So, I've decided to just pick a topic, sit my ass down and write about it.

Started this pottery class last week. Last night was the second class. I've never done pottery before, you know, with a pottery wheel and all. I was a little apprehensive at first, trying something new. Well, half of me was apprehensive. The other half of me, or maybe three-quarters (I have a hard time judging quantities), couldn't wait to do something I've never done before. And, admittedly, I wasn't about to jump out of a plane or anything. But still, I didn't want to be the one person in the class to have my lump of clay fling itself toward the fluorescent lighting overhead and land on someone's face.

It takes about an hour, right after work, to drive to Saratoga. The class starts at six thirty. The first night, the fog was so thick, we could barely see the white line on the side of the road. Got there about fifteen minutes late. But they hadn't gotten started yet, so we didn't miss anything.

We, by the way, are Chris and I, recently reunited old married couple (ten years).

There were three other people in the class, all women. I was under the impression we'd all be starting out at the same level, but the other three seemed to have taken classes before this one. I felt like the new kid. Tried to get past that feeling, as that can really affect my enjoyment of something, especially something I've never tried before.

The first thing Doug, the half Warren Beatty/half John Ritter pottery instructor, first demonstrated was wedging. This is where you mercilessly squish the crap out of a lump of clay for some undetermined amount of time, in an attempt to make it look like Donald Duck. Well, I have some kind of mental block about this wedging business. Every time we do it, I watch the other people, who are standing right next to me, and yet, I always turn the clay in the wrong direction. Hopefully, in the third week, I'll get it right without having to be corrected. It's getting embarrassing.

At the point when you don’t think your wrists can handle wedging another second, and you ask how long you have to do this, the answer is always the same. Do it another thirty times. So, if you ever find yourself wedging a lump of clay and you’re wondering how long you need to do it, that’s when you do it another thirty times.

After wedging, we split the lump in two with a wiry gadget. It’s really a wire stretched between two small rods of wood, to hold onto. Looks like a cat toy. After the clay’s split, you roll the two halves into balls and you’re ready. Well, you’re ready after you’ve gathered your bucket of water, funky little pottery tools with weird names (every hobby, it seems, once you get deeper into it, seems to have its own funky little names for things), and sponge. For instance, the round, flat thing that sits on the pottery wheel (See? Did you even know something goes “on top” of the pottery wheel? I didn’t.) is called a bat. I don’t know why. It doesn’t look like a bat. And just so you know… the sponge is called a sponge.

Now it’s time to clean your bat. When I first heard this, I thought for sure it would involve the local animal control team, thick gloves and rabies test kit. Wrong again. You turn on your wheel, typically with a foot pedal. I have a heavy foot when it comes to pedals, and this tendency brings me dangerously close to the “clay face” situation described earlier.

Once the wheel’s turning, you wipe your bat with the sponge, until you’ve cleaned all the old clay off it. Wait for it to dry and then slap (literally, with a loud slap) your lump of clay as close to the middle as possible. This procedure seems to often be accompanied, for beginners at least, with the word, “shit” – which here means (for all you Lemony Snicket fans), “Damn, it’s not anywhere near the middle.” Start the wheel going slowly, very slowly, and then squish your clay into your bat, until you’re sure it’s good and stuck. I am quite proficient at this step. You could say, I am an expert at getting my clay good and stuck. I have mastered this. I am very proud.

Now, having mastered something so involved, and on my very first day, you might think I’d just pack it in and be happy with all I’ve learned. But no, I pushed on! (I often surprise myself in this way.)

At this point, I soak the lump with water, using my handy little sponge, wet my hands, and hit the pedal. Full speed, baby! Brown water everywhere! Whoo hoo! What a rush!

Okay, it’s exciting, but it’s not that exciting. This next part is exciting.

Now’s the time when you really get into the good stuff. You’ve got this lump of clay spinning around in front of you. You’re pushed all the way forward so the wheel is right between your legs and you’re leaning way over the thing. This next part is kind of one-part yoga, one-part wrestling, one-part making bread. You’ve got to lean your left elbow on some stationary part of you, like your leg or your hip or something, and you butt the palm and heel of your left hand up against the lump. Your right hand stays in contact with your left, usually with your thumbs linked, and you wrap your right palm around the other side of the clay. With your left palm pushing, really your body pushing and using your left arm as a tool, you squeeze the lump by squeezing your palms together. Magically it seems, the lump of clay straightens and rises in your hands. Then you move your right palm so you’re pushing at it diagonally from the top and down into the wheel, and the clay (magically again, of course) falls back down to a round mound, which sometimes resembles boobs. Well, one boob, anyway. You do this, like, three times. I do it more, ‘cause it’s fun. And water. LOTS of water. My big mistake at the beginning was to let my left palm get too dry and start rubbing the clay instead of letting the clay slide past it. Then the clay wobbles and gets all crooked and that’s just bad. On your way to “face clay.”

So, you’ve done this up and down thing, which, by the way, is called coning up and coning down. (More funky terminology) And then you have to decide what you want to make. Or, like me, you could not really decide and see what happens. I like this better. Especially since I’m new at this and don’t really know what different things will do to the clay.

The first night, we practiced cylinders. You know, that’s pretty much self-explanatory. You try your hardest to make something that looks like a dog food can. It’s harder than it sounds. The clay seems to want to just spread out. Your job is to make it stay upright and straight. I made one cylinder, although it is kind of short. But it’s relatively straight, and I received sufficient praise from Doug and the other students.

Armed with this praise and newly found expert skill in pottery, I slapped the second lump onto my freshly cleaned bat. Slathered on some water, cone up, cone down, cone up, cone down, stuck my thumb in the middle to make the hole, checked the depth, blah, blah, blah, moving right along, gosh this pottery stuff is easy! Okay, nice lump of clay, good hole, maybe a little bit wobbly. Nothing to worry about, I say to myself with complete and utter confidence. Then I stick my right middle finger down into the hole, to pull the wall closer to my left palm, in an effort to widen the hole and WHOA! What the hell happened? Hey, Doug, look… I’ve created a miniature version of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I’m a freakin’ pottery genius!

Another thing I’ve recently learned about writing. I don’t need to tell the whole story all at once.