After the long cold winter, I realized I had not left my apartment (except for work) for several weeks. -Yes, I even have my groceries delivered.- So to get myself out and establish a non-work goal, I joined a pottery class. We focused on wheel throwing instruction and I was able to complete two bowls and a vase. The rest of the attempted masterpieces were broken at various stages of their creation. Only one of the days was spent on hand building. I found this much easier. If you messed up, you just moved the clay strip to the right place. In wheel throwing, if you mess up your piece collapses and goes in the scrap pile. Then you get to start all over with another lump of clay; all your hard work up to that point is scraped.
Technically the class session is over, but since I was sick and missed so many classes, I have been allowed to come back and finish my work. This weekend I picked up my now glazed hand built basket. It looks like a five year old made it, but for some reason I love it and am so proud of it. The bottom half was supposed to be turquoise but for some reason the glaze didn't cover the whole surface but ran and pooled in some places. I was sad about this for a minute and then I decided to get over it and love the basket anyway. I'll ask my instructor why this happened and then maybe I can avoid it next time. (Just like how the second time I trimmed a vase it didn't shoot off the spinning wheel and smash into a blob.)
