Throwing Pots

Mid morning Saturday, December 15th I stopped into Southwest Detroit's ceramic artist and potter's co-op, Ladybug Studios.  It's my reward after a very long search for a local, relaxed, equipped art studio that would let me get my hands back into clay.

Close to ten years since I last threw a pot! I didn't know if for the lymphedema my left arm could sustain the pressure required to center clay on a wheel. But it was the day of their monthly drop-in class ~ 10AM to 1PM kids of all ages and all abilities try their hand at pottery or hand-building. 

Ladybug's raison d'être is to make available to the greater Detroit community those resources and access to the art and creation of it. Public school budget cuts have brought results impacting this generation. Some have never seen clay, let alone made anything in it.

My jacket was off, apron on and co-op president Byram Nemela suggested I start right away.  So I sat down at the corner wheel, the one next to the two large bowls stacked with pre-wedged, carefully prepped balls of white clay. The medium set out like a bakers' dozen of small grapefruits in shadow waiting to be hand-peeled and eaten, looked almost like a prop set for a food photo shoot.

So I promptly picked one and set it next to the pail of water, the slip-soaked sponge and a small wooden tool laying on the front ledge of the wheel. I looked on the side of the low tech machine and turned the power switch to FWD.  I threw the small clay grapefruit hard onto the center of the bat and began sprinkling water to begin the process of centering.

Centering.  This is what I come for.  It takes everything I got to center a piece of clay on that bat.  I can't worry about something and center.  I can't chat and be social when I'm centering.  All I can do is clear my mind and focus on my posture.  Are my knees tight on the tub of the machine like riding an English saddle?  Are my forearms braced on my thighs?  Is my one hand steadying on the other?  And so on.

Right-handeds set the power switch on FWD, spinning the wheel counter-clockwise. But my fingers gauged the lump! What DID I do before?  Years ago an art instructor suggested in the work of throwing pots, I may be left-handed. Intuitive, emotional, patient.  It is my "yoga off the mat" ~ This is time I spend in my right-brain.  When all else in life is demanding, urgent, not adding up as my left-brain thinks it aught, it's time to get away, to get back in my right mind.  It's time to throw some pots - vases and bowls.