How I got into ceramics
It wasn't love at first touch and I still find it frustrating (but worth it)
I’ve written about this on my About page, but I thought it was worth sharing more, as it’s a big part of why ceramics is important to me.
It was my friend’s idea to sign up for a ceramics course. We started talking about it in December 2021, but everyone had the same idea for the new year. The January course we wanted was booked up and we had to wait until April 2022 to start.
A lot happened in those few months in between. I hadn’t been myself throughout that winter. I was anxious, exhausted, and burnt out, trying much too hard to prove myself in a role that didn’t fit me. I was barely looking after myself. I lived alone and felt very isolated. I woke up late on the weekends, feeling out of sync and jet-lagged, almost missing the few precious hours of winter light.
I was living in East Finchley, a very nice area of London, but it took me weeks after I moved in to explore the park just a few minutes down the road. And then I only realised the park led directly into Highgate Woods months afterwards.
When I finally left the job, the anxiety followed me, but I was making a big effort to feel better. I was going for runs in Highgate Wood, listening to podcasts and audiobooks. (I listened to pretty much the complete works of Marian Keyes during this period - she’s known for being funny, but she’s also a serious writer, informed by her experiences of addiction and depression. Again, Rachel is a fantastic book.)
I was still overthinking anything and everything in my head, but I had surfaced from the exhaustion. I was full of a sudden energy, more willing to try new things. The picture frame through which I saw the world had widened and I saw light and possibility again, no longer seeing the darkness at the edges hemming life in.
I was at my most receptive in terms of starting a new hobby.
The first lesson
We spent the first lesson on pinch pots, one of the most basic and ancient techniques. You take a ball of soft clay, feel the weight of it in your palm and start cupping and moulding it into the shape you want. You push your thumb or fingers inside to create an opening, then pinch around it to make the gap wider. You can push the clay out far enough to create a thin bowl, or keep the walls thick to make it a smaller cup.
It wasn’t an instant love affair; it didn’t all fall into place; I still find it very frustrating.
In that first lesson, I looked at other people’s work rather than concentrating on mine. I had no idea what to do - the penny hadn’t dropped that it was up to me; I could make whatever kind of bowl or cup I wanted, simple or more elaborate. I tried to be too ambitious, pulling at the clay in every direction, bending and distorting it.
By the time it had dried, there were holes and cracks. One of my classmates told me to keep it as a memento - the first piece I had created with clay, but I was too self-critical and frustrated with myself, so I put it back in the bucket for it to be recycled.
A few lessons on
I started enjoying ceramics a lot more after a few lessons when we got to work on handbuilding vases. Handbuilding is any technique in which you build objects with your hands as opposed to a wheel (including pinching, coiling, and slab building.)
I enjoyed playing with the surface decoration the most - when I rolled out the clay, I put some lace on it and then painted over it, creating a lace effect.
I spent way too long on that vase while everyone else moved on to different objects, but it’s still one of my favourite pieces. When I went to pick it up, I was surprised at how well it had turned out. It’s not perfect - the glaze is too thick in parts and the shape is not symmetrical - but, actually, I really like it.
One of the things that I have found so nice about ceramics classes is how invested everyone gets in their work - and, also, how much people care about one another’s projects. I’ve always been in courses where people swap tips, compliment one another’s work, and appreciate the care that has gone into them.
It’s a lengthy process to finish a piece of work, but it often pays off and you can see the effort that has gone into them in the final piece.
I continue to find ceramics difficult, and things often don’t turn out as planned, but sometimes I have found that my pieces look different but better.
It has helped me move away from perfectionism, because the colours that I put on rarely turn out how I expected, but I’ve learnt to like them even more because of that.
I’m still very much a beginner. I’m not sure how to move on to the next stage or what that would look like for me. But it has definitely added something to my life.
I find myself daydreaming about what colours I should put on the clay. I have lost myself in hours of painting individual petals on a sunflower.
For me, the feeling of immersing myself in ceramics is something like standing in front of the sea and watching the landscape unfurl endlessly, or sensing the tiredness in my legs after a long run but feeling the exhilaration to carry on.