Hands On

I've been thinking about hands a lot recently.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe because mine have started to hurt more recently.  Maybe because I recognized a hand in a picture in a magazine this week.  Maybe because I took some pictures of my students hands while they were working during their last couple of lessons.  I'll share some of them in a bit.

This is a pot that I made years ago.  

Allen was still teaching at Gaston College at the time and offered to take a few of my pieces and raku fire them.  The finger prints in this glaze are his.  I love this piece because of them.  It's broken at the top, but I don't care.  I keep it because of the finger prints.

Those of you who have visited my studio know there are these crazy pieces of art on the wall above the door between the gallery and studio spaces.  They were class projects from when Allen taught at Ashbrook High School and are made up almost entirely of trash.  Students gathered things that were being thrown away, arranged them, and then spray painted them so that they were monochromatic.  A couple of those pieces have plaster casts of hands and one even has a face in it.  I love the hands though.  One pair is Allen's son Adam - at least that is what Adam has told me.  The other pair is most definitely Allen's.  I recognize them.  I watched them mold clay into beautiful pieces of art too many times to count.  When I look up at them, I am reminded of how many times Allen had to reach in a save something I was working on during my first lessons.  When I struggled, he could just fix it. It looked so easy when he did it too.  

From time to time over the past few months, I've found myself reaching in to save a piece that might otherwise not make it.  I try not to do too much of that because when I fix it, the student doesn't learn what to do.  I usually remember to ask permission first, but I almost always feel a little guilty that I took the easy way out.  It is so much easier to fix things myself than to try to explain in words what needs to happen.  It's like giving a calculus student the correct answer to a problem instead of helping them figure out what to do to solve the problem themselves. 

My pottery students continue to do well and I find that I enjoy teaching them.  I wasn't sure that I would.  I got so burned out on teaching the last few years that I worked, that I was not sure that I wanted to try to teach ANYTHING again.  But I'm really having fun!  Part of that is that they are neat people and I enjoy being around them.  Part of it is that I like sharing pottery.  After 28 years of teaching math and fighting that "I hate math" mentality day after day, it is refreshing to teach something that my students WANT to learn.  Now, before you get all concerned or offended, I did have have numerous students who enjoyed math over the years.  Some of them may even be reading this blog.  Maybe.  However, we all know that far more people go out of their way to share how much they hate math or how they just weren't good at it than will go on at length about much fun they had in their trig or calculus class.  

So, my pottery students....

Centering. Centering. Centering.

We all LOVE centering!

(Also, how do you have a nice manicure?)

Pull up...not out and no "ta-dahs".

For a bowl, out is ok.

NICE bowl, by the way.

While we are talking about hands, I have to share this - my dad made the March issue of Our State Magazine.

This picture is on page 77.  No, Daddy doesn't play fiddle.

There's an article about cool places to get coffee and/or doughnuts in North Carolina.  The spot in this photo is Tate Street Coffee in Greensboro.  Not only is it a cool coffee spot (no doughnuts that I can tell), but there's music too.  Judging by the picture, there must be at least one Guiness tap too.  The Thursday night Jazz Jam is a regular draw for music professors and students from UNC Greensboro and there's a great Irish music session on Sunday afternoons.  My dad plays the bodhran and is a regular on Sunday afternoons.  That's his right hand holding his tipper and left knee.  (The bodhran is an Irish drum.  Here's a link to more information so that you know I'm not making stuff up.)

Jeff and I just subscribed to Our State.  The March issue arrived on Friday and is the first one we've received.  I like coffee and doughnuts a lot, so I enjoyed the article. It started with Krispy Kreme in Winston-Salem which holds a special place in my heart.  The doughnuts are just better there than any other KK, but I digress.   When I got to this page, I thought, "Cool that Tate Street got included.  I really need to go get a coffee there sometime.  Hey wait a minute.  Is that Dad's hand?  Holy Cow!"  Actually I may have used a different word.  Showed the picture to Jeff who wasn't as sure I as I was.  Sent it to my sister Carol who also wasn't sure.  When Dad finally answered my text, he confirmed my suspicions.  Way cool.

Our State Magazine is a really good magazine.  We recommend it.  

Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time, I made a big pot.

Big as in over 25 pounds of clay not counting handles and lid.  

Melissa Kniceley and Hal Dedmond came over to my studio the last Wednesday of January and we had an absolute blast.  Melissa makes big pots like this all the time and agreed to show Hal and me the process.  The piece in the picture above is what I ended up with.  It's far from perfect, but I can stand it for my first ever effort on something this size. Hal and Melissa, both of whom are significantly more skilled and talented than am I, made really nice pieces that I can't wait to see finished.  

So, how does this work?  Lots of clay, some fire, several cookies, and lots of hours of work is how.  Note: cookies make everything better and should be a required ingredient to all big projects.

I started with about 5.5 or 6 pounds of clay for the bottom.  That's the biggest that I can comfortably center. Then Melissa showed me how to use a propane torch to dry the clay so that it would support the weight of the large clay coils.  We started with this small torch.  With the piece turning on the wheel, I kept the fire on the clay until it was smoking and a good leather hard.  

The next step is to roll out a big coil, score the top edge of the pot and the coil, add a little bit of water, and attach the soft clay to the leather hard pot.  In the picture above, Melissa is showing Hal how to attach the coil to his pot. 

Here's my piece with a coil attached.  Once the coil is firmly attached, then you pull the clay up extending the walls.  

This is what I had several coils later.  After pulling the clay up as far as it would go each time, I had to trim the rim to make it even.  Less trimming would probably be necessary if I could roll out a coil worth a darn.  I struggle with that, so I just trimmed off the uneven clay after each coil.

After trimming the rim, add fire.  As you can tell, after the first couple of coils, I switched from little fire to big fire.  Big fire was a little scary, but is AWESOME!!  Once I got the hang of it, I became much less concerned that I was going to ignite my hair and drying the clay moved along much faster.

Fire on the inside of the pot and the outside of the pot - all while the wheel is slowing turning.  I wish I had taken some video so you could hear the fire as well as see it.  So. Much. Fun. Holding the torch with one hand and operating my phone with the other hand was a little tough to do, so a video would have been so shaky that it would have given us all motion sickness.  Still shots are better.

Hal working the big fire and Melissa adding a coil.

Melissa working the big fire and Hal working on the shape of his pot.

More of same.  Aren't my friends photogenic?  And talented?  Seriously, I was a few steps behind all day because I wanted to watch them work.  I love to watch other potters do what they do.

Thanks to Melissa for taking photo.

Things that I learned:

1. I should have moved to the lower wheel before I added a lot of clay.  Instead, I moved what I was working on once it got so tall that I couldn't comfortably pull any higher.  It warped and I had to work hard to try to get it back roundish so that I could finish it. 
2. Getting wide is easier than getting narrow. My piece ended up a lot larger than I originally had in mind because I let it get too wide before I started working to bring it back in.  
3. I need a propane torch.  Little fire would be a very handy tool to have on hand on the regular.  Big fire is fun, but at this point, not necessary. Maybe.
4. I still suck at rolling coils. 
5. When adding handles the next day, remember that the clay is dryer than you are used to it being.  Score and slip BOTH ends of the handle (I usually can get away with only doing this to the top of the handle) and then wrap it up and let it dry slow.  I put three handles on this bad boy and so far, two of them have come loose at the bottom. The first one I fixed and the second one I'm still working on fixing.  Fingers crossed that I can reattach it.
6. I will need to do this again soon and try to correct all the rookie mistakes that I made.
7. After 8 hours of working on the same piece, I will hate everything about it.  True story.  It happened.  The next day I felt better though.  

If I can solve the problem of the unattaching handles, I will have to fire this big boy.  Oh boy.  Glazing is not going to be fun.  What was I thinking?