My plan to post all the stuff I made before class finished kind of fizzled out as you may have noticed. It’s hard not to be disheartened by the lack of a class and people making comments about education priorities like pottery was just an excuse for a middleclass social club. I agree that colleges need to be helping young people but community hobby classes aren’t a middleclass luxury – we had retired people, people with learning disabilities, and people who couldn’t work due to other health conditions who came, and it was an important opportunity for them to get out and spend time with people. One of the lovely things about pottery is that everyone can do it.
Anyway, enough politics. I’ve been inspired to return by ‘Making Mondays’. It originated with this post by Natalie of the Yarn Yard, although I heard about it through my knitting friends. She writes;
We all make things. We knit. We sew. We bake. We write. We paint. We make a home for ourselves and the people we love.
So I thought that we could, collectively, make Mondays our day for blogging about it.
So my plan is to (attempt to) post every Monday, we’ll see how it goes!
Today’s make is these thrown bowls, which perfectly illustrate one of the things I love about pottery – it can be pretty and practical! They are stoneware clay decorated with velvet underglazes and then clear glazed, and one of them has already graced my table holding homemade apple sauce when my partner & I had guests to dinner a few weeks ago.
Handpainted thrown stoneware bowls
They are beautiful! And useful. Perfect.
If you leave a link to this post over at Natalie’s blog, she collates them into a list for other people to check out.
Thanks Ros
I’ve just done that very thing!
Those are lovely! I’m so sorry your classes have been cancelled, and I do hope some other solution turns up (though I have no idea what it might be).
I’m going to email the woman we had as a tutor when our regular teacher was off sick. She used to do classes in her workshop across town so I’m hoping I can get in there.
And thanks, I was pleased with them.
I love these. I hope you get to keep doing your art.
Me too, on both counts
That’s the drawback with something like pottery, it’s not easy to do at home, and pretty impossible if you’re already short of space and don’t have anywhere to set up a workshop. Hopefully I’ll find a new class in the autumn.
Nice pots
I love working with clay. My Dad started pottery at evening classes and eventually set up in his double garage where he happily pottered for quite a few years. I love using the things he made me.
Thanks! If I had somewhere to set up I’d be very tempted to do just that. Oh well, one day I’ll have to space.
Being able to use the things you or a loved one have made every day is one of the joys of pottery, I think. And I think you’ve inspired me to share a different make for today’s today with that comment
[...] today, from inspiration to finished product(s) but then I read a comment left by Sharon on my first Making Mondays post about how she loves using the pots her Dad has made for her, and remembered something Ros said in [...]