Craftier and Craftier

Since the new year, Mira and Bill have been taking a night pottery class down at the Craft College. Before the class started, Bill was asking me what I thought that he should throw. Did I want bowls or mugs or something else? Having taken 2 years of clay,  most of it on the wheel,  and watched beginner class after class make monstrosities, my reply was "Anything. If you manage to throw anything half decent, I will be happy"

Well, after very little instruction (and many, many, many, youtube videos) Bill managed to make a number of very nice actually usable pieces of pottery.


Here are his three mugs. The one on the left even has fish relief on it. They were sculpted out of a slab of clay and detailed and then attached.

Here is one of his first bowls. It is about 5 inches across.

Here is one of his early vases. We will not see his first vase like thing. It is holding 5 pens and can be used to defend the house from intruders. It's a little thick. And heavy. And ugly (he agrees).

Here is a cereal bowl. Bill has also made a much, much, much, bigger bowl. Actually larger than any bowl that I have ever thrown. It is in the kiln being fired right now and will hopefully make an appearance soon. 

I think that Bill was rather taken aback by my early comment of "Don't expect too much from yourself" There is a steep learning curve when dealing with clay. Especially when working with clay on a wheel. He was determined that he would take command of the clay and show it who's boss, so to speak. And to show me that he would do just fine thankyouverymuch! And he did.