Ceramics

Open stoneware vessel lined with porcelain and stoneware teeth.

In college, I made the odd choice to take two ceramics courses at the same time. The same professor taught them, Andrew Snyder (I've also linked his website and social media below). Both of them met on the same days, one right after another. The first was a hand-building course, and the second was focused on the potter's wheel; two very different ways of construction. I would show up to the first class at 3:00 pm, have dinner during the brief break, and then get back to work with a whole separate group of artists. I would make it home well after dark and well past my geriatric bedtime. In-class time totaled to about twelve hours a week, but if you've ever worked with two ceramics course loads, twelve hours wasn't going to cut it. I was in the studio nearly every day, checking on pieces that were drying and constantly making new ones. I lived and breathed (and probably ate quite a bit of) clay. Up until that point in my college career, I had never been so dedicated, exhausted, and satisfied.

The most common clay we worked with was stoneware but gradually, introduced earthenware and porcelain. Compared to stoneware, earthenware (which is what Terracotta pots are made from) felt like you were molding warm butter. Porcelain felt expensive, and maybe a bit more like rubber than the other clay. At one point, I was working with "wild clay" that I had harvested and processed myself. Turns out, it was just mud. Andrew walked over at one point to see how it was going, and I responded with "This is soil, dude". The best thing I could make with it was a dinky little mug, which I promptly gave away.

There, of course, was the initial learning curve, but once your body knows what to do, it does it. When you dedicate at least 20 hours a week to ceramics, something happens to you. I have always preferred working on the wheel to hand building, even though they both have their place and functions. But throwing on the wheel was a meditative experience for me. It is a physical experience; it makes you sore if you're unused to it. You use your entire body to brace yourself against the centrifugal force of the moving clay, you can feel it stretch and form under your hands. Something transfers from your hands into the clay; you're having a conversation with it.

The more and more I threw, the more I viewed the clay as a separate energy, one that I would approach like I would another person. You have a silent conversation every time you touch it. When you're in the zone and all the pieces are falling into place, it feels like you're dancing with it. You may have heard of a "flow state" before; this is when you are so focused on what you're doing that time passes without your notice. You forget to eat or even feel hungry. You don't go to the bathroom or drink water. You are 100% engaged in what you're doing. Everything else falls away and you're free. That's what throwing on the wheel felt like. I've always lived my life in my mind; I'm always in my head, thoughts whirling around faster than I can process them sometimes. But when I was throwing, my mind was completely silent. I was my body only. I was my arm reaching into the water bucket for my sponge, my fingertips pulling the clay upward slowly but firmly. I always held the tip of my tongue lightly pinched between my front teeth when executing a tricky pull, every cell in my body holding its breath in anticipation. I would get home and feel like I had been in deep meditation for hours, unwillingly coming back to myself. I've chased that feeling ever since.

Stoneware teapot

Andrew emphasized quantity in the potter's wheel class. It is not a question of quantity vs. quality. It was always that quantity inevitably leads to quality. The more mugs, bowls, and pitchers you make, the more likely you will end up with something worth keeping. The potter who makes 1,00 crappy mugs will always be better than the potter who tries to make one perfect one. The amount of handles I made, so many damn handles. So that's what I did, I made as much as I could. And now I have multiple repurposed milk crates stacked in my room full of ceramics, with absolutely no more shelf space for any of it.

There's something special that happens when you successfully create a piece of pottery. When you finish a painting, you admire it for a while, maybe sell it or hang it up somewhere. And then it becomes part of the decor, blending in with everything else. At least for me, it slowly loses that special magic that happens when you make something. That sense of pride and joy that your hands made something, something that takes up space, something that wasn't there before. But pottery can have multiple functions. There's functionality (the practical use of the object) and aesthetics (how it looks). When you're looking to create a functional piece that looks good, you have to negotiate your ratios. You have to know what your ultimate goal is when approaching a project. Are you willing to give up some functionality for the aesthetics? Or do you value the functionality above how it looks?

You can reignite that pride every time you use something you made, or when you gift someone a piece and they love using it. That's special. I get that warm fuzzy feeling when someone uses a mug I made them. Mugs are present during special times in our days, whether it's a morning cup of coffee or an evening cup of tea. There's comfort and intimacy during those times. And they chose the mug you made. The mug that will inevitably make them think of you, and how you made it and gave it to them. Pottery is so much more than just a bowl or a mug. At least it is to me.

Please go check out Andrew Snyder's work at his website: Andrew J Snyder and his Instagram account: Andrew Snyder (@andrew_j_snyder) • Instagram photos and videos

Check out the ceramic gallery on our "Art Gallery" page linked here.

Thank you for reading!