ceramic pieces made on the wheel

Hi

As promised, here's some photos of the ceramic pieces I made on the wheel in the term just gone. I did ceramics last year too, but just hand building, not the wheel. I did have a go on the wheel, but it was really hard! And I was having way too much fun making things by hand to stop, slow down and practise. This year though, I wanted to have a proper go at it. 

I was really nervous when I started that I would be awful at it. Like I expected everyone to be awful at it first, but I was afraid everyone else would pick it up and I wouldn't, that I would be the only person in the class not going anywhere. Weird old fear I guess. While it was pretty hard to get the hang of it, I figured out soon enough that it wasn't impossible. And actually it was fun. It's a really short course, so there isn't time to really practise and get right into it, but it was enough time to get a little bit better! I really liked what I made in the end. It was very satisfying to learn something new, something that had frustrated me before.

Last year I did a million experiments with glazes too, but this term I kept it really simple and only used glazes I knew would work, and tried to make a few of the pieces match each other. So I really liked what I brought home. There's so much more to learn, so far to go... and it's a tricky hobby to have because you need a kiln and glazes etc, it's not something you can easily do at home on your own. But I am really hooked on it. I miss it now that term has ended!

H.

ceramic glazes

Glazing is a bit of a gamble it seems, I found it quite hard to make things turn out consistent, or how I imagined them. But when it does work out well it can look really good. I liked these - they were fired in the gas kiln which is even more unpredictable than the electric, but I like how the glaze effects resemble a mysterious galaxy... a surreal landscape. One day I'd like to learn more about how glazes are made, and get better at getting the effects I want.

Have a good weekend!

H.

some finished ceramic pieces

If you missed it, I wrote about learning ceramics here. I haven't made anything since the end of last year (class ended in December) but since then I have made homes for the things I made over the six months I was taking classes - planted things in them, found uses for them, made some little displays... so here's a few photos. I made lots of little things rather than fewer big things, so my house is now pretty full of tiny things like these. I gave a few away over Xmas too. 

It was a really fun course and I am going to try again this year, but this time I am going to try to learn the wheel. That will slow down my production of things I am sure. The wheel is really hard and the times I tried I was not very good.... so who knows why I want to try again.... I think because I like a challenge and won't be able to rest until I have worked out at least the basics. I don't think I'll be able to make anything fancy. I love gardening, so am hoping to make some larger pot plants. If anything works out, I will post a photo of it!

H.

on ceramics

If you have seen my Instagram page then you already know that in June I started a short ceramics course and then I enjoyed it so much I enrolled again in October. I am back at TAFE! That cracks me up. I spent three years at TAFE in the 90s (doing photography). TAFE is great!

I started the course because I wasn’t working and needed a new thing to occupy my time. I was still taking photos, but was a bit bored by it, and actually turning on the computer to edit photos wasn’t really fun to me. I wanted something new and fun, that was not on a computer, and that involved other humans. I looked up the TAFE short courses, decided ceramics looked like fun, invited a friend to come with me, and enrolled. I had done ceramics at school and loved it, but that was a long time ago and I had mostly made sculptures, not anything functional like a bowl or plate. I liked the idea of making things I might use, or at least display around my house.

From the first week, when our teacher threw a ball of clay at each of us and said “make something by the end of the night, anything, it doesn’t matter what” I loved it. LOVED IT. I hadn’t done anything creatively fun in ages. I loved the routine of having a fixed thing to do every Tuesday night. I loved sitting at the table having a chat to the others. I loved knowing nothing about what I was doing, having no real expectations, being able to make mistakes – and, when things didn’t turn out the way I imagined I ended up enjoying working through that, getting over the disappointment and trying again. I loved having a teacher, someone who knows infinitely more than you and whose job it is to help you, to make suggestions and help fix your mistakes – how often do we get that as adults? How often do you get to say “errr, I seem to have entirely stuffed this up, is there a way to fix it?” and actually get an answer?!

Also, for ages, I’d been feeling like when you take photos you are not often left with a thing, an object. Especially with digital, all you get are pixels floating in space. I’d been wrestling with the idea of how to turn my photos into things – books? prints? – things I could touch, hold, display, give to people. Ceramics was suddenly the answer to that.  You start with a blob of clay and end up with a thing. A thing that wasn’t there before. A thing you made, and that you can see your fingerprints in. A thing that won’t go away if you accidentally delete it or if your memory card fails.

I’m at the end of my second term and feel strange about it ending. I’ve found the act of making things incredibly relaxing and purposeful. To decide in the morning that you might have a crack at an idea you’ve had, and then to do that is completely rewarding. It’s ended up, without me planning it, being the polar opposite of my day job where I never felt rewarded, never felt like anything got achieved or even finished, never saw a useful outcome of anything I did. If it sounds like a lot to get out of a short course at TAFE, I agree! It really has been an eye-opener and one of my best spontaneous decisions.