Thursday, December 06, 2012

for the love of clay


I started learning ceramics in 2007, first for a required course for my BFA, but then kept it up through undergrad (by joining Clay Club!) because it was just something I really loved to do.

I knew I would keep up my love of making things out of clay during grad school...only, I didn't.  I just never had time to fit in one more course.  And ceramics takes a lot of time, and I chose to put my time toward other things.

But there is a really amazing arts center in my city, where I started taking classes on and off beginning my first summer of grad school.  And now that I've finished my degree, I am continuously taking classes there, hopefully as long as I live here!  I absolutely love it.

Earlier this year, I took bookmaking, which was awesome and I've been getting into more on my own (post about that soon), and now I've started taking ceramics again, and I basically never want to stop enrolling in ceramics (it's mixed level so you can keep on going indefinitely).

This is a cup that came out of the glaze fire this week.  When I look at the photos I took of it, I see all of these things I want to fix about it, but when I look at it in person, I love it despite all its imperfections.  I want to make the same cup again and make it even better, and I have a lot of other ideas as well.  I wish I had more than 3 hours a week in the ceramics studio!

That's all for now.  I just wanted to profess my love of clay.  As an artist, for me it's important to learn new skills outside of my main expertise, and when I do work outside my favored medium I am always pleasantly surprised by valuable lessons in craftsmanship that seem to carry over to other areas later, and by new ideas that come to me when branching out.

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