Lauren Denton
I walked into the studio and immediately felt out of place.
All these people hard at work, hunched over big bowls with spinning plates in the middle, their hands coated in creamy clay. Others stood around a large work surface chatting and laughing, their hands moving skillfully over a variety of small tools scattered on the table. Everyone looked like they knew exactly what to do and how to do it. I stood in the doorway, holding a small hunk of plastic-wrapped clay and a hand towel, fighting the urge to turn around before anyone saw me. I didn’t, though, and when the instructor noticed me standing there, he pointed to a machine. “Pull up a stool.”
On a whim, I’d decided to take a pottery class. Well, it wasn’t exactly a whim. It was my first real attempt at an artist date. Last spring, I was in the middle of the “break” I’d been talking about for at least a couple of years — the pause I needed to take to get my feet back under me, to refill my creative well and to give new ideas the space necessary to bubble up in me again.
In her book, “The Artist’s Way,” author Julia Cameron recommends a weekly artist date for anyone who is trying to reclaim his or her creativity. It could be as small as sitting outside and listening to the birds or taking a walk, or as big as a trip out of town — anything you find creative and enjoyable. For me, I’d been thinking about taking a pottery class for a while, but I didn’t have the space in my life to devote to it. Once that space opened up, I searched for nearby pottery classes and found one right here in Homewood.
I didn’t touch the clay on that first day of class. Instead, I watched as Scott cut off a hunk of clay from the block with a wire cutter, showed me how to slap it into shape, then took it over to the wheel and sat down.
Proper position at the wheel is crucial, he said — where your knees go, your elbows, keeping your back straight and using your whole upper body to shape the clay, not just your hands. And water is important, but just the right amount applied with a sponge or fingers. Not too much or too little.
He wet the surface of the wheel, then smacked the clay onto the center and showed me how to secure it so it wouldn’t sling off when I pressed the pedal with my foot to start the wheel rotating. After that came a complicated (to my eyes) process of squeezing, shaping, pressing, pulling, raising and thinning, all while keeping the wheel spinning at the appropriate speed, with the appropriate amount of water, and making sure to rest the elbows against the knees and keep the back straight. The list-maker and note-taker in me practically had to sit on my hands to keep from grabbing a pen and a piece of paper from my bag to jot all this down. I had a gut feeling that might be a little too nerdy in this case, so I tried to play it cool.
As he went through each step, the clay between his hands on the wheel transformed from a blobby ball to a simple and beautiful pot. He showed me how to sign the bottom, where to sit it on the shelf, and what would happen to it next: over the week, it would dry, then we’d file off any rough spots, then glaze it, then into the kiln it would go, and if all went well (as in, if it didn’t explode in the kiln), it would come out lovely and shiny.
Despite what looked like a complicated process, I couldn’t wait to try it myself. He’d made it look so easy, my mind was off and running with the cool pieces I’d make on my own. Once I got started, I quickly learned there was a good reason he began with such a simple pot, just like there was a good reason for all the rules he set in place, even down to where you put your knees and elbows and the amount of water to use.
Over the course of the six-week session, as the regulars in the studio hunkered down over their wheels with poise and determination, I strove to hit the exact middle when I smacked the clay down onto the wheel. I struggled to line up my fingers just so to be able to pull the sides of the pot up without leaving bumps. I experimented with how much water to sponge onto the clay, I coated the knees of my jeans with clay splatters and, yes, I watched as one of my pots wobbled, then collapsed into itself.
But in the end, I had five or six simple pots to show for my work. Speckled with brown and glazed with vivid blue, a couple are short and squatty, a couple are taller, one has ridges spanning the sides and one flares out a little at the top. Right now, one of my pots holds spare change in the kitchen, one is holding spoons, another holds toothbrushes in our bathroom, and Sela has one in her room holding odds and ends. They’re not exceptional or extraordinary, but every time I see one, I’m reminded of what can come from taking a step out of my comfort zone and not being afraid to try something new.
When I’m not writing about my family and our various shenanigans, I write novels and go to the grocery store. You can find my books in stores, online, and locally at Little Professor Bookshop. You can reach me by email at Lauren@LaurenKDenton.com, visit my website LaurenKDenton.com, or find me on Instagram @LaurenKDentonBooks or Facebook ~LaurenKDentonAuthor.
