My Journey with Clay
- Cindy Watson
- 9 minutes ago
- 3 min read
By Kat Hardwick
Each one of my ceramics teachers tells me that clay has memory.
Clay holds grudges: treat it with anything less than the full respect it deserves and it will bide its time, then break your heart.
My first memory of clay is sliding down the slippery slopes of my father’s property, after the afternoon rains in New Caledonia, then getting into trouble for entering the house covered head to toe in terracotta-coloured mud.
There is something of that childhood joy to be found in working with clay- the revelling in the squishy, slippery, sheer tactility of this material that humans have been creating with for millennia.
Which brings me to my second memory: meeting someone who went on yearly archaeological expeditions to Jordan. He put a small ceramic oil lamp in my hand, telling me it was probably around 2,000 years old. This humble little object which would’ve been used daily by its owners and had then witnessed thousands of years of change, was now cradled in my hand, in perfect condition. It’s difficult to convey the sense of reverence I felt in that moment.
And here I am, many years later, finally ready to start my own journey of making with clay.
First slab build: work in progress
So far I have tried Nerikomi with Raffaella Basini, wheel throwing with Frank Smith and Liz Berry, and hand building with Katrina Rogers. Each of these disciplines has its advantages and drawbacks; people tend to find what they enjoy most and specialize in a particular technique. For now I’m happy to dabble in all of it and am slowly learning how the various techniques can inform each other and be combined.
Work by Liz Berry
Most of what I’m learning however is less tangible: patience and letting go of outcome driven expectations are two things that instantly come to mind. I thought that paint had already taught me these things but clay has brought me to whole new level of understanding. Just a little impatience can ruin the object you’ve already poured hours into, and not in the same way that you might temporarily “ruin” a painting. Nope, more in the way of “now there’s nothing to do but to smash it up and return it to the mud from whence it came”. And that’s before you’ve even fired it and somehow angered the “kiln gods”. Maybe all potters should take up meditation.
Pit fired pots by Katrina Rogers
Clay will warp, crack, curl up at the edges and misbehave in every way you can imagine because it has memory; but give it its due respect and clay might reward you with joy, moments of deep calm and the memory of being a child, elbow or knee deep in mud, with nothing on your mind but being absolutely lost in play.
Many of the ceramicists who take part in Mundaring Hills Open Studios offer classes and workshops if you feel like taking your own journey with clay. Be sure to check out the results of their patience and dedication on their websites.
One of our hosting venues- The Mundaring Adult Learning Centre- also runs very popular programmes in both hand-building and wheel work.
Kat Hardwick:
Liz Berry:
Katrina Rogers:
Mundaring Adult Learning Centre:
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