At about 3 o’clock today, all of us stopped working-for me, this meant putting down my research on Anne Brigman, the Pictorialist photographer- and we went over to the Ceramics studio.Since Patricia, Zoe and Mary had already thrown in the studio when Rody and I were on our field trips, they went in to trim their pieces, but I sat on the wheel for the first time in a long time. The last time I sat down at a wheel was in fifth grade, and back then my legs weren’t long enough to properly use a kick wheel, so I just presumed that I would be better at throwing than I remember being (although to be frank, I’d like to think that I would be better at everything I do now). Unfortunately, however, I think that I might have actually gotten much worse at throwing.I do have to give Rody props though. He tried really hard to show me what to do, but it seems as if there was no stopping me: clay water flew everywhere, and clumps of clay fell all over the place, not least because I’m pedal happy and because my brain could not process that stopping the wheel meant not pressing down on the pedal (can’t all of you just see how good I’ll be at driving?).I started with a lot of clay and I tried to make something with a shape, but (of course) I thinned out the top too much (because the wheel was spinning too fast) and eventually my lopsided mess of a bowl exploded in my face. After that Rody trimmed the clay down and I started making a smaller bowl (with careful guidance from him), which actually looked like it was going look pretty good for my second atempt, until (of course) I pressed the pedal down too hard, and my beautiful bowl kind of exploded again. Eventually, I tried once more to made a small candy container thing, but the clay (it remembers everything, you know) gave out and I had to get rid of the sodden, lifeless lump.Meh. I’ve never actually made a serious attempt at anything clay based. Ever. And now I’m beginning to see that it was with good reason: if my first attempt at throwing is any indication, I’m going to be really pathetic at ceramics.Man. Who knew that a wheel, some clay and some really terrible pedal work was all it was going to take to give my ego a huge beating.
