Teaching makers to embrace the unknown.

In these cyber-rich times, we can so easily find answers to any question.  We have become used to the ability to predict our future and to determine outcomes based on knowledge and information shared by the millions of others who also want the answer to everything.  That now sounds a little dull – and sometimes it is, it’s perhaps just too easy.  As potters, we enjoy an opportunity to grow and develop, to seek challenge, to marvel at the mystery of clay and to find answers the hard way.  

In a potters’ studio, there are many opportunities to embrace adventure and explore the sensation of being that little bit out of control, of not having all the answers and enjoying a surprise or two on the way. 

In working with clay, so many variables have their part to play in the shaping of the finished pot that there has to be an element of letting-go and allowing the clay to take control.  From the granite of Dartmoor, to the clay-pit, to the studio, the kiln and then our homes, the potters’ work will have developed a personality influenced by air-temperature, moisture content, glaze chemistry and heat-work as well as that forced by the potters mood and approach whilst making.   

Team-building at the studio.

In its’ humble development, their pot has found its’ way, shaped through a journey of time, heat, pressure and chemistry.  The  “It-is-what-it-is” state as a finished pot depicts a very long journey that only the maker has some hint of understanding and knowledge of.  The pot becomes beautiful for the human story it has to tell as it was shaped and formed, the surprises and challenges it brought to the maker and the joy it promises to bring in its use everyday in their lives.  

The beautiful and detailed work of Heather, hand-building leaves for her ceramic wreath.