As I said, I had no experience with ceramics but soon became very involved with the craft, working at it in all my spare time and, since the tasks I did for Elisabetta were usually finished in a couple of morning hours, I worked with clay--you could say--full time and more--day and night--lost myself in the work and completely enjoyed myself!
Elisabetta gave me full run of the ceramic studio as well as the Il Poggio workshops--in fact the run of all the buildings and spaces in her huge sprawling antique stone dwelling.
I had free use of any clay, glazes, throwing wheels, drying shelves or tools. She did all the firing--loading and unloading the kiln and so forth--herself.
She allowed me to watch her work and the other professional ceramists also answered my questions, gave me advice and let me watch them work.
Since I had NO experience in the field, I didn't know what you can't do with clay--so I did the most, to them, outrageous things, which they thought was great fun--like unheard of experiments!
They did warn me to make every item I produced hollow with an air passage out and of an almost uniform thickness so my creations would not explode in the kiln and destroy their own hard work.
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