I tried to throw a pot on the electric wheels but my efforts always ended with a disastrous mess--a muddy lump. I tried on the foot-powered old fashioned wheel--same result.
I impatiently wanted to make something good--something I could show and be proud of.
One of the real potters showed me how to make a "pinch pot" with handful of clay and I made a couple of dozen of these beginner's projects--good fun, but no Kewpie Doll artistically.
Next somebody showed me how to roll "snakes"of clay and then coil them up into a pot shape and smooth the sides--well, this was getting somewhere but not where I wanted to go.
Then somebody showed me how to roll a sheet clay of uniform thickness between two wooden lathes with a cook's rolling pin. Ahh--then you could use the slabs of clay to form shapes--almost any shape you could imagine. Vases, cups, big flat tiles with incised pictures and words!
This was much more like it!
I started making bas-relief tile scenery with little houses and mountains and trees. I made castles and modeled little people--then I started curving strips of clay and started making life-size heads--first monsters (easy) and then portraits of my fellow workers! Fun!
Look, Ma! I'm a ceramist!
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