Photograph by Jon Singer.
I grew up working with clay. I remember the first thing I ever made as a young child: a thumb bowl. I am sure my mother still has it somewhere. I kept working with mud in various forms from thumb bowls in grade school to bust sculptures in college. Somewhere in between, about 20 years ago, I tried my hand at throwing bowls. I was not very good at it. My parents have the only mildly successful piece I ever made; an eight inch wide, five inch tall planter. It is a planter because I breached the bottom of the pot making a nice hole for water to seep out . Not the intended result, but makes for a fine planter…I can only assume this is the case since it has never actually had a plant in it.
This all changed very recently. With Jon Singer as my sensei (先生), I was able to throw three bowls.
I methodically threw three bowls of varying shapes. I used a nice porcelain mud that Jon is fond of. I slowly had Jon walk me through each step of the process and I made a point to try to pick up his methodoligies even though they may be his own personal taste. I feel I must learn someone else’s technique, and thus their inherint taste, before I can comfortably throw it all out and find my own.
Jon sent back these wonderful photos of my bowls having survived the first bisque firing. After this, they will be glazed and fired again. Each time a piece of pottery goes through the kiln they risk being destroyed.
Right now I am elated that my bowls have emerged from the bisque firing. I will write more later about the full process.
