Make a ceramic bowl from start to finish

“as a kid, my tennis coach would make me hit a basket of 200 serves with the goal of hitting the exact serve every time. this felt similar…except pottery is harder. you have to stay focused for longer. you can hit a serve in five seconds, but throwing a bowl takes five minutes. it’s mentally tiring to stay present the entire time. when i start to feel tired, i found that i would lose focus and begin to rush or forget something. but just like tennis, i tried to show up rep after rep. sure enough, things become more consistent. ... it took 2 x 6hr sessions to throw all the bowls and about 6hrs to trim them. i had the freedom to decorate them however, so i trimmed texture into the exterior and used a glaze that breaks to reveal it. the inside is glazed with my favorite green. here they are all glazed and in their glory.”

“Once it’s set solid in the middle with no wobbles (I had a big problem with the wobbles on mine), then the clay can be worked and sculpted. They make it look easy, but it’s SO not! [...] My blob of clay didn’t go nearly as well, but I finally coaxed a bowl out of this lump. Next, I moved on to the table, where we did some freeform clay molding and I made a rough bowl. I hope glaze and firing improves its looks, cause it’s not so pretty like this.”