Nature and Process

I. Flop and Frustration
  
I remember, distinctly, Professor Culbertson’s voice, much too cheerful for a 9am class, telling us to be prepared to fail.  “You’re going to flop a lot of pots before you finally get it right” he would exclaim over and over that day before he performed the clay throwing demo for us. It was the truth but I, as well as others, didn’t believe it.  Clay is soft, malleable; it will work with us and do what we want, it’ll be easy.  We watch the demo and forego any note taking because the hand and body positions look simple and natural.  The whole idea that this is a difficult medium seems like a joke; anybody with hands can work with the clay and Professor Culbertson does it effortlessly.  Oh how the ego blinds the inexperienced.
  
I came into the studio when nobody else was there to practice throwing on the wheel.  It couldn’t be too hard and I’ll definitely get it on the first try.  This is what I thought, but why then did I make sure nobody else was around when I started?

I wedged a few balls of clay, a process that requires you to blend the clay together by kneading it.  The motion of pushing into the clay with both hands, lifting the clay up and then pushing into it again made a form Professor Culbertson calls ‘the monkey face’ because after a few repetitions of the motion the clay had two big eyes and a nose, like a monkey.  With the clay wedged, I filled my bucket with warm water, grabbed my newly opened bag of ceramics tools and sat down at the wheel.  Instantly I forgot all of those easy hand motions and body positions.  They had fled from my mind in a way that would have been impossible if I had imprisoned them on paper.  I snatched at little bits of memory, trying to piece together just enough of the technique to start.

I spun the wheel, which hummed loudly, wet the clay and spent what seemed to be an inordinate amount of time struggling to force the clay into center, that magical state where the clay does not wobble and fall over during throwing.  After finally centering the clay I opened up the middle with my thumb, which went very smoothly, unlike the rest of the experience.  My next problem was bringing out the ‘fat tire’ which is a donut shaped mass of clay pulled out two thirds of the way from the center that will be used as the walls of the pot.  I couldn’t keep the tire from wobbling, which would cause the pot to flop later on.  Undaunted, I put in the bottom, a process that flattens the bottom of the pot and compresses it for strength, and prepared to raise the volcano.

‘Squeeze and push’ as Professor Culbertson calls it (and which will later be named ‘raising the volcano’ by a fellow classmate) is the first instance of bringing the clay up off the of the wheel head.  This step sets the pace for the rest of the work on the piece.  If you raise it high, the piece will be narrower and won’t require as many instances of raising the bubble which is the procedure for making the walls taller by which you push in at the bottom on the outside of the pot with one hand and set the other hand on top of that hand but on the inside, then by moving your fingers upward, you can pull clay from the bottom of the pot and distribute it into the walls.  If you raise the volcano lower, the piece will probably be wider at the end, and you’ll have need for a few more ‘pulls.’

The squeeze and push step is where I first met failure.  I squeezed too much and didn’t push hard enough which thinned out the wall of my pot near the top and the whole disaster collapsed in on itself like a deflated lung.  I sat there in abject humiliation to no one but myself.  The pot I had planned to make so tall had fallen before even reaching the step where it was raised.  Flop and frustration were the words of the evening as I continued working.  Five times I monkey-faced four balls of clay, and five times I flopped the four balls I had wedged.  Twenty-one flops.  “Everyone has a number of flops they simply must make before they can throw successfully.  Work toward that number.  Every time you flop a pot, just think that you are now one flop closer to being successful.”  This is what Professor Culbertson taught us.

And he was right.  With each failure came an understanding of the nature of clay and the process by which you must coax it to work with you.  If the top was too thin and it flopped, then I compressed the top of the next pot before continuing work.  If the clay grabbed my hands and fell over, then I made sure to keep the clay and my hands wet enough to prevent it the next time around.  If I pinched a large chunk of clay off while raising the bubble, then I adjusted the way my hands were positioned and the pressure with which I was raising the clay.

Finally the process all came together.  I wedged up the clay, wet and centered it on the wheel, opened it up with my thumb, checked the bottom with the needle tool for an eighth of an inch of thickness, brought out the fat tire, put in the bottom, squeezed and pushed to volcano, raised the bubble, compressed the top after every step, ribbed the side to remove the excess slip, used the sharpened stick to remove the support clay at the bottom, notched the bottom, pulled the wire tool all the way through the bottom, dried my hands, lifted to one side, swiveled on my chair, and set my first successful pot on the nearest ware board.  My first successful pot was by no means impressive.  It was short, dumpy and nothing more than a cylinder.  I hated it…and I loved it.  I hated it for all of its inferiority to the idea of ‘pot’ that I had in my head.  I loved it because I had actually done it, and it was standing and I knew that if it survived drying and firing it would be a useful container for liquid.  Perhaps it is that first pot which hooked me.  Maybe that was, as Professor Culbertson says, where the clay bug bit me.
  
II. The Clay Bug

It is only two weeks into the spring semester and already I have spent forty hours in the ceramics studio.  It feels like less.  My friends are convinced I will move into the studio at some point and decide to never visit again.  I tell them it isn’t a bad idea.

I just cleaned up in here yesterday but already I can see a pool of muddy water slowly drying beneath one of the new VL-Whispers, super quiet throwing wheels that were delivered at the end of last semester.  The sloppy brown puddle is a visible mess, unlike the chalky grey dust that quickly settles on unused tables, tools and the inside of your lungs.

I did just clean but the mess isn’t aggravating.  On the contrary, I feel elation at the idea that somebody besides me was spending their precious time working on the wheel and with the clay body the other intern and I had mixed up only days before.  The smile on my face as I sponge up the water is the smile of a kid congratulated by his elders, “congratulations, you’ve done something helpful, something wonderful.”

I am an intern this semester in the ceramics studio.  During the final critique of basic ceramics I realized with panic that I could not let one class be all that I ever did with this medium.  I approached Professor Culbertson and made some casual conversation about the studio.  Knowing that Professor Dolbin had a number of interns lined up already, I started with that.

“So, how many interns do you have for next semester?” I asked nonchalantly.

“Actually, I don’t have any yet, are you interested?”  His reply was completely unanticipated and it filled me with such hope that I dare not try to describe it.  I informed him that I was more than interested and we got right down to the paperwork.

I look around the studio after laying some of my own pieces out to dry a little.  The new slab roller finally has some stains on it.  I remember putting it and the new wheels together two days before classes started this semester.  It was a tough job for one person but I was enthusiastic and eager to finally be doing something to help out the studio and Professor Culbertson.  The old slab roller sits forsaken next to the brick shed that houses the brand new reduction kiln, fired for the first time, and successfully, last semester.  The reduction kiln is a gas firing kiln that we use mainly for glaze firing because it has a larger firing area and reduction is really the best way to glaze fire work en masse.

The other kilns are electric and mostly used for bisque firing, which is the first firing a piece goes through before glazing.  The electric kilns are made up of octagonal rings that may be stacked as high as you need them (within reason).  Near the electric kilns is the glazing area.  The glazing area is made up of a few tables and twenty or so buckets filled with milkshake-thick liquids.  Pieces must be bisque fired before they are glazed and then the glazed pieces are put in the reduction kiln for glaze firing.  It’s a lot of work to go through to finish a piece, but in the end, when you see that piece you worked on for hours come out of the gas kiln and you can hold the finished object in your hand, it’s more than worth the time.

I think about what needs to be done around the studio.  The mess of muddy water has been cleaned up.  The tables are clean.  The clay barrels are full and there isn’t another bisque firing scheduled for a week.  There are no students in the studio to help yet and all the glaze buckets are full.

I wedge a few balls of clay, sit down at the wheel and begin throwing.
III. Process and Nature

It is a cold and windy Friday morning and I’m struggling on the walk from my house to the studio to meet Professor Culbertson.  We’re going to Penn. Mo. Fire Brick to pick up clay for the class since the ceramics budget didn’t cover everything we needed. I’m excited.  This is my first time to find out exactly how the acquisition of a potter’s supplies is handled and I’ll also be able to pick Professor Culbertson’s brain on the hour long trip to Harrisburg.

I arrive at the studio and begin cleaning up a few dried out hunks of clay while I wait for Professor Culbertson to arrive with his van and trailer.  The wind is howling outside and I am glad to be inside covered in clay dust with muddy hands.  Professor Culbertson arrives a little late, explains what held him up and then disappears upstairs to talk to the secretary.  I realize his quest to find Mrs. Graham will most likely be futile; it’s Friday, and finding anybody in the art department on a Friday due to the class schedules is iffy at best.  Professor Culbertson doesn’t know this, it’s only his second semester at this school.

He reappears and I find that I was right in my assumption; Mrs. Graham is nowhere to be found.  This causes a bit of a problem in the payment method for the supplies, but we figure things out, clear out the back of the van, and head out onto the road.

To tell the truth, I’m nervous, not about maybe missing work for the day or about my money problems or about anything happening on the road, I’m nervous about talking to the man sitting in the driver’s seat next to me.  He’s an accomplished artist with years of experience under his belt.  The amount of work he has completed dwarves the combined efforts of both basic ceramics classes and his handful of independent study students.  And here I am, newly bitten by the clay bug, a million questions swirling through my head and yet I can’t find the right way to ask them.  Maybe I’m afraid that the wrong question will label me as an inferior potter who lacks the innate knowledge needed to continue with ceramics.  Maybe I’m afraid he’ll think my questions aren’t worth answering and we’ll sit silent and awkward on the whole ride to Harrisburg and back.  Maybe I’m afraid he doesn’t like talking on long car rides.

Professor Culbertson starts the conversation.  He asks about my family and the ice is broken.  After spending a little time explaining what my mother and father do and complaining about crazy drivers on the road, I’m firing any question off that comes into my head.  Most of them are questions about the materials we are picking up.  “What’s red art?  What’s cobalt oxide used for?  How does reduction work?  What’s the difference between a porcelain clay body and a stoneware clay body?”  Professor Culbertson answers every question with the same enthusiasm with which I ask them.  A few weeks later he will make the statement, “You know it’s weird, even after all these years of doing this, it’s still so much fun.”  And that’s what it seems like.  He seems to enjoy talking about ceramics as much as I enjoy learning from what he has to say.  The trip out to Penn Mo goes smoothly.  We stop at HAC on the way back so he can show me the ceramics studio there and then we are back on the road and I’m back to asking questions.

The clay bug bit in harder during the trip.  I was hooked.  Still am.  And probably will be for years to come.  It’s funny though, I think that, even after many years of doing this, it’s still going to be so much fun.