Five Reasons Why You Should Enroll for Pottery Class

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While working day and night, in my corporate career, I felt that I was missing creativity in my job and life.

The usual expectations from corporate jobs is, “Do what we’ve asked for”, the room for creativity needs extra effort, and usually does not get accounted in your performance review. I had a longing to do something creative and not to challenging.

Around January 2020, I was speaking to one of my school friends and she mentioned about a new activity that she had started to explore, it was pottery. My interest immediately piqued and I told myself to try few classes of pottery and see how it goes.

Well the results were amazing, more than an activity it was much of a therapy to feel the clay, the calmness of the clay, reinvigorating the sense of touch. After 4 years, I’ve picked up pottery again, doing 30 hours of pottery in 10 classes.

Here are the 5 reasons why one should take pottery classes.

Calm and Soothing experience:
What I’ve experienced working with clay is that it provides a sense of calmness. It also reflects our current state of mind on the products we develop.
I’ve observed that when I’m in chaos, my efforts to make a perfect form is futile, but when I’m relaxed, the clay takes its expected form.
I’ve experienced feeling more relaxed and purposeful after the sessions and all my vague emotions draining out completely.
The law of impermanence :
Not happy with your current product, no worries, you can collapse the clay into a ball and start over, again. This is the beauty of pottery, unlike painting or craft, you’ll have to discard the whole product. I remember, once while I was experimenting with paint colours, it turned all black, leaving me disappointed, but with clay, you can always undo, just like “Control + Z”
From clumsy to clean workspace :
If you are clumsy like me, pottery trains you to be more clean and aware of the workspace around. One cannot risk wedging the clay on an unclean playground.
We have to train ourselves to clean the pottery tools before and after using them.
Initially it seems like a daunting task, but after 2-3 classes one gets accustomed towards the pottery cleansing task.
Creativity has no bounds:
Any form of clay looks beautiful. One can either hand pinch the product or use a slab roller or create templates to carve out products or even use a wheel. I remember deviating from my initial planned form to a new form, exploring my creativity without any references.
I’ve heard this happens often, sometimes its better to go in the flow rather to stick around a concrete plan or form.

You don’t have to be perfect in pottery.
It is an activity of self-exploration and self-expression of an art, which is true to yourself.
The first product is usually a hit, hence pottery pulls back people to try and experiment more!

Delayed Gratification for the final product :
Pottery teaches you to gather patience. There is a complete process for pottery, from wedging, creating art forms, to drying, firing and glazing. You never know at which stage your product may crack or have a complete new form, that you’d not planned
Unless the product is completely glazed and out of the Klin in one single piece, we cannot say our product is ready.
It takes time for the pots to become ready and hence the delayed gratification of the final product.
The final product is a self reflection of your journey, challenges and the perseverance you’d embarked.