The arc of learning porcelain by doing

‘Sure, let’s go learn to throw on the wheel with the most velvety, volatile, unforgiving clay out there’.

Throwing myself into the deep end with learning to throw porcelain on the wheel was this year’s ultimate self challenge to improve and develop my skills in this ceramic learning journey, as part of Arts Council’s DYCP funding programme.

It was literally a dream come true to come learn from the best, at the most professional studio and teaching environment I had seen to date. Sure, it was in Tuscany, sure it was with the best teachers, sure it meant sitting full days on end on your bum and swearing at the clay, sure what I made mostly did not look like what I had planned, sure it rallied forth all the critical gremlins in my head to come and judge each item I created, sure it was hard to learn to throw with what felt like butter. Was it worth it? Every damn frustrating minute. There is no bypass to learning than repetition, and creating muscle memory was what was happening, not focusing on the end product or creating a mass body of work. My outputs of final fired items were small, but the learning received immeasurable.