Pottery
Elective class open to all students
New students entering the pottery are told that pottery making was, before the machine age, never "taught" in a school. Instead, in areas where there were clay deposits (and therefore potteries) one began to learn as a young apprentice. As much as possible, we try to approach clay work in a manner resembling that of the old apprenticeships. For instance, we do not buy wet prepared clay in plastic bags; we buy clays as supplied from the mines and weigh and mix by hand. We are a well-equipped pottery, built up over many years, but there are no machines to do the work of clay preparation, which is finished off by proper wedging (kneading). This first skill is seemingly simple but not so easy (yet possible for anyone with practice); it gives a taste of what Chaucer meant: "The lyf so short, the craft so longe to learne." But more experienced students carry the others along and gradually the new individual gifts, brought in each year, find their places for development in the larger whole.
