The Class

For the past three years I’ve taught a “Play in the clay” class for the Lost River Educational Foundation. LREF shares a goal with the Lost River Artisans Co-op: “helping the public value traditional and modern handmade items.” The shared board and administration of the two organizations is just short of schizophrenic (take that from an old psych nurse), but each year we provide some great classes! 

My clay play class this year included three women. One Saturday they handbuilt their pieces using slabs, coils, or pinch methods—whatever they liked. Then I dried and bisque fired the pots for the students to glaze them when they came back two weeks later.

Some years my students tend to be artful neophytes so we begin with real basics, such as distinguishing among stoneware, earthenware, and porcelain. However, each of these clay players has other well developed artistic skills along with being very observant, so it was a simpler matter of translating into the medium of stoneware. That is not to minimize the difficulties that lateral arabesque can pose for some people, but this trio took to clay like ducks to water. They each had 25 pounds of clay to play with, which can produce a lot of stoneware! The glazing is always the trickiest part because nothing is ever as it seems, which routinely surprises newcomers. But we had a couple of fun Saturdays and Kathy, Joan, and Jody picked up boxes of happy and creative stoneware from the co-op barn. I hope they enjoyed the class as much as I did!