Side of Sauce

Zen and the Art of Wheel Throwing

Wheel throwing might be one of the most frustrating activities I have ever engaged in. Like so many things in life, it looks simply effortless when you are standing there watching someone else throw a perfectly proportioned vase out of a lump of wet clay, but when you sit down at the wheel to create your own pièce de résistance, you find the clay is actually master.

I threw for several years before I actually considered myself a halfway decent potter. What began years ago as a tenuous foray into a new art form, became a full scale obsession. I found myself spending more time in the ceramic studio than in the lab – staying up late to fire the kiln before eventually falling asleep on the shiny red bench in the studio bathroom. I took graduate courses in glaze chemistry, I threw pots so big that I had to stand on a chair to make the last pull – the ceramic studio is where I found myself in college.

When I graduated from college however, my practice in pottery (although not my enthusiasm) waned. I bought a pottery wheel with my first bonus from my first real job, but since there was really no place to set it up, I just lugged it from location to location as I moved across the country and didn’t have much to show for it.

A month ago I started taking a wheel throwing class at a small studio in Sunnyvale and I am continually reminded of why I love pottery so much. Ceramics is to me the perfect marriage of science and art – incorporating just enough of what I love about both disciplines. Furthermore, the lessons I learn (and continue to learn) in my practice of ceramics are the ones that I desperately wish I could apply to my life.

For me, the lessons of ceramics are kind of like the lessons of life.

1) Nothing is permanent:
You may create something magnificent, beautiful, unparalleled, but it is always subject to destruction at any time – even after you bring it home (perhaps at the paws of a certain caramel-colored beast who shall remain nameless)

2) Some things that are beyond your control:
You may do everything right – center, pull, shape, trim, bisque, glaze and because of the luck of the draw and a careless neighbor in the kiln, your pot could meet an untimely demise.

3) Murphy’s law:
Anything that can happen will. Nuf ‘ said.

4) Non-attachment:
This is perhaps the most important lesson; if things are impermanent and there are forces beyond your control it is likely that you will lose the thing you love. To become too attached to a given piece is to set yourself up for loss and disappointment

5) Remain humble:
No one likes an arrogant fuck.