Where is the centre? Drawing Luke Hockley.
Yesterday I started a 2-day workshop at the Slow Clay Centre.
A few years ago, I fell in love with an artist called Paulus Berensohn when I watched a documentary called – To spring from the hand.
This inspired me to shape clay with my hands.
I’ve been doing a little bit of this off and on for a couple of years now.
Working with a potter’s wheel is a whole other thing.
The biggest, most complex, most overwhelming, most intriguing thing is that it takes a complex mix of physical strength, personal clarity and technical skill to get the clay centred on the wheel.
It’s tricky.
The temptation is to forge on without it being perfectly centred…but it all just goes to pot.
Equally if you just spend all your time looking for the centre then you don’t get to practice any of the ‘pot making’ techniques.
My instinct is to just spend the time it takes to find the centre. Build that skill first.
You can cheat and ask someone else to find the centre…so that way you can focus on making the pots.
When you are making the pots, you are also working with the centre. If you don’t then the pot sort of just explodes in a centrifugal splat.
There is this expectation that I have that I will walk away with ‘an object’ to show for my weekend workshop. But I feel like I have already unearthed a great gift, one that is already resonating outward into the rest of my life.
I’m now intrigued by a simple question…
Where is the centre?
Love
Luke.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
Day 782