i took a ceramics class.

i threw some clay back in high school, so i had some delusions of grandeur in regards to my skill. there's a bit of a learning curve, and even after i got the hang of it, most of what i produced paled in comparison to my classmates' work. so let's cut to the heart of it: i have photo documented every piece of pottery i made, in somewhat chronological order.



my first cups. chunky, misshapen, and the one in front actually took an extra spin around the wheel while i was trimming it. whoops!



tiny bowls. one has been holding jewelry (all three pieces that i own), and one is currently awaiting some fancy sea salt.



then i moved on to actual normal-sized bowls, without taking into account the approximately 15% shrinkage that occurs during the drying/firing process. fortunately, i eat small portions, and now i have a dozen jenna-portion-sized bowls.



the last bowl spawned this one - i dubbed it "the better bowl." an improvement on the last bowl in every way, "better bowl" is lightweight, delicate...oh, and still really small. this is one of the earliest pieces i finished, glazing and all, and was clearly a fluke. not positive i could reproduce it.



where the mug fits into my artistic timeline, i'm not quite positive. it must have been early on because i tired of mug relatively fast. handles are not fun, which is why this has a nubbin. it's got a bright blue glaze, which we'll return to many times.



i had a brief period of frustration with large bowls, so i turned to "tea bowls." i don't actually know what those are. i just made a bunch of small, handleless bowls. the blue one (front left) had such thick glaze, it dripped down the sides and stuck to the inside of the kiln. my love affair with "tea bowls" was brief.



i returned to normal bowls, and achieved some mild success. some of these are actually not bad. my glazing technique was not quite up to par, though.



here's that electric blue glaze again. my very knowledgeable and experienced classmate, leslie, allowed me to assist her in mixing a glaze. unfortunately, it looks nothing like we expected. it's even better.



then i tried my hand at a plate. still chunky, and not quite what i was anticipating.



my last day throwing clay, i churned out a few pieces. this bowl is pretty alright, and glazed okay too. maybe i am getting the hang of it!



judging by these little guys...no, i'm not. thrown from a delicate, "buttery" porcelain that another classmate gave me, these looked beautiful pre-glaze, but had very little structure or substance. so they were kind of a challenge. worse yet, i used them to experiment with the glaze leslie and i mixed up, only to discover that it's extremely runny. and the second coat of glaze i dunked them in "melted" off.



this is my "piece de resistance." early on, i learned not to set goals for myself because i often didn't achieve them and met with frustration. that wasn't the best method. i often found myself directionless, cranking out bad bowl after bad bowl. so i decided to challenge myself at the end, and try to make a pot. and it worked! i'm actually proud of this little guy.



oven safe! and perfect for jenna portions!

(there might be one more piece i'm missing somewhere. but in the meantime, here we can segue into the goodies i scored that aren't mine!)



another classmate, dan, is crazy talented on the wheel, and threw pot after pot after pot, all of a similar style. we found these on the shelves on the last day to fire ware, forgotten by him amidst all his other amazing work. he charged me with cleaning them up, and gifted them to me. i got to test out a couple of glazes on pieces that were going to end up in the trash, and now they are mine! yay!



and because i glazed dan's other pieces, he rewarded me with a couple rad pieces. now i have a giant bowl!



and a big pot!



and (yes, there's more), because talented, knowledgeable leslie was dissatisfied that the glaze dripped on some her mugs, she was designating these for the trash when abby and i intercepted. beautifully glazed, with only minor imperfections, i couldn't let these lovely mugs be tossed. trust me, they look phenomenal in person.



she was also about to part with this beautiful baby blue (one of her own glazes!) and coppery black mug. gee, some people are perfectionists.

ceramics class is over, so my artistic career is on hiatus. the end!