Current Issue:
November 08, 2001
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News, events, features |
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Latest
scientific findings |
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The people behind the university |
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Harvard and neighbor communities |
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Scores, highlights, upcoming games |
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| Newsmakers,
notes, students, police log |
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Arts |
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Museums, concerts, theater |
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Two-week listing of upcoming events |
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Ceramics teacher Makoto Yabe lends a student a hand (or two) as she centers her pot.
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HARVARD GAZETTE ARCHIVES
Joy in mudville:Where patience is as important as creativity
Photos by Stephanie Mitchell
Gazette Staff
What could be more fun than playing in the mud? Imagine this: Slippery mounds of oozing clay seeping through your fingers, dramatically changing shape under shifting pressures. Your eyes trained on a rising gray slab-becoming-cylinder, growing taller (and more delicate) as you guide, pull, stroke carefully up ... wheel spinning, knees steady, back tense, a little more even pressure from both hands ... gently lifting, lifting, steady, and then, then ... Thwack! The 15-inch vase of your dreams flies across the room, hits a wall and slides down to the studio floor in a heap of gray slop. You get to clean up and start all over. New clay, new throwing determination, new dreamy vase/pot/bowl idea to obsess upon, and a host of witnesses who can't wait to watch you do it all over again. There's nothing better.
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A burnished, autumnal collection of egg-shaped rattles and bowls created by assistant ceramics teacher Jill Solomon.
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For most ceramics enthusiasts, actually finishing a piece of pottery, on the wheel or via one of the many hand-building techniques, is of course the ultimate goal. Afterward comes the extended combination exercises of creativity and patience; also known as temperature-controlled drying, glazing, firing, and cooling. This is for sure no instant art, but for many certainly well worth the while - and the wait.
The Ceramics Program at 219 Western Ave. invites those with clay-throwing, building, firing, or thwacking fantasies to live them out in glazing colors. For complete registration or drop-in information, visit http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~ofa or call (617) 495-8680.
- Rebecca Rollins
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Instructor Yabe (center, seated) demonstrates to students how to position their hands while 'throwing' on the wheel.
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Scanlon demonstrates a point to graduate student in history Brian Delay.
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Michelle Coleman gets assistance from instructor Makoto Yabe.
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Jennifer Hsieh '04 is all eyes and hands as she applies just the right amount of pressure to shape the form rising out of her potter's wheel.
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Instructor Lucy Scanlon's hands caress a vase into shape, with a finished product (foreground) serving as inspiration.
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Shmuel Browns (above) wields his tongs delicately as he removes a ceramic tile from a glowing kiln.
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Copyright 2002 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
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