So, together with my Design students we went to a local pottery shop in San Roque, Albur. Kuya (by which I forgot to ask the name, could it be Junnalyn? It’s the pottery shop’s name) prepared the clay mud for us. After massing it up with water and removing a few roots and unnecessary objects he then grinds it to make the mud finer. He makes a demo with a few pots for the students and by the looks of it seem like the process was easy. Imagine shaping the pot with your mudded hands and forming it to the desired round or conical shapes with only your bare hand and of course with constant sprinkling of water.
After a few turns it’s my moment of truth. I step into the turn table which was manually operated by pushing the molder with the hands then eventually with your foot. At first it went a bit ok but as soon you get to the complicated parts it became more difficult to manipulate. Then you need to have a soft yet firm hands to be able to mold the shape and lastly a since of symmetry to achieve a balance form.
Ok, mine didn’t go fine. After a few tries I finally give up.
I decide to sculpt and mold the clay without the aid of the turn table. Luckily I made a few pieces. By which we have leave the products in Kuya’s shop for weeks to let it completely dry before cooking it to a very big oven.
With this experience, a realization came to me. There is no job that’s too easy and there are no lesser kind of work. I just can imagine the efforts of Kuya to finished one pot, I even give up to making mine how much more producing a dozen?
Jokingly I told my student, “Now you know it’s not easy to make just one pot so never break the garden pots at your home.”
