A Reminder

Today was a rare day that I had time to attend pottery class on a Saturday. Saturday class was very unlike Thursday class. For one, Saturday class was full of students on the wheel as well as handbuilders.

I had a main objective for today's class. I needed to complete my glazing for my budding series and I had to focus as I really wanted them to turn out ok. I happened to overhear a couple of girls who were asking each other what glazes they had in mind for their pieces of work. They deliberated for a while and one particularly had problem deciding which combination she would like.

I thought in amusement about their dilemma and I wonder when was the last time I had spent so much time thinking about my glazes. I almost could remember when I started on pottery... every piece of pottery was precious. Thus, I too then had wanted every piece to be perfect. Perfect glaze, perfect shape etc. The marvel of it all is that at the end of the day, I realised that perfection is rare in pottery... as it would mean that throughout the 3 stages of throwing, turning and glazing, it must be done to perfection.. not to mention the drying and the two firing processes, absolutely nothing can go wrong.

I remembered Jessie once said that when the pots go through the second firing which is of higher temperature, any flaw or weakness of the pots will be revealed in this firing. As such, if the pot survived the entire process of firing and comes out good then it is a great pot! So of course as any potter would advise you, if you want a close-to-perfect piece of pot, you just have to keep making more and there would be some which will just surprise you.