Pottery Throw Down

For a milestone Wedding anniversary I came up with the idea to book myself and my wife in for a beginner pottery lesson. My wife loves the TV show, The Great Pottery Show Down on Channel 4, and she has got me into it too. We wanted to add something a bit different to the anniversary weekend with the plan that, no matter how bad it turned out, we would have our fun creations to admire or laugh at and it would mark the occasion. So, in the spirit of ‘Let’s give it a whirl’, I booked a class called 'Pottery Throwing Taster' in London at a workshop called Columbia Road Clay. I found them on a site called ClassBento.

This mini project started at a backstreet row of creative workshops in East London near Shoreditch High Street. At first we were shown how to operate the pottery wheel and how to throw the pottery clay onto the wheel. The session then led onto us trying a range of techniques using our hands to manipulate the clay. It’s clever how the spinning wheel, the use of a thumb or palm in the right position, the right tool and the right amount of pressure applied can make such a difference to the success or failure of each attempt. Luckily for us neither of us had a moment when their attempt collapsed. This did happen to one person in the class. It’s a fine line between success and failure!

The session was fun, absorbing and a lovely distraction for a few hours with great direction and teaching from the staff at Columbia Road Clay. After dipping our final creations in a solution called ‘glaze’ we left them at the workshop to be fired in the kiln. The glaze and firing process should make a real difference to the end result and give the items a more professional finish. 

A few weeks later these arrived!

We were both pretty happy with our first attempt at a pottery throw down and felt we had earned a ‘newbie’ badge which we awarded to ourselves. We would definitely join another workshop in the future and try to become improvers!