More Than Expected: A Ceramics Experience
Hello! My name is Victoria Rollins.
On February 20th and 21st I was invited to a ceramics experience by Mrs. Cescily Phillips, and it was honestly a really enjoyable time! We started off the first day taking a tour of Belger Crane Yard Studios, an amazing gallery walk viewing amazing ceramics inspired by new technology and a really cool demonstration by one of their resident artists and Studio Manager, Paul Maloney. The point of the gallery walk and demonstration was to help get creative ideas flowing for what we would be doing the following day, which was the hand-on ceramics portion. We learned about William Christenberry and toured all the works he had featured in Belger Arts Center.
We learned how to use a pottery wheel, different techniques for shaping and the all around basics in the ceramic world. It was better than I thought it would be; you typically expect to get some clay and water and pinch your way to a pot but the Belger Arts Center gave us multiple different ways to make a creation and for that I’m very grateful!
In the beginning the wheel was a bit of a challenge and was slipperier than the ice outside, but you get the hang of things after a while. The guest artist, Lily, the Studio Manager assistant, was extremely helpful and it didn’t hurt that she had similar taste in music to me! It made the whole process so much easier and made me feel better about my decision to sign up for the program.
I originally signed up as a favor to my mom since she thought it’d be nice to expand my horizons in the art world and become versatile. I wasn’t opposed and thought it’d be nice to get a good pot out of the experience. Needless to say it was so much better than any other art endeavors I’ve had up to this point. Typically people send you to an art class to talk at you and possibly let you sketch out what they’re demonstrating and pairing that with COVID has just made things so much less interesting. It provides a catered art-block and can be really frustrating so I appreciate the safe venture into the physical world I get once every quarantine! The event was very COVID friendly with social distancing when possible, masks, hand sanitizer and separated work areas. Though that certainly didn’t stop me from being able to talk to new (and old) acquaintances that day.
If I had to express my biggest take-away, it would be to embrace your art, no matter how big or small your beginnings may be because, like William Christenberry, someone will look to it as their biggest inspiration.
