Tossing Slabs & Throwing Pots

摘要

What could be more fun than taking a clay workshop in the summer? The answer might be taking a workshop in the spring. At Arrowmont, the arts and crafts school in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, the campus is a little less full when the daffodils are in their full glory, but the mountain breezes are fresh and the classes are no less exciting. In a fit of self-indulgence, I chose to attend two classes at the end of March and the beginning of April. They spanned the potter's art: handbuilding and throwing. Wow, what a stimulating two weeks! Handbuilding was the province of Mary Kay Botkins, known for her thin porcelain stacked boxes and soft-edged containers. Botkins says she's still a little surprised to find herself a potter; when she made her first pinch pot at six years old, she hated the feeling of clay. But now she's infatuated with tossing out soft slabs. "It's not that I found clay, more like clay found me," she says. "I feel out of sync when I'm not in my studio."